Read Amberley Chronicles Boxset I: The Impostor Debutante My Last Marchioness the Sister Quest (Amberley Chronicles Boxsets Book 1) for Free Online Page A

in four, albeit large rooms were making Charlotte slightly dizzy. No wonder fashionable ladies always carried around smelling salts, she thought, as yet another sprig of the nobility led her out on the dancing floor. She would write to Belinda that she was not missing much – the less crowded assemblies in York had been more pleasant overall.
    As she could not marry anyone, even had she been here under her own name, the young men she was presented to and danced with were only of limited interest to her. None of them was as attractive as James, anyway. She easily chatted and joked, not bothering to simulate the traditional shyness of an unmarried debutante. Most seemed to like her assured manner, and almost all asked for a second dance.
    Lady Amberley was grudgingly satisfied. “You have not sat out a single dance except the waltz,” she noted, when Charlotte returned to her side yet again. “Very good for your first appearance. Already several people have asked me about your background and dowry.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “Well, your birth is good enough, but we really must find out more about your fortune. I just let people think that you were amply provided for, without giving details. I hope Amberley can clear it up for us as soon as he returns.”
    “So do I,” said Charlotte, not mentioning that James and she were already working on the problem.
    “The next dance is the supper dance – here is James coming for you now. You really should have left it available for a more serious prospect. There were a couple of potential matches among your partners tonight.”
    “No sense in rushing into anything, Aunt Millicent.” Charlotte smiled as she took James’s arm. “Now I am really famished, after all this dancing!”
    “Fie, a real lady would not advertise this fact,” James admonished her with mock severity. “And there is still this last dance to get through before I can go into battle for you and secure you a meal at this crowed buffet.”
    “Aren’t you hungry, yourself?”
    “I usually have a small bite before setting out, because you never know if you’ll get fed at all.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, sometimes they underestimate the crowd, and the buffet runs out before everyone has had their fill. I’ve seen it happen more than once. And occasionally the quality is so poor that you don’t want anything. From dreadful experience I have learnt not to touch any seafood that has sat out in the warm air too long.”
    “Really, at these exclusive ton events? I find that hard to imagine.”
    “The worst thing was an outdoor event two years ago – I won’t mention names – where the caterer had mixed up the dates, and two hundred guests were left without any food whatsoever. The hostess has not dared to show her face in the capital since then.”
    Charlotte had to laugh at the idea of the disappointed and hungry guests, though she would not have found it so funny to be among them, she thought.
    Talking about the pitfalls of entertaining they finished the dance close to the supper room, where James found a place for her at a small spindly table set for two, and went off to forage. She watched him from afar and was glad she herself did not have to brave the multitude around the buffet table. Whatever might be said about Lady Sefton’s ball, the food was plentiful and of excellent quality. The big silver platters of the buffet were being emptied as though by a herd of locusts, but at least ten footmen were quick to retire and immediately replace them with full ones.
    A passing servant filled the two glasses on her table with sparkling wine. Four enormous chandeliers with many dozens of candles brilliantly lit the room. She tried to estimate the expense of the food, candles, drink and extra servants, but gave up when she reached an astronomical amount. The cost of this one ball, which most guests were enjoying in a lukewarm fashion at best, could have solved all her problems at Brinkley