Phillip bowed but remained outside with Henry. The two men stood silently and watched her depart. If Henry was not mistaken, the smile on Miss Penberthy’s face and the warm looks and thanks she had bestowed on Phillip were evidence of the young woman’s marked preference for his brother. Henry found himself relieved, though it was a blow to his male pride. If not for his presumed position as heir, he supposed no woman would prefer him to his amiable, blue-eyed brother. He wondered if—hoped—Phillip had revised his opinion of Miss Penberthy as well.
When the doors closed behind her, Henry asked, “Well? How did it go?”
Phillip shrugged. “Fine, I suppose. I don’t know why I had to give her the tour when you know so much more about the estate and its history than I do. Still, I think it went tolerably well.”
Watching his brother’s face, Henry said, “I believe Miss Penberthy has improved since we last saw her.”
Phillip’s fair brows rose. “Do you think so?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“I . . . own I have rather steeled myself against her. Though I hope I was polite.”
Henry studied his brother’s agitated countenance. “I am certain you were. You are always unfailingly polite, Phillip.”
If not wise, Henry added to himself.
For that evening’s formal dinner, Henry’s valet had been pressed into serving duty along with the footman. Merryn bore the indignity of livery and powered wig with long-suffering aplomb. Henry bit back a smile and avoided the man’s gaze, not wishing to add to his mortification.
It gave Henry an unexpected sense of satisfaction to see Miss Smallwood seated at the dining table with his family. She wore an evening gown of pale tea-leaf green, simple and elegant. The color made her eyes dance like polished jade in the candlelight.
Inwardly he chided himself. What was he now, a poet?
He looked instead at Miss Penberthy. She was a good rider, he reminded himself. He admired that. Miss Smallwood did not ride, he knew. Of course, she’d never had the opportunity. He wondered if she’d like to learn.
Henry regarded his brother Phillip over the rim of his glass. He answered Miss Penberthy’s questions and engaged her in conversation but appeared distracted and ill at ease. Was it because he was aware he sat under the watchful and exacting eye of Lady Weston? Or because he sat there ostensibly flirting with one woman, while the woman he loved sat at the very same table?
Several times he noticed Phillip’s gaze straying to the far end of the long table, where Miss Smallwood sat speaking animatedly with Sir Giles and Lizzie. Emma smiled as she listened to his father relate some tale in dramatic fashion. She looked to be genuinely enjoying herself, apparently unaware of the tension, the expectation in the room.
Henry’s gaze skimmed past Lizzie but then returned. He was surprised to see the normally chirpy creature looking subdued and unhappy. As if sensing his scrutiny, Lizzie glanced up at him and their gazes caught, but she reddened and returned her attention to Sir Giles. He wondered what was amiss and guessed the girl resented any female who diverted attention from her.
A burst of laughter at the foot of the table drew his attention next. There, Lady Weston and Mrs. Penberthy sat, heads near, talking and laughing like schoolroom misses. Their collective gazes now and again slid conspiratorially toward Phillip and Tressa, engaged in dutiful conversation. Soon to be engaged to marry, the two mammas no doubt hoped.
Poor Phillip. Poor obliging Phillip. Always eager to gain Lady Weston’s fragile, flighty affection. Would he once again choose his stepmother’s approval over his own happiness?
Perhaps Henry should have tried harder to turn Miss Penberthy’s head. But it was dashed difficult to conjure the enthusiasm when his interest was otherwise engaged.
Now and again, Emma glanced surreptitiously down the length of the candlelit table, past the many serving dishes and fruit and flower arrangements to observe Phillip, Henry, and the elegant Miss Penberthy. She admired the woman’s hair, her gown, her poise. Did the men admire her as well? They certainly paid her every attention. Poor Lizzie. Emma glanced at the girl’s glum face and felt pity for her. Yet, if she no longer wanted Phillip for herself, might it not be a relief if he formed an attachment with someone else? Or, did she worry Henry might admire their guest?
After dinner, Emma followed the others into the drawing room, where her father joined them. Three musicians with fiddle, flute, and pipe played a quiet melody as the company filed in. The carpets had been rolled away and the chairs and small tables arranged around the perimeter of the room to allow for dancing. Sir Giles went immediately to claim his place in one of the armchairs near the fire. Mrs. Penberthy followed. Her father took a step in their direction, but Emma hooked his arm, halting his progress.
“Perhaps, Papa, you and I ought to sit over there with Rowan and Julian.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment she feared she’d offended him, but then he patted her hand and walked with her to the game table where the younger Westons sat, idly shuffling cards and looking bored.
“May we join you?” Emma asked.
Rowan shrugged. “If you like.”
Julian waved to Lizzie, beckoning her to join them as well, but she turned as though she had not seen him and laughed at something Miss Penberthy had said. Julian rolled his eyes. “Lizzie seems to be ignoring us.”
After a few minutes of conversation and a halfhearted game of whist, Lady Weston stood and clapped her hands, gaining everyone’s attention.
She addressed the musicians. “Now, let us have something lively the young people might dance to.”
“What’s your pleasure, madam?” the fiddler asked.
Julian stood abruptly and called, “The Eightsome!”
The Eightsome was a lively Scottish reel, perhaps not the best choice to begin with, especially after such a large dinner. But Lady Weston voiced no objection, so no one else did either.
Julian crossed the room and claimed Lizzie for his partner, which was not surprising, Emma thought, since Lizzie was the female closest in age. Phillip dutifully asked Miss Penberthy to dance, though Emma imagined he would rather dance with Lizzie. And Henry bowed and asked Mrs. Penberthy if she cared to dance.
The widow appeared taken aback but then smiled up at him. “Why not, Mr. Weston. Why not.”
Emma did not miss the look of surprise and perhaps even approval shared by Lady Weston and Sir Giles.
Lady Weston looked imploringly at her husband. “Come, my dear. Just one dance?”
“Perhaps, my love, but not this jig. It should be the death of me.”
Emma thought of prodding her father to the task but instead tapped Rowan on the arm and nodded toward his mother.
“What?”
Again she nodded.
“Must I?”
“It would be the kind thing to do.”
He heaved himself to his lanky height with a sigh. “Oh, very well.”
Lady Weston accepted Rowan with a beaming smile of satisfaction.
Her father leaned near. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I don’t think I am equal to a Scottish reel either.”
“That’s all right, Papa. I am not certain Lady Weston really wishes us to dance—unless, of course, we are needed to complete a set.”
After the first dance, the older women excused themselves to catch their breaths and have a glass of punch.
Rowan snagged Lizzie’s hand, which earned him a glare from Julian. Then cheeky Julian butted past Phillip and asked Miss Penberthy to dance the next with him. She agreed with an indulgent smile, to which Julian reacted with a barely concealed scowl. For Julian detested being treated as a boy. He did in fact dance with excellent address and elegance, twice that of any other gentleman there. But some of the effect was lost, since he had to strain to reach high enough to turn his partner under his arm.
He looked around the room. “Come on, somebody. We ought to have at least one more couple.”
Henry, standing near Phillip, turned toward her. “Per
haps Miss Smallwood would care to dance?”
“I . . . would be happy to oblige. If I am needed.”
Henry said to Phillip under his breath, “Shall you do the honors, or shall I?”
Emma heard it and for some reason the words stung. Apparently Henry Weston did not wish to dance with her. By “honors,” did he mean duty? A duty he preferred to delegate to his younger brother? Ah well, she told herself, at least she did not have to dance with her own father while two single gentlemen stood idle.
“Perhaps Mr. Smallwood would like to dance with his daughter,” Lady Weston interjected, as if reading her thoughts.
Mr. Smallwood hesitated, glanced at Emma, then wisely replied to Lady Weston, “I cannot pretend to be half the dancer either of the accomplished Weston brothers are.”
Henry and Phillip looked from Emma’s burning face to each other. Henry stepped forward, but Phillip laid a hand on his arm. “It would my great pleasure to dance with you, Emma. If you would oblige me.”
Relief filled her. She could always rely on Phillip to be unfailingly kind. She rose and accepted the hand he offered.
Together she and Phillip danced the Sir Roger de Coverley. What fun it was to move to the jaunty music. To smile without self-consciousness into Phillip’s face, which mirrored her own grin back at her. To take his hands, to skip, turn together, to clap. She felt eyes watching her and glanced over, chagrined to see both Lady Weston and Henry observing them, smiles not mirrored on their faces. Lizzie, too, was looking at her strangely.
But then Phillip took her hands once more, and she forgot about everyone else but him.
When the dance ended, Phillip pressed her hand. “That was great fun, Emma. Do say you’ll dance with me again.”
She nodded in happy agreement.
But then the fiddler called the Lancers Quadrille, and Lady Weston abruptly stood. “Phillip, you know how much I adore dancing the Lancers. You must accompany me.”
“Oh . . . of course.” He looked apologetically at Emma, then sent a meaningful nod toward his brother.
Henry Weston stepped forward to fill the gap as bid.
How awkward, Emma thought, reminding herself it was not as though she had been begging a partner. Yet she felt very much like the last player picked for a cricket team. The spinster on the shelf—and everyone quite content to leave her there.
Henry bowed formally before her, his face a mask of neutrality. “Miss Smallwood, may I have this dance?”
“If you like.”
He stretched out his hand and she placed her gloved hand in his.
Waiting for the introductory music to pass, Emma recalled the last time she had danced with Henry Weston.
He had been forced to dance with her then, as now. The old dancing master, visiting the Smallwood Academy, asked a then seventeen-year-old Mr. Weston to partner a fourteen-year-old Emma in the positions of the French and German waltz. She still recalled the embarrassment of seeing him hesitate, his face falling into lines of evident displeasure.
Emma’s face burned anew even now as the memory revisited her. Did he find her person so disgusting? Apparently. For his hand on her waist all those years ago had been the merest whisper of contact, his other hand beneath hers, only the barest of holds. She had felt the rough spot on one of his fingers and at first assumed it a callous.
Then later, whilst joining hands once more as the dancing master commanded, she’d noticed the rough spot looked more like the remains of a fading wart. She looked up from the offending bump to his face. Saw him realize she’d noticed. A part of her wished to hurt him back, to sneer, “And you don’t wish to dance with me?” Or, “And you think I am disgusting?”
But in that flash when their eyes met, she saw a flicker of self-consciousness there. Of vulnerability. And she could not do it. She knew many boys were afflicted with skin eruptions of all sorts and were embarrassed by them, especially when fellow pupils teased them in front of a girl.
So instead, and without flinching, Emma had placed her hand squarely in his.
As they danced, Henry Weston recalled a particular visit from the dancing master at the Smallwood Academy. The “caper merchant,” as the boys called him, had asked young Emma to demonstrate the female steps and partner the pupils. She had obviously done so before and had learnt the steps thoroughly, though her form was a bit ungainly—a colt still trying to master long, wobbly limbs. She stepped precisely where she was meant to step, raised her arms at the correct angle, yet her movements at fourteen had lacked the fluidity, the feminine grace, she now possessed.
In place of the self-consciousness he recalled, her pleasure in dancing with Phillip earlier had been evident, though it appeared to him she tried to mask her enjoyment by suppressing the rogue smile that continually teased her mouth. She was not, perhaps, the accomplished dancer Miss Penberthy was, but he doubted Emma Smallwood had nearly as much opportunity to practice.
He still felt a prick of embarrassment over the memory of the last time the dancing master had called him forward from the line of male pupils to dance with the tutor’s daughter. He had suddenly recalled the fading wart on his left ring finger. It had yet to disappear completely and left him with a rough scaly spot which anyone taking his hand would surely feel and likely see as well. How he hated the thought of her face wrinkling in disgust, reluctant to place her lily-white hand in his, or refusing to do so altogether. The other boys were watching. And he, as the eldest student, felt obliged to appear in possession of superior confidence and ability. His reputation was about to be tainted if not ruined altogether.
So he’d taken her hand with the barest touch of his fingertips, hoping she would not notice. In his discomfort, he barely knew what steps he was meant to be doing and dropped Miss Smallwood’s hand as soon as the pattern was completed. The dancing master frowned at his faulty performance and told them to start over. This brought a few titters from the younger boys. Feigning nonchalance, he once again extended his hand toward her—and that’s when she noticed. He saw it in her eyes and steeled himself for her reaction.
For a moment she simply looked at him, a dozen thoughts and emotions flickering through her wide eyes. Here was her chance for retribution for all his pranks and taunts. He’d handed her the opportunity with his own hand. His own marred flesh.
But instead of wrinkling her nose, or announcing his flaw, or saying anything at all, she had simply laid her hand fully, squarely, in his. At that moment, he’d felt a flicker of admiration for her. Of brotherly affection. He might have embraced her but for the onlookers, and his fear of her reaction. He settled for placing his hand on her waist, that time as firmly as she had placed her hand in his.
At present, Miss Smallwood looked less eager to dance with him than Henry might have wished. He was tempted to show her both palms, blemish free and perfectly smooth save for a riding callous or two. But he resisted and ignored the little pinch of disappointment that she would prefer to dance with his brother. Of course she would—had not Phillip intimated he was in love with her? Or was she as yet unaware of his feelings?
Henry was careful not to stand too close, and to keep his touch brotherly. He had never had a sister, true, but he had certainly had to dance with many women in his life for whom he held no romantic feelings.
He focused on the steps, strangely unable to begin the shallow chatter expected in such situations. The silence between them stretched awkwardly.
Finally she said, “You are a very good dancer, Mr. Weston.”
Did she feel the need to encourage him as though he were one of her pupils—as she had sought to encourage young Rowan? He found it both sweet as well as irritating.
“Thank you. I had a good partner at the academy I attended as a young man.”
Her brows rose. “Did you?”
“I did. And she, too, has become quite an accomplished dancer, I see.”
“I doubt that. I’ve had very little practice outside the schoolroom.”
“Have you nev
er been to a ball?”
“Not a formal ball, no. Though Aunt Jane did take me to the public dances in Plymouth a few times. Her idea for a “coming out,” of sorts. Though a shabby one, in hindsight.”
They joined hands and turned around each other. “I remember your Aunt Jane. A fine woman. I liked her a great deal.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Then you are a very fine judge of character, Mr. Weston. For she is the best of women. The best of friends.”
He tilted his head to look at her more closely. “You miss her, I think.”
“I do. But we write to each other.”
The dance separated them as each turned to face his “corner.” When they were close enough to speak again, he said, “You ought to invite her to come and visit while you are here. Perhaps during the summer or Christmas holidays?”
Her mouth opened again in surprise. He was getting reactions from her at last, as he had long tried to do in Longstaple through pranks. Perhaps he ought to have tried kindness sooner.
“Do you really think so?” Her sudden smile died midbloom. “Oh. You are simply being polite. You cannot want—”
“I was not being polite,” he insisted. “Though in retrospect I should speak to Lady Weston and my father first, make certain it would not conflict with any of their plans. I shall let you know.”
“That is very kind,” she said evenly. But her expression said, “I won’t hold my breath.”
He didn’t like the polite reserve between them. On a whim, he decided to toss pride aside and try transparent honesty instead.
“Do you recall the last time you and I danced? I am afraid I was rude to you.”
She ducked her head, embarrassed. “You didn’t like being forced to dance with me then any more than now, I imagine.”
It was his turn to be taken aback. “Miss Smallwood, you are mistaken. I am very much enjoying dancing with you. I only hesitated because I thought you would prefer to dance with Phillip.”
She stole a glance at him from under her long lashes. “And the last time we danced?”
She hadn’t denied that she would prefer to dance with his brother, he realized. He grimaced, almost wishing he hadn’t brought up the past. “I had a dashed wart on my hand and was afraid you’d be repulsed.”
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