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An Honourable. A slight curtsy? No, he was still ogling her. Anusha gave him a cool nod. ‘Mr Peters.’
‘And who is escorting Miss Laurens in to dinner?’ Miss Clara Wilkinson enquired.
‘Let me think.’ He applied the tip of one forefinger to his chin and struck a pose of mock thoughtfulness. ‘You are to partner the Reverend Harris, Miss Clara.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Miss Browne has the gallant Major Herriard and Miss Laurens, I am sorry to say, has that prosy bore Langley.’
‘That is Lord Langley, the son and heir of the Earl of Dunstable,’ Miss Browne explained. She was apparently more than happy with her partner. ‘Over there—the medium-sized gentleman with the brown hair and the blue coat. Lucky you—he is considered quite a catch.’
Along with the paunch and a double chin and a braying laugh. But he is a lord, so I am to be dangled in front of him. She tried to recall Nick’s lessons. An earl was a sort of raja.
‘How are dinner partners decided?’ she asked.
‘By rank, of course,’ Miss Parkes said. ‘At least, that is the start of the setting. But family members will not be put together, or husband and wife, so it is a bit muddled up. If a couple are courting, then the hostess might take pity on them and put them together. And if there are any scandals or feuds or difficulties, then she has to keep those people apart—it is all quite complicated. Have you never eaten with gentlemen before?’
‘No.’ Nick did not count. She tried to remember his lessons—cutlery from the outside in—and Lady Hoskins’s instructions. Talk to the gentleman on her right during the first remove, then change to the left for the next one. Do not converse across the table. Put her gloves in her lap beneath her napkin. Do not let them slide off. Only sip at the wine. Pretend not to be hungry and just nibble at the food. Follow the conversational leads of the gentlemen and laugh at their jokes even when they are not amusing... Be a little idiot with perfect deportment, in other words.
‘Dinner is served, my lady!’
The plump young lord was making his way across the room towards her, but Nick reached her first. ‘Courage,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘You have vanquished dacoits.’
‘I wish I was eating by a campfire under the stars,’ Anusha murmured back. However vulnerable she was when she was near Nick Herriard, at the moment she would have given a great deal to be alone with him leagues from this crowded, alien room.
‘So do I. We need to talk.’
Lord Langley introduced himself, offered his arm and guided her into the room. Anusha shot a harried glance over the table setting in front of her.
The amount of silverware flanking her dinner plate was ridiculous! What on earth did the angrezi need all this for? Anusha sat down with rather a thump as Lord Langley surprised her by sliding the chair in right behind her knees. She slipped off her gloves and tried to trap them under her napkin.
Everyone else was settling into their places amidst a buzz of chatter and she glanced to her left as a tall, slim man took his place.
‘Good evening. Clive Arbuthnott, at your service, ma’am.’
‘Anusha Laurens.’ Was she supposed to tell him her name? And why had he not told her his title? Now she did not know how to address him. Perhaps she was supposed to know that already. But he was on her left, so he could wait. She glanced across the table and realised that Nick was sitting opposite.
He gave her a slight nod and went back to chatting to Miss Browne, who appeared highly gratified by the attention, judging by the way she was making eyes at him. Lord Langley enquired if she did not find the weather intolerably hot for the season. For some reason this question appeared to necessitate him gazing at her mouth.
‘Not at all, it seems cooler here than I imagined.’ Oh, no, that is wrong. I am supposed to agree with everything he says. Anusha managed a vacant smile which seemed to please him.
She could hardly open her fan and shield her face behind that at the dinner table. But it seemed that the ladies found nothing amiss in the close attention the men were paying to their faces, or to the snowy slopes of bosom that were exposed by evening necklines.
The ladies were all so pale, so pink. She suspected that Lady Hoskins had chosen the deep amber of the gown she was wearing because it made her own skin seem lighter by contrast. Anusha managed a smile and told herself that she was being foolishly self-conscious. None of the gentlemen meant anything sinister by their close attention to the ladies, it was simply the custom and no one had snubbed her because of her birth or blood.
