An Assembly Such as This

sent round to the effect that his tailors had delayed him and that now his mama was in want of him; and they should all go home! So tonight he takes his aches and pains and imagined maladies to be soothed at Windsor.” Lamb looked at Darcy keenly. “I suppose you can guess that I am not in charity with His Highness at the moment, I nor anyone else in this room.” Lamb paused as Darcy cast his gaze over the occupants of the salon. The mood was decidedly rancorous. Angry words often broke through the hum of strident voices as Britain’s Whig aristocracy and politicians gnashed their teeth over the regent’s latest ill treatment of his avowed friends and supporters.

“It was not well done of His Highness, certainly,” Darcy agreed. “Although I cannot be unhappy with the result of his negligence. What shall you do now?”

“We have not totally consigned ourselves to returning to the wilderness as yet! We have had our forty years and more of wandering under His Highness’s father and rather thought that, with the son, we had finally arrived at the Promised Land. But the blasted Jericho walls refuse to fall down! Canning is determined to continue storming them, though, and deny Castlereagh and Perceval. I shall, of course, support him.”

A discreet cough reminded both men that Lord Brougham was a party to their conversation. “Oh, pardon me, Lamb! Didn’t mean to interrupt! Just a thought, though. Trumpets!”

“Trumpets?” Lamb looked uncomprehendingly at him and then to Darcy.

“Trumpets,” repeated Brougham firmly.

“Brougham,” Lamb growled impatiently, “what are you playing at?”

“Didn’t storm Jericho to bring the walls down, now did they? Blew trumpets and shouted, as I recall.” Brougham looked down modestly, examining his perfectly pared fingernails. “P’rhaps you fellows ought to look into it.”

“A theologian is among us!” Lamb shook his head derisively. “I never would have guessed you for a parson, Brougham, any more than a politician.” He looked then at a group whose disappointment in the day’s events was threatening to spill over acceptable bounds. “Although your point is taken, and I shall endeavor to be more accurate with my metaphors. Gentlemen” — he gestured toward his discordant guests — “I must leave you to your own devices and take charge of the room before Bloody Revolution is declared. Then the Tories would have our carcasses! Darcy…Brougham.”

As Lamb walked away in the direction of the thundering voices, Darcy turned to his friend. “Great lot of help you were!” he muttered in disgust.

“Don’t be an ass, Fitz. I got rid of him for you; did I not?” Gone was the vacant-eyed fribble of moments before, and in his place Darcy beheld a man with an edge of steel to his voice. “All we need do now is walk out the door.”

“Dy, what is this?” he demanded sharply.

“A very interesting evening, I would say, and not over yet!” The smile Dy cast upon Darcy was broad and guileless, giving him to doubt his previous impression. “But we have left your friend Mr. Bingley unsupervised quite long enough, I should think.” Dy strolled to the door, turning back to Darcy as the servant opened it. “Oughtn’t we go find him?”

“Bingley!” Conscience-stricken, Darcy advanced to the threshold, and together the two hurried down the corridor and across the hall, and shouldered their way up to the crowd-thronged archway leading to the ballroom. All that could be seen of the great room beyond were the blazing candles held aloft in glittering chandeliers of cut glass festooned with twinings of holly, ivy, and gold cord in honor of the approaching season. The music of the ensemble within gave Darcy pause; it was not the staid and stately measures that usually denoted a ton ball, nor the tunes of popular country dances. Rather, the music held a distinct rhythm based on three that Darcy found pleasing to the ear.

With Dy close behind, he politely made his way through the onlookers crowding the door. Achieving the last ring of spectators before the floor, Darcy made a final plea to be let through and, lifting his head to begin his search for Bingley, was brought to a standstill. Wide-eyed, he turned to his friend.

“What is it, Fitz?” Dy asked, and then followed Darcy’s stare as it returned to the ballroom floor. “Hah!” he laughed. “I had heard rumors but did not credit them. Well, one should never doubt a scandalous story if Lady Caroline is at its center. It is called the waltz, Fitz.”

“It’s indecent!” Darcy expostulated in fascinated disgust.

“That may be, but it will, no doubt, become all the rage.”

“Rage or no —” A wave of opprobrious gasps mixed with appreciative cheers and lewd laughter interrupted his declaration. The music stopped, leaving the couples on the floor in apprehension and all eyes straining for the source of the excitement. A private entrance to the room lay open to Darcy’s left, and from its secrecy he saw emerge the tawny-crowned person of Lady Caroline Lamb on the arm of a gentleman quite unknown to him. From where he stood he could see only her face, her delicate chin raised high, her eyes glittering in amusement and daring. As she and her companion made their way through the throng, it parted before them, and Darcy noted more than a few faces of both ladies and gentlemen color and turn away from the procession.

Suddenly, an older woman sank in a faint, the gentlemen nearest to her crying out in dismay. Several young ladies followed her example, and soon the floor was littered here and there with insensible females being coaxed back to consciousness by alarmed young men who, nonetheless, craned their necks to catch another glimpse of the source of the uproar. More than a few women were being propelled from the room by insistent husbands or fathers amid shouts for carriages and cloaks.

“What the devil is going on?” Darcy demanded of the chaos around him. Dy tugged at his sleeve and solemnly pointed back down the room to where Lady Caroline and her swain had finally broken free from her mother-in-law’s guests. Darcy’s jaw dropped in disbelief while his own face flooded crimson. “Great God in Heaven, she’s…she’s…Her clothes!”

“Yes…what little there are of them,” interposed Dy in a lowered voice. “I believe the effect is achieved by sprinkling the sheerest of gowns with water.”

The music was beginning again, and several giggling couples had joined Lady Caroline and her escort on the floor when a high-pitched wail from behind them caused Darcy and Dy to whirl about just in time to be pushed out of the way by a stately-looking woman who strode to the fore, shrieking all the while in a flood of Italian.

“L’Catalani,” whispered Dy, “and she is most displeased.” Darcy’s Italian was somewhat neglected, but he understood enough to recognize the tenor of the lady’s complaint. Comparisons of Lady Caroline with certain Covent Garden strumpets and the depth of the insult her appearance in such dishabille had offered to the diva were thoroughly explored before the Melbourne footmen arrived to escort the lady to her carriage. On her way she passed the rigid figure of the lady’s husband, to whom she gave a most pitying look before exclaiming, “The English! Bah!” and hurried out the door.

One glance at Lamb’s face was all Darcy could stomach, and as the man walked determinedly toward his wife, Darcy grabbed Dy’s arm. “Bingley must be found immediately, and then do what you will, for we are leaving.”

“A very sensible notion.” Dy had to shout to be heard above the din. “How can I be of service?”

“My coachman and groom are waiting at the Bull ’n’ Boar. Find them and tell them to ready my carriage immediately. Bingley and I will meet you at the corner.”

Dy nodded crisply and plunged into the stream of guests struggling to depart. Darcy turned back to his search and, aided by his height, became quickly convinced that Bingley was not in the ballroom. He made, then, for the supper room, pushing his way through without apology until he finally stood before its open doors and peered in.

“Bingley!” Charles looked up at his name being bellowed across the room and, with an expression of undisguised relief, excused himself from Miss Cecil and hurried to Darcy.

“Where have you been, Darcy? I’ve been trying to entertain Miss Cecil for nigh onto an hour, ever since they started that new dancing, which, I hope you will not take this amiss, is not quite the thing, if you get my meaning.”

“Charles, we must leave, now!” Darcy interrupted. “Something extremely untoward has — is — We’re going!” he commanded in exasperation. Charles gave him a startled look but offered no resistance. Making a hurried bow to Miss Cecil, he followed Darcy into the hall and to the steps, where after issuing an imperious command, Darcy was able to obtain their hats and cloaks. They barely waited for the doorman to perform his duty before Darcy had them stepping out into the frigid night air.

“What in Heaven’s name happened?” Bingley demanded, slapping his hands against his sides as they made