The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: A Regency Romance

By Cheryl Watson

A Regency Romance set in the London of 1814-5. England is joyously celebrating peace. The troops are back from the continent and the capital is awash with husband-hunters, fortune-hunters and young ladies hoping to get a ticket to Almacks. Balls, masquerades, and all the amusements of the London season are the setting for this romantic tale. When a letter from a spy falls by chance into Melissa's hands it sets her on a path of adventure that culminates at the famous Duchess of Richmond's Ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. High society, gossip and scandal form the background for this light-hearted story, written with meticulous historical detail. If you love Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer you will enjoy this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244361778

Book preview

The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: A Regency Romance

The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, A Regency Romance,

by Cheryl Watson.

ISBN #: 978-0-244-36177-8

This book is copyright to Cheryl Watson 2018. No part of it may be copied, circulated, reproduced or sold in any form without permission from the author.

The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball.

Prologue.

Melissa Paridell clutched her bag in one hand and with the other clung on to the wooden seat, or rather plank, of the boat they were sitting in. She could hear a creaking and shuddering of the sail above their heads as the vessel rose and fell, rose and fell rhythmically with the motion of the waves. The wind was cold and gusty and was carrying them along fitfully in the grey dawn light, across the English Channel. She could not really believe that she was there, and wondered whether this was all a frantic and desperate nightmare. She was exhausted with worry, yet somehow strangely exhilarated and emboldened by the rash decision she had made. How had she got herself into this situation, this frightful mess? She closed her eyes and tried to think back a few months to the previous autumn, when she had first come to London. She imagined that the heaving of the boat was the trundling of the carriage making its way from Gloucestershire to the capital.

Chapter One.

The carriage followed the Old Bath Road from Reading to Maidenhead and crossed Hounslow Heath, on its way to the little village of Brentford. There they were held up, as the awkward, narrow brick bridge over the Thames would only allow vehicles to pass across it in one direction at a time. Having got to the other side they drove on through Chiswick, then stopped at the turnpike in Kensington to pay the fee, before continuing into London.

Melissa leaned out of the carriage window although it was raining and could see that they were passing a large park on their right. They were going along a broad street, full of carriages and people. Then they turned left into Mayfair, and she caught glimpses of stylish houses and large squares, in one of which was a church with columns and a small, neat spire. This was London, the great and splendid city she had always longed to visit! The horses and carriages were noisy but the sight of so many people, so many carriages and so many grand shops was exciting. Here and there she saw liveried footmen carrying sedan chairs, pageboys scurrying along and flower-sellers standing on corners with posies and baskets.

Lady Walker sat back deep in the pile of cushions with which she had laden her seat in the carriage, clutching her travelling-bag. I’ll be glad when we’re there, she said. My back aches from jolting, my neck is stiff and the damp is starting to get to my knees. She had said the same thing many times during the journey but now at least there was an imminent prospect of arriving. After they had made their way along a dozen more streets, all full of mansions and carriages, they finally turned into a grand square and stopped outside a tall, terraced house, with ironwork window-boxes like small balconies.

I think we must be there, said Melissa, putting her bonnet back on. The coachman climbed down, opened the door and let down the step. Lady Walker descended first, gingerly, wrapped in shawls, and Melissa followed her. They rang the bell of the house and were admitted to a front hall with a floor of patterned tiles and a large brass lantern hanging in the middle of the ceiling. On a curiously inlaid side table was displayed an extraordinary sight, a statuette of an oriental deity with multiple arms and legs.

Please bring tea, Lady Walker asked the footman, as they went upstairs. Soon the baggage followed, and the travellers, exhausted after their hundred-mile journey, were resting in their rooms on the second floor.

The Paridell family were very old gentry, who could trace their descent back to the time of the Norman Conquest. They were mentioned in the Domesday book and their ancestors lay in stone tombs with a coat of arms in the little parish church on Melissa’s father’s estate near Tewkesbury, but although he had a baronet’s title, bestowed in the days of King James I, they were no longer wealthy. Almost all of their land was now mortgaged. Once they had derived income from a toll road, but the building of another road had enabled travellers to bypass the route. Likewise with the toll bridge across the river: it had once been lucrative but was now worthless as there were three or four new bridges, wider and sturdier. The construction of a canal ten years ago was the last blow. It meant that most heavy goods were transported by water, avoiding the roads altogether. Without the carters’ trade, very few people now used the little inn on the highway that had once brought in regular income for her family. The landlord could barely pay his rent. Sir John had been forced to reduce it by half to dissuade him from leaving.

The prolonged war had brought sharp rises in tax and in the cost of living. The prices of most goods had doubled or trebled, Sir John’s favourite port was unobtainable and her mother was obliged to count the number of wax candles used in the house. Although peace had now been signed, there was no sign of the income tax being lifted or prices falling. The cost of keeping servants, horses and even a carriage was vexing them sorely, and as for providing a dowry for their daughter, it was out of the question.

For many years the Paridells had hoped to inherit a substantial sum from Sir John’s Aunt Flora who had married well and had no surviving children. Many long and uneventful months with her in Bath had Melissa passed with her mother, walking Aunt Flora’s lapgdogs for her, talking dutifully to callers about their health and accompanying her elderly aunt to the Pump Room. But when she died, she had left the whole of her fortune, twenty thousand pounds, to her faithful maid. The Paridells got only a few pieces of jewellery and family portraits. The house, the carriage and even the furniture went to the maid, who gleefully took it and set up an establishment for summer bathers on the South coast.

Ah well, said Melissa, It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, I suppose. She must have worked devotedly for Aunt Flora.

It’s an ill wind all right when people forget their own flesh and blood! replied her mother. After all those gifts of sugar-coated almonds we sent to Bath every Christmas! She had never, of course, broached the subject of money to Aunt Flora, being far too well-bred to do so, and the old lady probably assumed they were much richer than they were.

Melissa’s brother James had been sent to study law, first at Cambridge and then in London. Her parents hoped that he would become a successful barrister, then a judge, and restore the fortunes of the family. But there was little sign of it. So far all he had done was to fall into bad company and run up debts. Gambling was his worst weakness. He also squandered money on fine clothes, race-meetings and the company of highly unsuitable members of the fair sex. Luckily the family could never be held liable for any of his debts. Recently, Melissa had overheard her parents saying that the best possible thing for her would be to find a rich suitor and marry him as fast as possible. How was such a man to be found? She needed a London season to meet eligible men, and that was not easy to arrange. Sir John, who was now suffering from gout and shortness of breath, had a nasty accident falling off a horse and his ankle never fully recovered. He walked with a limp and used a stick. He did not like to leave home, and the Paridells could no longer afford to rent even a small house or lodgings in a smart part of London. Staying in a cheap area would not do. One simply would not meet the right people.

Lady Paridell had written many letters to all her acquaintance before managing to arrange for Melissa to stay in London for the season. Most of them were far too busy and replied with long screeds of news about their own husbands, sons, daughters, grandchildren, nephews and nieces. Eventually she got a positive response. It was from Lady Walker, her second cousin. Her husband, with a modest estate, had been knighted for many years’ service as a county magistrate and officer of local militia. Now a widow, she had three sons, all grown up and gone into the church, the navy or business; she lived quietly in Bristol most of the time, but from time to time she rented one floor of a house in Mayfair from a friend who had gone blind and went out little. Lady Walker had never had the good fortune to have a daughter, and would enjoy taking a fellow-female shopping and introducing her to society. She welcomed the thought of a travelling companion and Melissa was glad to consent. So everything was settled. Lady Paridell took Melissa to Bath, and from there she travelled to London with Lady Walker in her carriage. The overnight stay at the Six Bells in Newbury was the first time she had ever entered such a place, with its creaking stairs and immense oak beams. They ate their supper in their room, avoiding the rough company downstairs, and set off as early as possible in the morning. Now here they were at last in the heart of the capital.

Melissa faced the prospect of London with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. She was thrilled at the thought of going into society and meeting lots of people but what if nobody proposed to her? What if she ended up going home to her parents a spinster as before, and it all came to nothing? It was a daunting thought. From time to time she forced herself to revise her French and geography in case she had to take a post as a governess. In novels she had read, heroines often seemed to consider the prospect of retiring into a nunnery, but these stories were set in a distant past or a continental, Catholic country. There were no nunneries in England, only picturesque ruins, which had their attractions but could offer no place of refuge to orphans or distressed young gentlewomen.

After a rest, she got up and looked around her room. It was comfortably and elegantly furnished, with a four-poster bed, a washstand and a private closet. There were also exotic oriental hangings and a strange statuette of a seated figure with its legs folded. Mrs Boult’s husband had made his money in trade in India and brought back many curios from his travels. The window looked out on the mews behind the house, where the carriage and horses had been stabled. Over the chest of drawers was a cheval glass, and while Melissa unpacked her brushes and hung her clothes in the wardrobe, she took a little peep at herself. She had fair hair, passable features, no freckles, even teeth and blue eyes, not large or remarkable in any way, but just a greyish-blue. Her hands were smooth, white and delicately-formed, her figure slight and slender.

One thing that would have to be done without delay was to buy new clothes. That had all been foreseen. Nobody could go about in London society in the clothes they had been wearing in the wilds of Gloucestershire for the past year or so. Later that evening, as she and Lady Walker supped very quietly with Mrs Boult on the first floor, the subject was raised. I suppose you’ll be studying the fashion magazines? asked Mrs Boult with a smile. Melissa had never seen one, but Lady Walker replied for her, Yes, indeed, we will study them diligently, and see what my dressmaker can do for us in the next week or so.

On her first night, Melissa lay awake a long time in the unfamiliar bed, covered with an eiderdown that was scented with lavender, and kept waking up thinking she could still feel the swaying and bumping of the carriage that had brought them so many miles across so many counties. She did not feel cold but she did feel odd being so far away from her own home, and so far from her parents for the first time.

The next morning as soon as breakfast was over, Lady Walker called a hackney cab and they set off to the dressmaker’s, in Conduit Street, a little turning off Bond Street. The proprietor, Mrs Wade, showed them morning-gowns, tea-gowns, ball-gowns, dinner-dresses, walking-dresses, mantles for outdoors, petticoats and shawls, all most exquisitely detailed and trimmed. Fashions were becoming far more elaborate and tucks, flounces, appliqué, high stand-up collars and lace cuffs were modish. Overskirts, underskirts and draperies were appearing. After some ecstatic browsing through the delicious things on show, and discussion of the finer points of the latest fashions, Lady Walker guided her gently in making sensible choices. The more showy and ostentatious fabrics were really for dowagers, while debutantes would be expected to wear a lot of white and very pale pastels, with a tastefully restrained trimming. Melissa selected morning-gowns with intricate insets in the front of the bodice, and ball-gowns that exposed a lot of the shoulder, the skirts trimmed with one or two rows of appliqué and embellished with a sash. By changing the sash you could change the appearance of the gown. La Belle Assemblée is full of exquisite designs for the trimming of a bodice, Mrs Wade enthused. They stood her in front of a mirror, tried things on her, and complimented her on a slender neck that would be shown to advantage in Mrs Wade’s creations. Melissa’s favourite was a fine lawn with tiny polka-dots woven into it, which she chose as a tea-dress. Each gown would have a lace-trimmed petticoat to go under it. For outdoors, in fine weather, she would need a short Spencer jacket, just reaching to the raised waistline, while for colder days she chose a worsted pelisse, quilted inside, with a hood, puffed shoulders and braid around the hems and edges, to replace her old cloak. Finally, Melissa was taken into the inner room to be measured, by Mrs Wade’s assistant.

For bonnets