Adelia cast her eyes around and spotted a young woman in a daringly flamboyant dress of bright red and purple, with ruffles that ran to excess in a diagonal across her chest. She had dark hair that tumbled loosely from a bun on the top of her hair and Adelia wondered if she had a terrible hairdresser or whether it was, in fact, a deliberately artful mess. She had very dark eyes that were outlined in kohl.
If anyone at this party is Mariana da Costa, Adelia thought, then this is the one. She headed across to speak to her. It seemed that the usual conventions of introductions had been dispensed with and that Adelia was expected to fend for herself, so she did exactly that. If this was the sort of place where women could lounge around on chairs while wearing flowing Roman gowns and have their hair half-undone, then Adelia could thrust out her hand and say her own name.
“Buena noches,” Adelia said with a smile. “Mariana da Costa? I am Adelia, Lady Calaway.”
“Hello! Pleased to meet you,” said the young lady with a dazzling smile and a thick accent.
“Que hermoso vestido,” Adelia said, nodding in admiration at her dress.
“Que...?”
“I am so sorry. Perhaps my Spanish skills are rusty. How does one say ‘beautiful’? Bello? Bella? Lindo?”
“Bella,” said Mariana da Costa.
“Bella vestido? No, that does not agree. Surely it must be bello vestido...”
“Bella,” said Mariana again, still smiling but now it was fixed and forced rather than dazzling. “But here we are in London and I must speak your language, so...”
“Indeed so.” Adelia was suspicious. But then, she was suspicious of everything at the moment, and perhaps it was in danger of consuming her. She cast about for a suitable topic of conversation but before she could speak, suddenly they were joined by Charlotte, which quite took Adelia by surprise. She had expected her daughter to spend the night evading her.
Again, her suspicions flared. Did she want to stop Adelia talking privately with Mariana?
Mariana da Costa took the chance to flee. Was that a glance that passed between them? Adelia said to Charlotte, “You know one another, don’t you? You and that dancer? You mentioned that you were acquainted.”
“No, I have never said that. We are not close at all, but she’s a very popular model for many of the painters here so I’ve seen her around a great deal. She is not my friend.”
“Ah, speaking of friends, I’ve just been chatting with Octavia Dymchurch, too. She seemed oddly morose. She’s your friend too; perhaps you might speak with her?”
“No. Things have changed. I’d advise you not to talk with her at all, mama. You are concerned about your reputation, after all.”
“But I understood you and Mrs Dymchurch to be on good terms!” Adelia was amazed. Had the two women argued and fallen out in the space of a day? Just as she had thought before, London society could be fickle, but she had not expected her imaginary hyperbole to be proved so true.
Or was she imagining things, and were her memories clouded?
“Yes,” said Charlotte and she looked miserable. “Perhaps. We are friends. Or we were. Until tonight. Now I am not so sure. She blows hot and cold, sometimes wanting to be my closest confidante and at other times she is curiously unreachable and never answers my letters. But most importantly, tonight I have heard some dreadful things said about her that have made me question my own association with her. She is keen to be close to me this evening but Lady Purfleet has just warned me to be on my guard and I trust Lady Purfleet implicitly, in spite of Grandmama’s protestations.”
“This is ridiculous. I would trust Grace far more than I’d trust Lady Purfleet, just because it’s a matter of blood. On what grounds is the lady suggesting that you should avoid Mrs Dymchurch? And why is she here if she is suddenly unwelcome and the subject of gossip?” So Octavia Dymchurch was Lady Purfleet’s “regrettable guest” was she? Mrs Bolton must have invited her in spite of Lady Purfleet’s “advice”.
Charlotte nudged Adelia and nodded. “Look over there. I think the gossip is only just emerging. Secrets will out tonight, that’s what Lady Purfleet has said to me. She didn’t share those secrets with me, of course; she is too refined for that. But I think there is to be a bit of a row.”
Octavia Dymchurch was standing near to a little knot of others but there was a marked distance between her and the people she was talking to. Or rather, the people who were talking at her. One woman, a very theatrical-looking lady with an elaborate headdress and a distinctive lack of respectable and supportive undergarments, was waving one bracelet-bedecked arm around while saying loudly, “You missed your chance to marry him, didn’t you? No wonder you’re pretending it all meant nothing now.”
“There was nothing between us to mean anything,” Mrs Dymchurch protested. “Not then and not now.”
“Well, certainly not now, because he’s dead! Poor you. Lock up your husbands, everyone, for the widow’s on the prowl for fresh blood again.”
Adelia gasped but no one else seemed shocked. Instead there was a ripple of laughter and a few ribald comments rolled out.
Maybe this was a bad idea, Adelia thought. “Charlotte, I think I ought to leave immediately,” she said aloud.
“You’re here now, mama. And is this not what you wanted? Information?”
“Yes, information – not gossip, rumour and the shaming of a woman like this. It’s despicable. It is everything I feared from this sort of gathering. And she is your friend! Go to her, draw her
