The Sparks Fly Upward Read Online Free PDF

streets to decorous gloom while disregarding the sins of the drawing room.
    â€˜ I don’t.’
    She had to admit that Heilbron practiced what he preached; he’d resigned from all the drinking and gambling clubs he’d joined in his youth, while still managing to retain the friends he’d made in them and without becoming a prude.
    Nevertheless, as a son-in-law he worried her; she was prepared to stake her fortune that Philippa’s stays were as yet unripped.
    She reminded herself that the young didn’t wear stays anymore—the Revolution having freed the female figure at least—but her principle held true.
    Well, there was nothing to be done about it; she’d never fully understood Philippa but she knew better than to try and persuade her against something she’d set her mind to. Just as long as it wasn’t because she’d been disappointed by Andrew . . .
    â€˜Forgive me, Stephen,’ Philippa was saying, ‘but I must go and tell Lord Ffoulkes the news—he is my godfather, after all.’
    â€˜By all means. There are some here tonight I can’t resist informing myself. I shall be the most envied man at the ball.’
    Perhaps it’ll be all right , Makepeace thought, watching her daughter go. Perhaps Jenny’s wrong. She seems happy. He’s a kind soul and, undoubtedly, with her money and common sense she’s exactly what is needed by a man careering towards greatness.
    She just wished the word ‘sacrifice’ didn’t keep occurring to her.
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    PHILIPPA thought that if it had done nothing else, the Revolution had caused men to show themselves off to greater advantage than at any time in their history. Gone were the wigs, the over-pocketed coats and ribboned stockings, all the brocaded fuss. Line was in.
    Andrew was the shortest man in the group but, like the others around him, had his head held high by his enormous collar and cravat. As with the rest, it was as if silk had been merely painted on his body; not a wrinkle disturbed the run of limbs—except for the lump which made an unabashed ruck in the frontal sweep of the britches from which ladies were supposed to avert their eyes.
    Her eyes suitably averted, Philippa said: ‘My lord, may I have a word with you in private.’
    Lord Ffoulkes put his arm around her shoulders to bring her into the center of the circle. ‘William, I don’t believe you’ve met my goddaughter, Philippa Dapifer. Pippy, this is Mr Pitt.’ She curtseyed to the prime minister.
    He’d always delighted in being her godfather and so close in age. When he was ten years old and she’d accompanied Makepeace on a visit to him at Eton, he’d not been embarrassed to take her by the hand and toddle her around the school, trumpeting their relationship to his friends.
    â€˜You’ve met these other gentlemen, of course.’ She acknowledged Henry Hastings, Boy Blanchard, Snuffy Throgmorton, Peter Saint James, Kit Pellew.
    These last were The League, to be found at most high entertainments when they were in England as well as in the society papers and scandal sheets, all of them Old Etonians, gamblers, fast livers, redeeming their souls by secret rescue work in France.
    Viscount Throgmorton was in financial straits from playing too heavily at White’s; she knew because he’d asked her to marry him. He’d been charmingly honest about saving her from being an old maid. ‘We get on well, old thing, don’t we? I can offer the title and a castle here or there . . . and, d’y’see, it would get me out of a frightful hole.’
    â€˜Bless you, Snuffy,’ she’d said. ‘I’m afraid not, but I can lend you a thousand if you’d like.’
    It was a thousand she hadn’t seen again but it had kept them on good terms.
    The others had married and fathered early, though their wives, poor things, were rarely in their company. Lady