LITMIR.BIZ

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burst of laughter.

      That first sign of glee was all the encouragement she needed. Anxiety and self-consciousness washed away, and the DeLucey in her took over.

      She went on, this time with dramatic gestures:

      My profile, all the world allows,

      With Byron’s e’en may vie,

      [—she turned her head this way and that]

      My chestnut curls half shade my brow,

      [—she toyed with the curls at her ears]

       I’m almost six feet high;

      [—she stretched her neck, to laughter]

      And by my attitudes of grace,

      Ducrow is quite undone,

      [—she mimicked one of the equestrian’s elegant poses]

       Yet what avail the form and face

       Of a poor Second Son?

      Amid the men’s laughter she heard women giggling.

      She had them.

      She continued.

      For an instant, while the angry gentleman grew more incensed, his complexion darkening from brick red to purple, Lisburne had felt sure the only outcome would be pistols at dawn. The only hope he had was for a riot. Once men started knocking one another about and women commenced screaming, Valentine and the other fellow might stop making asses of themselves.

      When he heard Miss Noirot call out to Swanton, Lisburne had wanted to shake her. Was she mad? To offer more of the poetry that was driving every rational man in the hall to distraction? And to taunt them now, when he hadn’t a prayer of getting to her fast enough?

      All hell should have broken loose.

      But he’d reckoned without …

      … whatever it was about her: the quality, so obvious, and so hard to put a satisfactory name to. The same power of personality that had attracted and held captive his attention at the British Institution seemed to work on a general audience.

      Add that compelling quality to her appearance, and the men could hardly help responding. She was exceedingly pretty and a redhead besides, and the green silk dress, insane as it was, was voluptuous.

      But the women, too?

      Ah, yes, of course. The green silk dress.

      Furthermore, Mrs. Abdy had written, along with the usual sentimental claptrap, a number of comic poems, which Swanton would give a vital organ to replicate.

      London’s favorite poet was smiling. He gently prompted Miss Noirot as she faltered for a stanza. It was a longish poem—not half so long as some of Swanton’s, but still a good bit to get by heart.

      And she’d said she wasn’t literary, the minx.

      Even the irate gentleman was smiling. “That’s more like it,” he said.

      “It isn’t,” Gladys said. “It’s an amusing bit of doggerel, no more.”

      “We must allow for differences of taste,” Lisburne said. “Is that a new dress, Cousin? Most elegant.”

      To his amazement, she colored, almost prettily. “I could hardly wear last year’s dress on such an occasion.”

      “There, that explains,” Lisburne said to the irate gentleman. “She wore her new dress and you mentioned the emperor’s new clothes. A bit of confusion, that’s all.”

      Gladys huffed. “Lisburne, how can you be so thick? But why do I ask? You know perfectly well—”

      “I know you’re eager to leave before the crush,” Lisburne told the irate gentleman. “Bon voyage.”

      The man’s wife took hold of her spouse’s arm and said something under her breath. After a moment’s hesitation—and another moment of glaring at Valentine—the man let himself be led away.

      From the lectern came Swanton’s voice. “Thank you, Miss Noirot, for your delightful contribution. Perhaps somebody else would like to participate?”

      Crawford, one of Longmore’s longtime cronies, stood up. “I’ve got a limerick,” he said.

      “If it brings a blush to any lady’s cheek, I’ll gladly throttle you,” Swanton said with a smile.

      “Lord Swanton is so good,” Gladys said, her voice soft for once. “A perfect gentleman.”

      “Who likes a ribald limerick as well as the next fellow,” Lisburne said. “If Crawford contrives to keep it clean, he’ll be the last one to do so. Fairfax, I suggest you take the ladies home while everybody’s still on good behavior.”

      “You ever were high-handed,” Gladys said, in a magnificent example of pot calling kettle black. “The lecture isn’t over, and I’m sure we’re not ready to leave.”

      “I’m sure we are,” Clara said. “My head is aching, not to mention my bottom. Val, do let us go.”

      “Finally, after hours of misery and tragedy, we get a little good humor, and you want to leave,” Valentine said.

      “Yes, before you’re tempted to challenge anybody else over a poem,” his sister said.

      Meaning, before Gladys could cause more trouble, Lisburne thought. Leave it to her to turn a poetry lecture into a riot.

      A riot the redheaded dressmaker had simply stood up and stopped with a handful of verses.

      He left his cousins without ceremony. More of the families and groups of women were leaving now, delaying his progress to the place where he’d last seen Miss Noirot standing in all her swelling waves of green silk, reciting her amusing poem as cleverly as any comic actress.

      When he got there, she was gone.

      Lisburne pushed through the departing throng out into the street. Nary a glimpse of the green silk dress or cream-colored shawl did he get. By now, hackneys and private carriages had converged outside the entrance. Drivers swore, horses whinnied, harnesses jangled. The audience jabbered about the poetry and the near riot and the modiste in the dashing green dress.

      And she’d slipped away. By now she was well on her way to St. James’s Street, Lisburne calculated.

      He debated whether to go in that direction or let her be. It was late, and she would be working tomorrow. He would like to keep her up very late, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. He’d made progress, but not enough. Pursuit this night would seem inconsiderate, and would undo what he’d achieved.

      He returned to the hall and eventually ran Swanton to ground in one of the study rooms.

      The poet was packing papers into a portfolio in a desperate fashion Lisburne recognized all too well.

      “I see you made good your escape,” Lisburne said. “No girls clinging to your lapels or coattails.”

      Swanton shoved a fistful of verse into the portfolio. “The damnable thing is, that fellow who was shouting? I couldn’t have agreed more. It’s rubbish!”

      “It isn’t genius, but—”

      “I should give it up tomorrow, but it’s like a cursed juggernaut,” Swanton went on. “And the devil of it is, we raised more money in this one evening than the Deaf and Dumb Asylum sponsors have raised in six months, according to Lady Gorrell.” He paused and looked up from crushing the poetry so many girls deemed so precious. “I saw you come in. With Miss Noirot.”

      “She tried to get in earlier, but there wasn’t room. And so I took her to the circus instead.”

      “The circus,” Swanton said.

      “Astley’s,”

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