Eleanor was soon busy with Eve, Lady Aidan Bedwyn, organizing children into age groups, helping them wriggle into sacks for the sack race and tie them securely about their waists, making sure everyone stayed behind the starting line until the signal to begin was given. She picked up the smaller children when they toppled over and set them on their way again. She was soon flushed and laughing and forgot the horrible embarrassment of the morning. Until, that was, Georgette arrived to run the three-legged race for the over-tens with Lizzie, and their fathers came along behind them to watch.
"Oh, goodness," Eve said, "are you going to run the race, Lizzie? How splendidly brave of you."
"She is going to run it with me," Georgette said. "We will be close together—we have to be, don't we?—and will have our arms about each other's waist. We will need only one pair of eyes. We have been practicing."
"It is the rest of the runners who are splendidly brave," the Marquess of Attingsborough remarked, "to run against Lizzie and Georgette."
Eleanor helped all five teams bind their legs together. Georgette and Lizzie were giggling. Lizzie's dog was sitting alertly beside the marquess, panting, his eyes fixed upon his mistress. And then Eleanor straightened up and moved out of the way so that the race could begin—and her eyes met the Earl of Staunton's. He did not smile. Neither did she.
He knew, she thought.
Becky, Eve's daughter, and her brother Davy won the race with ease, not having stumbled or fallen even once. Lizzie and Georgette were last by a mile—or what would have been a mile if the track had been that long. They weaved about, fell, picked themselves up, weaved about again, fell again, and so on until they finally stumbled across the finish line and collapsed, giggling and clinging together while the other racers and all the adults in the vicinity applauded and even cheered.
"I don't think," Georgette said as she unbound their legs, "we won a prize, Lizzie." And they were off on an another paroxysm of snorting laughter.
"That was the last of the set of five races," Eve said. "It is time to call Wulfric to present the prizes."
Eleanor busied herself picking up and folding the cloths that had been used to bind legs, but she looked up when the Earl of Staunton spoke to her.
"I am so sorry," he said quietly. "You must have been horribly embarrassed."
"I was honored," she said, not pretending to misunderstand him, "to discover that that two young children who met me only briefly at a country inn thought they saw their ideal of a new mother in me. I am touched that even after almost two weeks here they remain attached to me. Your children's affection, so freely given, is like a precious gift that I will cherish in memory for a long time to come. You must not be embarrassed on my behalf, Lord Staunton, or on your own. I have no expectation of actually being their mother. I have a full life of my own that I enjoy."
"I know," he said. "Thank you for being so gracious. I have understood from your…manner during the past few days that you do not wish to encourage me to refine too much upon what happened during our walk together. You need have no fear that a pair of young matchmakers will harass you further or goad me into doing so. Ah, here comes Bewcastle."
Wulfric was indeed approaching, Lord Arthur Bedwyn, the younger of his sons and Eleanor's nephew, astride his shoulders and clinging to the underside of his chin with two plump little hands.
"Every participant in the races receives something, I gather?" the earl asked.
"But of course," she said. "There are no losers at this children's party. It is not like real life, thank goodness."
He moved away to join the Marquess of Attingsborough and their daughters, who were still in giggling high spirits, their arms still about each other's waist.
He had understood from her manner?
He would not be goaded into harassing her?
Was he merely being kind, implying that she was the one who wanted nothing to do with him when really it was the other way around? Or had he really misunderstood? She had certainly tried to behave with dignity during the past few days. She had not wanted him to feel—heaven forbid—that his kiss had inspired her with false hope. She had not wanted him to feel trapped. Had she at the same time given the impression that she did not want any further attentions?
Oh, how complicated life could be! She was too old for this.
He went away after Wulfric had presented the prizes, without looking again at her. He had said his piece, it seemed, and now it was over.
"The egg and spoon race next," Eve said. "This should be fun."
She was looking at Eleanor with…curiosity? Sympathy? Eleanor hoped fervently she was imagining things.
* * * * *
The great hall was a magnificent setting for the banquet. The orchestra that had been hired for the ball later provided soft music from the minstrel gallery—until a single bugle played a fanfare while everyone looked upward in surprise and delight and Wulfric looked with steady silver gaze along the length of the great oak table to where Christine was smiling sunnily back at him. He even raised his quizzing glass to his eye, but, quite uncowed, she smiled even more dazzlingly. The fanfare was the signal for Lord Aidan Bedwyn to rise to begin the speeches and make the first toasts to his elder brother.
The ballroom looked just as magnificent when they arrived there later. Eleanor took a seat beside her mother—she rarely danced at assemblies or balls. She was not even wearing an elaborate ballgown. Her light blue silk had done duty for several years and would do for one or two more. She was quite happy to watch the new arrivals as they moved along the receiving line. She recognized a number of the neighbors from other visits over the last five years. The Earl and Countess of Redfield had come from Alvesley Park with their sons Kit, Viscount Ravensberg, and Mr. Sydnam Butler and their wives. Mr. Butler's wife, Anne, had taught at the school in Bath for a few years when Claudia still owned it.
The ballroom was soon crowded. Miss Everly, dressed gorgeously in a shimmering pink gown, her mother in royal blue with an elaborate turban and towering hair plumes hovering at her side, had a small court of gentlemen about her. It did not, at least at the moment, include the Earl of Staunton. He, looking gloriously handsome in black evening clothes with crisp white linen, was chatting with Anne and Claudia and the Earl of Redfield.
His children, hand in hand, had knocked on the door of Eleanor's room after the children's party was over. They had both looked pale and stricken, and Georgette had rattled off an uncharacteristically brief apology for having bothered her and embarrassed her. Eleanor had stooped down and gathered them both into her arms and held them tightly.
"Oh, no," she had said. "No, no, no. Please do not apologize. I have felt so very honored to be liked by you, to have been singled out for your affections. Please do not be sorry. I love you both very dearly."
"But you will not be our mama?" Robert had whispered, clinging to her sleeve.
"She can't be, Robbie," Georgette had said through the tears that were welling into her eyes and trickling down her cheeks. "Not unless she marries Papa. Don't you love Papa, Miss Thompson?"
"Georgie," Robert had said, still whispering, "Papa said we were to say sorry and then leave."
"But don't you?" Georgette had wailed.
"I have a deep regard for him," Eleanor had said. "He is a wonderful father, is he not? And he is a very likable person."
"And he has a regard for you too," Georgette had said, pulling back from Eleanor's embrace. "He said so. Miss Thompson, why are adults so stupid? Why do they not say what they mean? And what they feel? Come on, Robbie, or we will be in trouble again."
"We were not in trouble, Georgie," he had said, taking her hand and turning away with her. "Papa did kiss us and tell us he understood, and he didn't tell us to come and say sorry. He only asked us if we thought perhaps we ought."
Eleanor shook her head slightly now and moved it closer to her mother to hear what she was saying.
A ball usually opened with a quadrille or a cheerful country dance.
This ball, very unusually, was to open with a waltz. It had been Christine's idea. She and Wulfric were to dance the first part of the set alone together, and then everyone else would be invited to join in the other two parts. Wulfric had agreed after giving her a hard look.
"On the assumption, I suppose, my love," he had said, "that this may be my last chance to perform to an audience. By my forty-first birthday I may have become too arthritic to dance at all. Not to mention gout."
Eleanor stood to watch them dance. They always did it so well. Christine followed his lead as though she floated in his arms, her head tipped back, her eyes on his face, her smile soft and radiant as though she had only that moment fallen in love with him for the first time. And Wulfric waltzed very correctly but also with a certain flair that could not be described in words. And he looked back into his wife's face with his customary austere, even cold expression—yet with adoration somehow beaming from him too. Oh, it was impossible to put into words, even inside her own head. And it was equally impossible not to feel envy.
I have understood from your manner during the past week that you do not wish to encourage me to refine too much upon what happened during our walk together.
Eleanor sighed inwardly as the music drew to a close, and resumed her seat beside her mother while everyone applauded and other couples took their places on the floor for the second waltz of the set. If Gregory had lived, would they still be deeply in love all this time later? Would there—
"Miss Thompson." The Earl of Staunton was bowing to her and smiling at her mother. "Would you do me the honor of waltzing with me?"
Oh. She had not seen him approach. Oh. She stopped herself only just in time from folding her hands quietly in her lap and informing him that she did not dance. Good heavens, she might even have added that she was too old to dance. She was aware of her mother beside her, beaming from one to the other of them.
"Thank you," Eleanor said and got to her feet without smiling. She set her hand on his sleeve. She hoped—oh, dear, she hoped he had not felt obliged to ask her. But she shook her head slightly—I have understood from your manner… She looked up at him as they took their places on the floor, and set one hand on his shoulder as one of his came to rest behind her waist and his other clasped her free hand. And she smiled. She was not sure it was not a grimace. Her facial muscles felt tight.
"I understand," he said softly just before the music began, "that you have a deep regard for me just as I have for you, Miss Thompson. I also understand that adults are stupid—with emphasis, if you please. And since you and I are both adults, then I daresay we are also stupid."
The music began.
Eleanor knew the steps. She had waltzed on occasion. She had always been a little disappointed, for it was such a potentially romantic dance, and she had seen it done as it ought to be. She had seen it just a short while ago with her sister and brother-in-law, still obviously very deeply in love with each other even after five years of marriage and three children. She performed the steps now. So did he. He knew them well and danced with confidence. It was easy to follow his lead. After the first minute or so she relaxed despite the fact that his words—or rather Georgette's—were still whirling about in her head.
And suddenly it was no longer a mechanical exercise. Suddenly they were dancing and twirling and she was acutely aware of him—of the feel of his hands and the heat of his body and the solid firmness of his presence and the smell of his cologne—and of their surroundings too: the wheeling lights from the chandeliers, the smell of flowers and candles and perfumes, the kaleidoscope of colors as ladies in bright gowns twirled and flowers spilled over the sides of pots. Suddenly waltzing was the loveliest thing she had ever done, and she would never forget. Oh, she would never forget it—or him. And she would not remember with sadness. She would remember with gratitude that she had met him at all and spent brief moments of time with him. She might have gone through the rest of her life without even that much of a new dream.
She was smiling up into his face, she realized suddenly, and he was smiling back. Had her awareness only expanded beyond him, she might have noticed that a great deal of curious attention was upon the two of them, at least among the house guests, though most of them were also waltzing. But she was unaware and so she was unselfconscious.
"What manner?" she asked him when the music stopped. "What has my manner been like?"
"Forbidding," he said, but he was still smiling. "Warning me to keep my distance."
"I did not want you to think," she said, "that I was…well, pursuing you."
"And I did not want you to think," he said, "that I was in relentless pursuit of a mother for my children without any regard for you as a person. And without regard for your chosen way of life."
"My chosen way of life," she said. "I am selling my school. I have not been as happy since I purchased it as I was when I was simply a teacher. I do not know what I will do once it is sold. I will doubtless think of…something. But what of Miss Everly?"
"I made it clear to her and her mama before you and I went walking that afternoon," he said, "that there was no courtship between us and never really had been except in their imagination. It was my title and fortune that were the attraction, I have no doubt. Lady Connaught is determined that her daughter will make an advantageous marriage. I wish Miss Everly well, but she would not do as my wife, you know. And she certainly would not do as the mother of my children, both present and future."
Eleanor bit her lip and gazed back at him.
"Sometimes children possess a great deal of wisdom," he said. "I believe I have been stupid, Miss Thompson. And dare I hope, unmannerly as it seems, that you have been too?"
She released her lip. "Oh, I have," she said.
The third waltz of the set began. And if there was such a thing as magic, then someone must have waved a star-studded wand about their heads and created a world of music and dance and wonderment that enclosed them and became all their own. If only it could last forever.
He stood and gazed at her when it was over, making no move to return her to her mother's side. "I do not know what the next set is to be," he said, "or the one after that. I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to dance them, however. Do you?"
She shook her head.
"Come." He offered his arm and led her toward the open French windows and out onto the wide stone balcony beyond the ballroom. It was still deserted this early in the evening. "Miss Thompson—may I call you Eleanor?"
"Yes," she said, "Michael." Her heart was pounding so hard she felt breathless.
"Eleanor," he said, "I come encumbered with two children."
"Encumbered?" she said. "What a strange word."
"It is surely a thankless task to take on someone else's children," he said.
"Michael," she said, and she felt quite dizzy as she clung more tightly to his arm, "are you asking me to take them on?"
"The trouble is," he said, "that they have chosen you and have been embarrassingly public about it. Did you know that Robert announced your willingness to have me in a crowded billiard room this morning?"
Oh, dear. Oh, no!
"So you feel honor bound to offer for me?" she said
He uttered a muffled oath. "I would not have believed," he said, "that I could be so gauche, or so stupid, to use my daughter's word, as I have been recently. I am offering for you, Eleanor, because I believe we can be happy together even though we do not have a lengthy acquaintance. And because, at the advanced age of forty, I have fallen in love. Will you marry me?"
They were standing at the top of the steps leading down to the moonlit garden. They were still alone on the balcony.
"Oh," she said, "I cannot think of anything I would rather do. I love your children and delight in the prospect of being a mama to them. But I could not marry you just for their sakes. I do love you, Michael. It is absurd. The world would call it so anyway. We have known each other for such a short while, and for years past I have never thought to love a
gain. But I do. I have dreamed a new dream in the last couple of weeks and it is already coming true. How well blessed I am. Yes, I will marry you."
There were people gathered close to the doorway behind them, talking and laughing. They might at any moment decide to step outside into the cooler air.
"It is not even cold out here, is it?" he said. "Or dark. Can I persuade you to stroll to the lake with me."
Oh. It would be very improper. But the thought gave her a smile. She was thirty-nine years old.
"What a lovely idea," she said.
He led her down the steps and around to the front of the house. As they passed in front of the fountain he released her arm and took her hand instead, lacing their fingers.
She laughed. "I feel like a girl again."
"Please do not." In the moonlight she could see that his eyes were smiling. "I am not interested in girls, Eleanor."
"Only in women?" she asked.
"Not even in women," he said. "In one woman. In you."
If this was a dream, she hoped she would not wake up soon. Or ever.
They stood for a while on the bank of the lake, looking out over the water. A band of moonlight beamed across it, showing the surface to be like glass. There was not a breath of wind. He let go of her hand and circled her waist with his arm. She set her own about his and rested the side of her head on his shoulder. Ah, she had not believed this could or would happen to her ever again. He turned his head and kissed her warmly on the lips.
"Eleanor," he asked, his mouth still almost brushing hers, "are you a virgin?"
Oh.
"No," she said, lifting her head. "He was going away to war, you must understand. We were both aware that he might never return. We were young and very much in love. And rash."
"You need not justify yourself," he said. "Will you come with me to that clearing among the trees where we kissed a few days ago?"
She drew a slow and audible breath.
"But only if you wish," he added.
"Oh," she said with a sigh, "I do indeed wish, Michael."
Once Upon A Dream Page 9