by Mary Nichols
‘Dominic, how nice!’ she greeted him, as an upper footman showed him into the drawing-room, where she was sitting with her mother. She was dressed in an afternoon gown of deep pink grosgrain which emphasised her delicate colouring and he was struck again by how lovely she was. ‘I had thought you would be too much occupied with the preparations for the ball to visit us today.’
He made his bow to Lady Mountforest and asked how she did, before answering, ‘Are you not pleased to see me?’
‘Of course I am, silly.’ She motioned him to sit beside her on the sofa.
Her ladyship rose, smiling. ‘I will leave you to each other,’ she said with an arch smile. ‘I see no necessity to chaperon you. After all, you are an engaged couple.’
‘Is everything ready for the ball?’ Sophie asked, after her mother had left.
‘No doubt there will be a last-minute panic, but at the moment everything is going smoothly. I left Lucy and Miss Woodhill seeing to the flowers and very excited they were.’
‘I see no reason why Miss Woodhill should be excited. Lucy will not need a companion tonight.’
‘No, which is why I have asked Miss Woodhill to come as a guest. She has so few pleasures and I know it will please Lucy.’
‘Dominic, I cannot believe you have done that, not after the way she treated me the other night. You have given her far too much freedom to speak her mind and as a result she is impertinent.’
‘Oh, Sophie, must we quarrel over her?’ He smiled, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘I didn’t come here today to talk about Miss Woodhill, you know.’
‘Then get rid of her. She is obviously out to make trouble between us.’
‘Sophie, that is nonsense,’ he said, but it left him wondering if there was any truth in it. After all, there was that Mountforest connection, however tenuous. But having publicly stated that he was looking after Miss Woodhill on a promise to a dying man, he could not send her away, not even to please his betrothed; it had become a matter of honour. He smiled with wry amusement at his own folly.
‘I am afraid that is not possible,’ he said. ‘I made a solemn undertaking…’
‘Then you must make sure she stays in the background and is not in a position to put me to the blush again.’
‘I don’t think she will push herself forward tonight, Sophie. She knows it is Lucy’s night and, besides, she won’t have a costume. And what I have seen of her wardrobe, it is hardly the latest mode. Please let us put her from our minds.’
Her air of grievance suddenly left her and she smiled. ‘You are right, we should not be quarrelling over that little brown mouse. There are far more interesting topics of conversation. Have you received an invitation to Princess Charlotte’s wedding?’
He did not like Emma being referred to as a little brown mouse and was on the point of saying so, but thought better of it. Having won Sophie round to a better frame of mind, he ought not to spoil it. He smiled. ‘Yes, though I fancy I shall be left kicking my heels in an anteroom; Carlton House is hardly big enough to accommodate all the aristocracy in England and I am hardly one of the Regent’s favourites.’
He paused to take a small box from his pocket. ‘But what of our own nuptials? Shall we set the date and put the notice in the Gazette?’
He opened the box and took out the ring, smiling at her gasp of astonishment as he picked up her left hand and slipped it on her third finger.
‘Oh, Dominic, it is beautiful and so big!’ She held out her hand, twisting it this way and that, admiring the many facets of the jewel as it sparkled, white, blue, pink and mauve. ‘Oh, you are the most generous of men!’ She turned and threw herself into his arms and kissed him. ‘Oh, my friends will be green with envy.’
He kissed her back, smiling. ‘And the date?’
‘The day after Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’ he queried. ‘Why then?’
‘Oh, I have a fancy for a winter wedding in the country. It will be a grand affair, with the whole of the haute monde coming from all over the country to be there. All the fuss about Princess Charlotte will be forgotten and all those empty-headed debutantes of the Season who tried emulating her will be green with envy because, of course, they could be nothing but pale shadows of the real thing. I mean to be different.’
Dominic did not doubt it and he was glad the enormous expense would fall to Viscount Mountforest who, having only one offspring to indulge, would not begrudge it.
He remained long enough to be congratulated by her parents and share a glass of claret with her father, then took his leave. He should have been feeling on top of the world, but he didn’t.
For some reason he could not fathom, he felt decidedly flat, almost as if he had performed an unpleasant duty instead of mapping out a golden future. His friends would call him a lucky dog and he supposed he was; Sophie was undoubtedly a catch, but something was not quite as it should be. She had sparkled, just as he had expected her to; the problem was inside himself, a kind of unease, almost a premonition.
He laughed at his own fancies and set off for Bond Street and Gentleman Jackson’s boxing emporium where he had arranged to spar a few rounds with Bertie. That would knock the nonsense out of him and set him up for the evening to come.
Dominic was standing at the head of the first flight of stairs to greet his guests that evening when he caught sight of Emma coming down from the floor above. He felt as if someone had dealt him a blow to the heart and winded him. If asked, he would have said she was an attractive young lady, but not one to take the breath away, but now he hurriedly revised his opinion. She was dazzlingly beautiful.
Her hair had been parted in the middle and pulled back to a knot at the back of her head, but the severe style served to emphasise the perfect proportions of her face: the high cheekbones, the well-shaped brows, the straight nose, the perfect mouth, neither too full nor too thin—a mouth for kissing, a thought which shocked him to the core.
The material of the sari was almost iridescent and fell in soft folds about a figure that was nothing less than perfect. She glided, rather than walked. Her expression, as she approached, was perfectly composed but the eyes, behind the green velvet mask, gave away a little of the excitement she was feeling. She was no longer the timid companion, the little brown mouse; she was, for tonight at least, an aristocrat, one of the ton.
He was dressed in the Indian prince’s costume with Lucy on one side of him, dressed as Venus in a diaphanous white crêpe gown which fell from her slender shoulders in soft folds, and Sophie on the other as Queen Elizabeth. Both girls were beautiful, but beside Emma they appeared commonplace. When she reached the little group, she stood and put her palms together before her face and bowed her head in the way she had done when she had first set eyes on him. Dressed as he was, the only appropriate thing to do was return the greeting in like manner. He did not speak; for once in his life he had been rendered speechless.
Lucy laughed lightly, breaking the spell. ‘Oh, Emma, you look wonderful. And isn’t it strange that Dominic should also decide on an Indian costume?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Emma had seen the look of astonishment on his lordship’s face and was gratified by it. She, Emma Mountforest, could compete with Sophie if she wanted to, even if it was Sophie who wore that ostentatious diamond ring. Tonight she would shine, tonight she would be rash and careless. Tomorrow…Oh, she would not think of tomorrow.
‘Will you save me a dance?’ Dominic said, watching that lovely face and the sparkling green eyes. Something in him stirred and quickened, made him feel reckless. ‘In fact, I had better put my name down now, before they are all taken.’ With that he took her card and the little pencil that was attached to it, writing his name against a quadrille and a waltz, hardly taking his eyes from her.
Sophie looked from the slender figure of Emma in the sari to that of Dominic in his wide satin trousers as they stood gazing into each other’s eyes and her brow clouded with anger.
‘Dominic, how could you?’ sh
e hissed, as soon as Emma had passed into the ballroom. ‘You have made me look a fool.’
‘Why should that be, my love?’ he queried mildly. ‘I must dance with my guests, you know.’
‘I did not mean that, though you did not have to undertake to waltz with her. I meant the costume.’
‘Oh, that. I have had mine for some time and I did not see the necessity of going to the expense of hiring another.’
‘Then she chose hers on purpose, the little schemer.’
‘No one knew what my costume was to be, my dear, not even you. It is pure coincidence. And as for Emma, do you not think the sari entirely suitable?’
She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Yes, for nothing will persuade me she is not half-Indian; the colour of her skin gives her away. Is there a skeleton in your family cupboard, Dominic?’
‘Oh, I should think there are skeletons in every family’s cupboard, don’t you think?’ he responded mildly.
‘Sophie, I think you are being very unkind to Emma,’ Lucy said. ‘The colour of her complexion is due to the strong sunlight in India. It is fading already.’ Then her attention was taken by the latest arrivals, among whom she recognised Captain Fergus O’Connor, even though he was masked and dressed as a cavalier in a plumed hat with a very large brim. She smiled conspiratorially at him and held out her hand.
He took it and raised it to his lips, winking at her over it. ‘Your obedient servant, Miss Besthorpe.’
She blushed. ‘How good of you to come, sir. You will find Emma already in the ballroom. She is dressed in Indian costume.’
‘Then I will go at once and find her, but may I beg a dance or two from you, before I go?’
She handed him her card and he started to write his name all the way down it. She snatched it back before Dominic could see what he was doing. He laughed and left her.
‘I think that is everyone,’ Dominic said, holding out his elbows for the two ladies. ‘Let us join our guests.’
The ballroom was noisy with laughter and bright with light from the many chandeliers. Everyone seemed to have entered into the spirit of the costume. There were kings and princes, matched by queens and princesses, churchmen and beggars, pirates and highwaymen, milkmaids and nymphs, their faces hidden behind masks, though many were easily recognisable.
Emma spotted Lady Clarence and a portly man in a yellow and brown striped waistcoat, who could only have been her husband. And there was Mr Cosgrove and Captain O’Connor who was bearing down upon her as the musicians struck up for the first dance.
He bowed before her. ‘Miss Besthorpe has commanded me to find you. Will you stand up with me for this ChaîneAnglaise?’
Emma put her fingertips on his proffered arm and allowed him to lead her into a set.
‘What happened to our little plan?’ he demanded as they promenaded down the line of dancers. ‘I received a message from Sir Richard not to meet you after all. I was worried that our plot had been exposed and I would no longer be welcome.’
‘It was discovered, though not your part in it, so you may rest easy. His lordship said I might come—he had never intended that I should not—but not with Sir Richard. I am glad, for I hate deceiving him.’
When the dance finished he led her back to her place and claimed the next dance from Lucy. Emma noticed Dominic looking at them with close attention as they whirled away in a gavotte and wondered just how much he knew of Lucy’s tendre for the young captain. He turned away and bowed before Sophie who was standing beside Lady Mountforest and a gentleman who could have been no other than the Viscount. Although far stouter, Viscount Mountforest was so like her father that Emma was taken aback. She had not expected him to be like him at all, simply on account of the differences in their characters. She must have been staring for she became aware that he was looking closely at her. Embarrassed, she turned her head away to watch Dominic and Sophie, who were smiling at each other like any engaged couple. But she could not help noticing the steely glint in Sophie’s eyes and the firm set of Dominic’s jaw. Surely they had not had another tiff?
She lost sight of them as her next partner bowed before her and blocked her view. She smiled and accepted his hand, determined to forget all her problems and enjoy herself. Her card had been filled from the moment she entered the room and she knew everyone was wondering who she was and where she had come from and it amused her to keep them guessing.
Lucy was in the height of good spirits. She danced and flirted, and speculated upon the identity of her partners, which was not too difficult for most of them had been known to her for years, though Emma had the greatest difficulty in dissuading her from dancing with Captain O’Connor for a third time even before the supper dance, which was halfway through the programme. To his chagrin, she gave in gracefully and Emma gave a sigh of relief, as Dominic appeared at her side to claim his waltz.
From that moment the evening took on the quality of a dream. She became acutely aware of his hand about her waist and the nearness of his body, the light of affectionate amusement in his eyes as he looked down at her. He waltzed supremely well, which did not surprise her; he had the carriage, the litheness of movement, the rhythm found in every good dancer. She followed his lead without the least difficulty.
He did not speak and she made no attempt to force a con versation; it was enough to be in his arms. Emma knew, as surely as life and death, that she had not imagined she loved him. She loved him with all her heart. The exquisite joy and the fearful pain of it made her feel as though her heart would burst. The other dancers, the sounds of conversation and laughter, the brilliant lights, faded into nothing; she was alone in a twilight room with him and the music that guided their feet came from a heavenly choir.
’emma.’ His voice, uttering her Christian name seemed to come from a long way off. ’emma.’ That was all.
She looked up at him and discovered the laughter had gone from his eyes and been replaced by a look of such sadness, it hurt her to see it.
‘Yes, my lord?’
He smiled suddenly, shrugging off his mood. ‘Dominic, remember? You dance uncommonly well. Who taught you?’
She forced a laugh. ‘Believe it or not, my brother; he was taught at school. It was considered a necessary accomplishment for Indian administrators. I did sometimes go to one or two dances held in the cantonment.’
‘With Miss Emma Mountforest?’
She wished he had not mentioned that name. ‘Yes.’
‘It is strange that I should be engaged to marry Miss Sophie Mountforest, don’t you think?’
‘Very strange.’ She paused, then plunged headlong into the mire, as if wishing to punish herself for her wayward emotions. ‘Do you think they are related? I mean, has Miss Sophie said so?’
‘No, I have not spoken to her of it.’
‘Why not?’
He did not know why not. It might have been because any mention of Miss Woodhill seemed to make Sophie prickly as a hedgehog, or it might have been that he did not want to stir still waters and bring back a past that was better left where it was—in the past. Or it might have been a wish to protect Miss Woodhill from her own folly. Looking at her now, so softly beautiful, stirring into wakefulness a yearning which had been asleep inside him for years without number, he could not bring himself to believe there was any wrong in her.
‘Do you think there is?’
He had been silent so long that she had forgotten what she said and his counter-question startled her. ‘Is what, my lord?’
‘Any connection between the Misses Mountforest?’
‘It is possible. But I never heard Miss Emma Mountforest speak of relations in England.’
‘Nor have I heard Sophie talk of relatives in India. In fact, she seems to have a particular dislike of the subcontinent.’
‘That is a great shame. There is so much to see and learn and admire there. You would like it.’
‘Perhaps one day I will go on a visit.’
She smiled up at him, though inside she was q
uaking with her newly acknowledged love and a terrible fear of being found out. But as usual, her remedy was to confront her anxieties head on. ‘On your honeymoon, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, as the dance ended and he bowed towards her, palms together, fingers almost touching his nose.
She reciprocated and then laid her fingers on his arm ready to be escorted back to her place. The dream-like quality of the evening was still with her, which was why she did not, for a moment, recognise the face that seemed to loom up from nowhere and stare at them.
Slowly her eyes focused on a dumpy little woman in a padded costume of fifty years before, which made her seem as wide as she was high, especially as she was wearing a wig which was dressed and pomaded at least a foot above her head. She wore white maquillage and a red spot on her cheek. She was weaving her way towards them through the throng in a very determined fashion and was only a few feet from them, when Emma remembered her.
Her mind flew back to the Park Street cemetery in Calcutta, to one particular spot: John’s grave. She was standing beside it, looking down with a kind of sadness which was not exactly mourning, not the dreadful sense of loss she had felt when her mother died, nor the grief on learning of her father’s death. It was more regret for what might have been. She had brought John’s parents to visit the grave and they stood beside her, Mr Morton, dour, unsmiling but not visibly affected, Mrs Morton, weeping and bemoaning the fact that her beloved son had died so far from home and she would never see his last resting place again after that day.
Now that same Mrs Morton was wending her way towards her, putting her quizzing glass to her eyes, as if to make sure they had not deceived her. Emma, terrified, excused herself and fled.
Dominic took a step to follow her, but Mrs Morton barred his way. ‘Dear Lord Besthorpe,’ she said, dropping the quizzing glass on its ribbon about her neck. ‘It is you, is it not?’
‘Indeed, ma’am.’
‘It is so difficult to tell when everyone is masked.’