Joan Smith - The Barefoot Baroness

His smile was not one jot short of flirtation. Hyatt never limited himself to one flirt at a time. "My intention, Miss Harwood, is to paint her. What my intentions are vis-a-vis your charming self are yet to be discussed. I expect you will be taking the baroness to Lady Morgan's ball this evening?”

"Indeed I shall."

"Then we shall discuss my intentions at that time, if you will do me the honor of standing up with me.”

"I will be very happy to, Lord Hyatt."

He began assembling his gear. "How does it come I have not met you before?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I have not taken in a Season recently."

"I know that much. I would have met you, if you had. Why did you not?"

At a loss for an answer that did not tarnish her image, she said vaguely, "I found my first Season a dead bore."

He gave a cocky smile and said, "That must have been the Season I was in Italy, studying the masters. Not a word about mistresses, Miss Harwood, or you will reveal yourself for a dasher."

She turned quite pink and followed his advice regarding not mentioning mistresses. "No doubt your absence would account for the dullness. And now I see Olivia is ready to leave. Tomorrow, same time?"

Hyatt gave a mental smile at her blush. He was intrigued by that air of ironic innocence. "Seven is damned early, I know. You must have been cursing me at about the time the cock crowed this morning. This schedule will play havoc with your beauty rest. I shall see that you are sent home from the ball early-as soon as I have had my two dances with you."

"Two?" One dance was standard; two suggested a particular interest.

"We encroaching fellows-give us an inch… But we are not debs, you and I, Miss Harwood," he said, in an effort to plumb her character. "Surely we fully mature adults may risk two dances, without having any peals rung over us. I would like to know you better."

"Oh, I do not improve on closer acquaintance," she said, and laughed nervously, but in her heart she felt it was true. Hyatt would soon become bored, when he learned she was not the dasher he took her for. Better to make their meetings less frequent, and she might scrape through the Season without being revealed for the provincial miss she was.

He just looked, with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "One does not contradict a lady, but you must allow me to be the judge of that, ma'am. You have definitely improved since our first meeting."

"Perhaps that is because you failed to look at me the first time," she retorted.

They parted on this quizzing phrase, and he went to speak to Olivia. Laura was so excited she hardly listened to what they said, but she was soon aware that Olivia was now the butt of his praise, and for reasons totally at odds with what he seemed to like in herself. It was the baroness's 'freshness' and 'country charm' he mentioned. Laura had to conclude that Hyatt liked all kinds of ladies, providing they were youngish, with some modicum of beauty.

None of the party, including Lord Hyatt, paid the least heed to the young buck who drove into the park as they parted. Mr. Yarrow had borrowed his chum's nags to test them before making an offer. The park, before it was cluttered up with rigs, was the best place to do it, for the streets were full of postmen and delivery wagons and workmen as soon as the sun rose. He slowed his team to a walk, looked, then looked again. Lord Hyatt! By the living jingo, what had he stumbled onto here? Was Hyatt painting some lady in a public park? It sounded extremely unlikely, but Hyatt had said, "We'll meet tomorrow at the same time." And his footman was carrying a wooden case that might very well hold paints and brushes.

He glanced at his watch. It was quarter to nine, and they were leaving. Must have been here since eight or so. He'd just drop by tomorrow morning and see what was afoot.

Lady Morgan's ball was the Season's opening salvo. Everyone with any claim or pretention to social eclat was there, along with dozens of others who had managed to bribe or steal a ticket. It was a foregone conclusion that Lord Hyatt was the Season's social lion. Before long, it was known who was the lioness. The Baroness Pilmore, flushed with excitement and looking more fashionable than she had ever looked before (though still less fashionable than most debs), was his partner for the opening minuet. Every eye in the room was on her.

"Who is that great, awkward ladder of a girl Hyatt is standing up with?" Lady Jersey asked her hostess.

Lady Morgan gave a disparaging laugh at her friend's pitiful ignorance. "You don't mean you have not met Baroness Pilmore, from Cornwall? Tin mines, forty thousand pounds-”

"So that is her! The lady who came to town in the Turtle? A very graceful dancer. I must give her a voucher to Almack's." Lady Jersey darted off to announce her discovery.

"I do not recognize Hyatt's partner. A country lumpkin. That carrot top suggests she is his cousin from Scotland," Lady Castlereagh whispered to Lady Jersey.

"Why, Amelia! You are out of it entirely. That is the tin heiress from Cornwall, Baroness Pilmore. Forty thousand pounds. Refreshingly unspoiled, don't you think? I am just about to give her a voucher to Almack's."

"Ah, the Turtle girl! I have just been admiring her hair. Such a lovely Titian shade."

"Baroness Pilmore, the tin heiress from Cornwall," Lady Castlereagh soon confided to a wondering Mrs. Drummond-Burrell.

"A delightful creature. So refreshing to see that fine complexion and smattering of freckles on her. The debs are all becoming so jaded one feels they have never seen the sun."

Before the set was over, any experienced lady realized that red hair, freckles, a tall build, and a laugh a shade louder than normal were the new criteria for acceptability. Pocket Venuses were no longer in style; they were reduced to 'squabs.' Hours of deportment lessons went flying out the window.

During the second act, Lord Hyatt's next partner, Miss Harwood, came under the microscope.

"The baroness's cousin," Lady Morgan confided to a bosom bow. "She is here to show the baroness the ropes. I had it of the baroness's chaperone, Mrs. Traemore. Miss Harwood must be up to all the rigs, as she has snagged Hyatt for the baroness so soon."

"A charming girl. A little longer in the tooth than the baroness, of course."

"Yes, Miss Harwood has been around forever. Lady Devereau's nose will be out of joint.”

"Is it Miss Harwood or the baroness who is Hyatt's new flirt?"

"If he plans to take a wife this Season, then of course it would be the baroness. But you know Hyatt! That does not preclude his enjoying Miss Harwood's company as well."

"He never had much use for debs." Knowing smiles were exchanged.

Lady Devereau gained a ticket to the ball by means best not discussed; her partner was a banker to whom Lord Morgan owed ten thousand pounds. Her lovely nose was completely out of joint. Lord Hyatt exchanged a few words with her, but he did not honor her with a dance. His interest had never penetrated much deeper than her pretty face. Once it was on canvas, he was looking for fresh inspiration. If she had jilted her latest flirt on his account-well, it would not take her long to pick up a new one. She was becoming a byword for her affairs.

Laura was fully alive to the excitement Olivia was causing and was gratified to see her cousin bounced off to such a promising start. That her own star was rising never occurred to her. She knew Hyatt attracted a great deal of attention and assumed that the squinting eyes were on her partner.

"Did you do any work on my cousin's portrait this afternoon, milord?" she asked as they danced.

"Certainly not," he answered promptly. "I mean to draw it out for as long as possible, to ensure her chaperone's company."

A gurgle of laughter rose up in her throat. "That cannot be necessary. Mr. Meadows would be happy to see you whether you are painting the baroness or not."

He gave a playful grimace. "Spiked my own wheel with that dread word, chaperone! It has already been explained to me once that you are the baroness's friend and cousin, not her chaperone. As you are trying to palm Meadows off on me, am I correct in assuming that you and he are not a romantic item? I would not want to make enemies by poaching."

"You make me sound like a hare, or a pheasant."

"It was only a figure of speech."

"Yes, a figure of speech that denigrates a lady," she riposted.

"We gentlemen never take exception to being called fish," he pointed out, with a spark of mischief lurking in his eyes. "Surely that is our zoological genus, when we are told that ladies are 'angling' after us. But enough of metaphors. What I am trying to discover is whether you are Mr. Meadows's hare-or pheasant. Or anyone else's, for that matter."

She smiled vaguely and said, "Perhaps that depends on what sort of fish you are, milord. If you are a shark, then I am someone else's hare."

"And if I am an innocent freshwater gudgeon?"

"I would have to be a gudgeon to entertain that possibility."

"Excellent! We have achieved some common ground. We are both gudgeons. I have no use for miscegenation myself. And still you have not told me whether you are engaged to Mr. Meadows." He glanced at her left hand.

"I am not engaged to anyone."

"I rather thought Meadows was rolling his eyes at our barefoot friend. She is a hit already, by the by. You have done an excellent job of launching her."

"You must take the credit for that, Lord Hyatt. It is your standing up with her for the opening dance that accounts for it."

"I can think of forty thousand other reasons-and a tin mine-that had something to do with it, but as that is your first compliment to me, I shall blush shyly and expostulate that it is no such thing."