Lady Esterly was kissing a…footman? Lord Villiers had dipped his head to Lady Covington’s throat. Someone—she could not make out the gentleman’s face—was playing a violin, and quite beautifully, too. Had she hired musicians this evening?
Dear me, I do not recall.
Her vision was beginning to get fuzzy about the edges. She probably required spectacles even when she had not indulged herself to the point of Bacchanalian bliss. Now that she was thoroughly in her cups, the latent deficiency was proving more pronounced. However, the room was also beginning to swirl, which was a clear indicator she had overindulged.
Southwick had never allowed her to consume even a drop of wine with her dinner. Spirits—like everything she had thrown herself into following her arrival in London—were new to Hyacinth. A joy and a curse, in the true way of life.
Freedom. Why would it be any different than captivity had been?
But none of her ponderous musings helped her to locate her beloved pug. Adelaide was the one pleasure Southwick had allowed her, and her sole comfort in five years of misery.
“Adelaide,” she called above the din of the violin and Lady Downe chortling over a sally Mr. Buchanan had told her. “Lady?”
There was no answering scamper of paws. No big brown eyes staring up at her from an adorably rounded face, no tongue lolling. Guilt struck her, for Adelaide was notorious for wandering. Indeed, it had been one of Hyacinth’s primary concerns in moving to London from the country. So many servants, so many doors, a busy road filled with carriages, parties laden with revelers—all of them, opportunities for Adelaide to fancy herself going on an adventure and wind up forever lost.
But Adelaide could not be lost!
Adelaide—Lady—was all Hyacinth had left, aside from her friendships with Alice and Charlotte. And even those had been strained by necessity from the time she had spent shackled to Southwick. Neither woman had been the sort with whom Hyacinth had been permitted to convene. The result was a stilted friendship, even if Alice had obligingly introduced Hyacinth to most of the men and women in attendance this evening.
There was no telling where her friend had disappeared to now, or with whom. Alice was a widow just like Hyacinth, and her set was rather…wild. As was Alice. Hyacinth’s old bosom bow had changed quite a bit since the days of their mutual comeout.
But none of these thoughts solved the mystery of where Lady was.
“Adelaide,” she called again, attempting to drown out the dratted violin. “Lady! Had anyone seen my pug?”
No one answered her. No one so much as glanced in her direction. At least, she thought none of them did.
Spectacles. Or less champagne. One of the two…
Hyacinth left the drawing room. Down the main hall she went, passing a couple in a desperately passionate embrace that left her feeling flushed and envious all at once. Ah, to experience such tenderness—a man who did not take pleasure in cruelty and control.
Not yet, she reminded herself. Her wounds were still too fresh, even with Southwick gone. For now, she was living her life as she wished, directly flouting every one of his edicts.
Still lonely as ever.
She spied the housekeeper as she neared the end of the hall, the small salon which exited to the gardens, adjacent to the servants’ stair.
“Mrs. Combes,” she said, relieved, for the woman seemed to always have the answer just as surely as she carried the keys rattling about her august personage. “Have you seen Adelaide? I cannot seem to find her.”
“I am sorry, Lady Southwick,” Mrs. Combes said, “but I have not seen her since I last noted her trotting toward the rear of the house. It is possible one of the chamber maids thought she needed to take a turn in the gardens.”
Hyacinth tempered the urge to embrace Mrs. Combes, who had followed her from the country—another one of her few comforts. Mrs. Combes knew how to run a household. And she also knew Hyacinth quite well. Perhaps too well.
“Thank you, Mrs. Combes,” she said. “I shall have a look about in the gardens.”
A sudden onset of weariness hit her then. Perhaps it was because she had stopped consuming champagne. Perhaps it was because she was so aggrieved with herself for becoming so sotted, she failed to notice what had happened to her beloved Lady. Whatever the reason, Hyacinth found herself dearly longing for quiet. For no more revelers.