His eye quite naturally traveled along the drape of her snowy gown but froze at her breasts. He swallowed. Why had he not noticed how . . . how bountiful they were? Full and plump and everything a man could hope to find in a woman. How had she managed to conceal them? It wasn’t like Appleton not to notice when a woman was possessed of such an endowment.
Good manners demanded that he remove his gawk from her chesterly assets, and as he did so, the impression she gave, descending the staircase with her dark hair and large, dark eyes set against the gown’s white, reminded him of someone he’d once seen. Someone with whom he’d been favorably impressed.
Then he remembered.
At the London opera house, he’d fancied himself in love with the beautiful Italian singer Maria Cara, but none of his efforts to wrangle an introduction to the beautiful songstress ever succeeded.
Tonight, Miss Pankhurst reminded him of Maria Cara. Which explained why he’d nearly lost his breath when he’d looked up and seen her.
Escorting Miss Dorothea Pankhurst to the Upper Assembly Rooms tonight wasn’t going to be anything like escorting her around the Pump Room today had been. Tonight he would not be a laughingstock. He fully expected to be the envy of the other bachelors in attendance.
When she reached the bottom step, he offered his arm. “My dear Miss Pankhurst, I do not exaggerate when I say that your beauty astonishes me.”
She placed her hand on his proffered sleeve. “You’re too kind, my lord.”
This one time, she neither protested nor called him a prevaricator. She had enough good sense to have seen how lovely she looked. Unlike other young ladies schooled in maidenly coyness, artifice of any kind was alien to her.
With the new wardrobe her father’s fortune could procure, along with the personal maid she would be sure to secure now that she was in Bath, it was just a matter of time before every bachelor within fifty miles picked up her scent and came panting after her.
It was imperative that he win her affections. And quickly.
In the Appleton coach, he sat across from the ladies. “Now, Miss Pankhurst, owing to your inexperience, it’s best that you only dance once tonight. With me.”
Annie agreed.
“For one thing, Miss Pankhurst—and I don’t mean to sound didactic if you already know this—but one is not supposed to dance with a man to whom one’s not been introduced,” Annie said. “Therefore, we’ll be careful that you’re only introduced to my brother’s closest friends.”
“And I’ll warn them away from dancing with the woman who’s my special guest,” Appleton said.
He would vow he’d made her blush, but it was difficult to tell, given the darkness in the carriage.
* * *
My beauty astonishes him. I’m to be his special guest. As handsome as she’d thought him that afternoon, she found him so much more so tonight that his very presence caused her to feel as if she were in one of those balloons that soared above Hyde Park.
Where he had dressed carelessly casual in the daytime, at night he wore an impeccable black coat and breeches along with snowy shirt and cravat and stockings. No man could draw more admiration at this evening’s assembly. It was as if that hero from Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy, had accompanied her.
It was a wonder Dot could communicate at all during the short coach ride to the Upper Assembly Rooms. In less than a single day she had gone from a decidedly dowdy country spinster to a beautifully dressed young woman who felt like a princess. And all because of her new friends, the Appletons. How could she ever repay their kindness?
Their presence reduced her own nervousness over the impending assembly. Even with Papa’s most insistent urging, she would have avoided the assemblies. She was in possession of enough intelligence to know how unfit she was to be accepted at such a gathering. But now that she’d been the object of the Appletons’ attentions, she no longer worried that she’d be hideously ridiculed.
She might no longer be ridiculed as she must have been at the Pump Room, but she still feared the unknown. She did not want to embarrass her benefactors. Yet she knew that because of them, nothing too terrible could occur.
She cautioned herself to stay close to the lovely Miss Appleton and mimic everything that lady did. Except Miss Appleton was certain to dance every set, and Dot was not ready to do so. What would she do whilst her friend was dancing? Perhaps Lord Appleton would stay close and enlighten her on all the correct protocols.
It was exhilarating, too, to be with others so close to her age. She felt guilty for her newfound belief that coming to Bath may have been the best thing that had ever happened to her when it was Papa’s ill health that had brought them here. She would have felt far more wretched if she believed her father was truly gripped by a serious illness, but she had far more confidence in his ability to heal than he did.
She turned to Miss Appleton. “I fear I’ve been a poor a companion. I was so dumfounded by my own transformation I neglected to say how lovely you look tonight.”
Miss Appleton’s gown of soft muslin only barely covered her own bosom which was significantly smaller than Dot’s. It was a wonder the two ladies could wear the same dresses! Seeing her new friend dressed just as immodestly as she allayed Dot’s discomfort. If Miss Appleton could go to the Upper Assembly Rooms dressed in such a manner, Dot was convinced all the females in attendance must reveal a similar expanse of flesh—for Miss Appleton was a pillar of propriety and good breeding. Her unblemished reputation stood up to the scrutiny of the Bath Chronicle, which never disparaged the viscount’s pretty sister in any way.
Miss Appleton’s maid styled both women’s hair in the same swept-back
