The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet Read Online Free PDF

to risk her life for a child, but I declare that nowhere would one find another willing to sacrifice her bonnet in the same cause.”
    Cora stared at him, fascinated. Was he
serious
? He probably was, she decided.
    “Ma’am.” He was bowing to the duchess. “With your permission, I would request the honor of leading Miss Downes in to the opening set.”
    Cora brightened instantly. Her great fear, she knew, though she despised herself for feeling it, was of being an utter and total wallflower. But very close behind that fear—and really she did not believe her grace would allow that first one to become reality—was the terror of being asked to dance by a gentleman so very elegant and proper and aristocratic that she would freeze into a block of ice that just happened to have two left feet attached to its base. His grace of Bridgwater himself, for example. She had found herself praying fervently last night—literally praying, with palms pressed together and eyes tightly scrunched shut—that he would not for his mother’s sake feel obliged to lead her out. She would
die
.
    The anonymous gentleman would not be threatening at all to dance with. Indeed, she would derive great amusement from the opportunity to observe him more closely for all of half an hour. But she almost absented herself too long again in these happy thoughts.
    “Certainly, Lord Francis,” the duchess was saying, inclining her head graciously and setting her plumes to dancing again. “I am sure Cora would be delighted.”
    Francis
. The name suited him perfectly, being one of those that might belong to either a man or a woman—with a slight variation in the spelling, of course. But
Lord
Francis? He was an aristocrat, then? But quite an unthreatening one, she told herself before panic could well into her nostrils. He was making her a half bow and asking her for the honor of leading her in to the set.
    “Thank you, Lord Francis,” she said, vaunting her new knowledge. She smiled dazzlingly at him. “It is a set of country dances? How wonderful! I
LOVE
the vigor of a country dance.”
    She could almost hear Elizabeth’s voice as it had spoken just a few days ago, as soon as they knew they were to come to this ball.
One must always assume an attitude of ennui at such functions
, she had warned.
One must never be thought to enthuse
. Enthusiasm was something very far removed from true gentility. Her grace had nodded in agreement, though she had added with a smile that one need not go as far as to look downright bored. That might be somewhat insulting to both one’s hosts and one’s partners. Jane had added that one might smile and even look happy as long as one remained demure and did not
bubble
.
    And she, Cora, had just said,
I
LOVE
the vigor of a country dance
with all the enthusiasm of her lack of gentility.
    She thought she saw amusement for the merest moment in Lord Francis’s eyes. Ridicule, no doubt. No matter. She was not at all intent on impressing Lord Francis Whoever-He-Was. She really should have listened to his full name.
    They were blue eyes, she thought, apropos of nothing. She had always favored blue eyes in men. She had secretly thought that perhaps one of the reasons—though only a very minor one—she had been unable to feel affection for any of the three men who had offered for her was that they had not one blue eye among the three of them. But if that was true, then she was settingabout choosing a lifelong mate according to very trivial criteria.
    It was perhaps a shame that the first truly blue eyes she had encountered in a gentleman belonged to a peacock. And an aristocratic peacock at that.
    A turquoise satin arm with an elegant, lace-bedecked hand at the end of it—on one of the fingers of which was a large square sapphire ring—was poised before Cora and she realized that she was being invited to join a set without further delay. The duke was already talking with another gentleman, who had come along with the obvious