Page 45 of Road Trip With a Rogue (Her Majesty’s Rebels #3)
Daisy, Tess, and Ellie were so busy during the following days that Daisy had little time to fret over Lucien and what he might be up to.
Violet’s imagination had run riot, and she’d convinced her father that their Bloomsbury home wasn’t big enough for a forest-themed event.
Brand had therefore accepted an offer from his friend, the Earl of Mansfield, to host the party at his property, the magnificent Kenwood House, on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath.
This was the perfect compromise: near enough to central London that guests wouldn’t need to travel too far, but far enough in the countryside that everyone would feel like they were having an adventure, and with vast gardens and an impressive ballroom to appease Violet’s romantic aspirations.
Invitations to the surprise summer ball had been dispatched to over a hundred families, and the majority of them had accepted. It was going to be an absolute crush.
Tess, as the most senior of the three of them, had sent an invitation to Queen Charlotte, but none of them had the least expectation of her attending. Still, as Ellie said, they’d done their duty, so Daisy could rest easy on that score.
It was too late to get any new gowns made up by Madame Lef è vre, or any of the other modistes in town, so all three of them borrowed costumes from the Royal Opera House via Rose, a friend who worked as a seamstress in the dressing rooms backstage.
Since A Midsummer Night’s Dream was supposedly set in ancient Athens, Tess and Ellie were both going in Greek-style draped dresses, with gold headdresses made of metallic oak leaves.
Daisy, however, had chosen something even more dramatic: a costume worn by the soprano who played the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute .
The fabric had been dyed to look like the evening sky, the color bleeding from a pale twilight blue at the top of the bodice to a deep midnight navy at the hem, and the overskirt of dark net had been embroidered with hundreds of tiny silver stars and seed pearls that made it shimmer.
It was a glorious garment, striking and powerful, and it gave Daisy a much-needed boost of confidence.
He’d called her freckles constellations.
She’d give him the whole night sky.
The three women shared a carriage over to Kenwood House on the morning of the ball, and Daisy wondered at how innocuous the green expanse of Hampstead Heath appeared during the daytime, compared to the dangerous place it became at night.
In recognition of its reputation for opportunistic highwaymen, most guests would travel with their own armed outriders, but in truth the risk to them would be fairly negligible.
The main road across the heath would be so busy that few thieves would risk it.
It was only if they ventured onto one of the less-traveled routes, as Daisy had done that night two weeks ago, that the chances of being accosted would increase.
Daisy spent most of the day helping Tess and Ellie oversee the numerous florists, garden designers, and handymen who had arrived to set up the decorations.
Thousands of fresh flowers had been ordered from nurseries around the city, and by early afternoon the ballroom had been transformed into an enchanting summer glade bursting with blooms.
Tables and chairs had been set up beneath a temporary wooden gazebo.
The orchestra would be positioned in the flower-bedecked minstrel’s gallery, and the kitchen staff was run off their feet producing a delicious array of food for the guests.
Daisy eyed the fruit tartlets with a sigh of anticipation.
When it was finally time to get ready, they made use of a bedroom they’d been offered as a dressing room, and a lump of nostalgia caught in Daisy’s throat as she realized how long it had been since the three of them had readied themselves for a party together like this.
It had been a regular occurrence a few years ago, all of them giggling about the possibilities of the night ahead.
They would lace each other’s stays, fix their hair, and add subtle makeup to their faces.
Since Tess and Ellie had both married, such silly, inconsequential intimacies had become rarer and rarer, and Daisy hadn’t realized quite how much she’d missed them.
She had, of course, told them both about her father’s high-handed insistence that she marry Lucien as soon as possible, and Lucien’s infuriating presumption of applying for a special license when she hadn’t actually agreed to a wedding.
Ellie, reasonable as ever, had tried to point out that Vaughan was simply being efficient in anticipating her response, but Daisy hadn’t been so forgiving. He was a man who thought he knew best, and he would ride roughshod over her if she gave him an inch. It was not to be borne.
“So, have you decided what you’re going to do?” Tess asked as she tried to pin some of Daisy’s wayward curls up onto her head. “Because you know everyone’s going to be watching the two of you as soon as he enters the room.”
Daisy wrinkled her nose at her reflection in the mirror. “Ugh. I suppose I ought to at least confirm that we’re engaged, but I don’t want to steal Violet’s thunder. Tonight’s supposed to be about announcing her wedding to Peregrine.”
Ellie sent her a skeptical glance that clearly said she thought Daisy was stalling—which was entirely correct. Her friends knew her so well.
“You’re going to be the main topic of conversation whether you like it or not,” Tess said succinctly. “So you might as well brace yourself.” She sent Daisy’s costume an approving glance. “I must say, that dress looks sensational. Vaughan doesn’t stand a chance.”
Daisy gave a pleased snort, but she knew she looked good. Excitement, and the prospect of crossing swords with Lucien again, had brought a pink glow to her cheeks and a wicked sparkle to her eyes.
“One last thing.”
Daisy hitched up her skirts and strapped her favorite blade and its leather holster to the outside of her thigh.
Ellie rolled her eyes in mock horror. “I know the Queen of the Night is famous for giving her daughter a dagger and ordering her to stab her lover, but do you need to be quite so faithful to the script?”
“I feel naked without my knives,” Daisy said. “And in this dress, I can only hide the one.”
Tess gave the folds of her own gown a final twitch and added an extra gold ring to her slim fingers. “All ready?”
Daisy glimpsed at her own ringless fingers and sighed. Vaughan hadn’t even sent her an engagement ring to wear.
“Yes. Let’s go.”