Timeless Regency Collection: A Midwinter Ball

by Heidi Ashworth

  Analisa looked about her with apprehension; she doubted she would find anything in the evening to now enjoy. The others had been paired off since dinner, leaving none to invite her to dance. Just as she concluded that she truly must retire, Mr. Callerton appeared at her side.

  “Will you honor me with a set?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

  Instantly, Analisa felt her mood lighten. “Why, yes, Mr. Callerton, and as many others as you should wish.” She laid her hand in his, and together they danced all night and into the morning.

  Chapter Three

  Ferme—A Closed Position

  With a sigh of pure content, Analisa lay abed and contemplated the shadows that gamboled along the counterpane. Permission to lie-in was one of the best-loved features of a Mrs. Smith ball, and Analisa reveled in the knowledge that she was missing out on nothing of import. As promised, her hostess had swept the men from the house the moment the orchestra had begun to pack their instruments. The other girls were almost certainly still abed as well.

  She smiled as she anticipated what remained of the day. Once the young ladies had taken sustenance and gathered in the salon, the etiquette lesson would commence. It would consist of only the girls; the gentlemen would be denied the house until the following day. Idly, Analisa wondered if Lord Northrup would carry on with the house party or admit defeat and return to his home. If so, he would not be present for the infamous dancing lesson, though she hardly dared imagine the self-important earl under the instructive thumb of Mrs. Smith.

  When her stomach could no longer be denied, Analisa willed her rebellious body to rise. She proceeded to wash on her own as Ruby had been given the day off. It was a relief to don a comfortable round gown and arrange her hair in a simple knot at the nape of her neck. Upon descending to the breakfast room, she found herself sipping hot chocolate and reading the morning paper, the latter an indulgence her father did not countenance, when Lord Northrup stepped in through the door from the garden.

  Analisa nearly dropped her cup. “My lord, what brings you here?” She knew she sounded as aghast as she felt, but it seemed fitting.

  He looked about. “Is it only you, then?” he asked, a bit taken aback.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said in tones both frosty and bright. “Is there someone, in particular, you should have preferred to encounter?”

  “No, of course not.” He had the grace to look discomfited as he swept his hat from his head with an uncharacteristic lack of self-possession. “I arrived at half past eleven in expectations of finding the party below stairs for a late breakfast. I was informed the household was still abed, so I made a visit to the stables. As Dance Hall is rather thin of thoroughbreds,” he explained, “I determined that a ramble would be a promising means of whiling away the time until the young ladies should arise. As I have never before attended a house party at Dance Hall—one would think the very appellation of the establishment might serve as warning for even the least discerning,” he said with an accusing eye, “I am unfamiliar with the area; I promptly found myself fairly lost.”

  With a start, Analisa realized she still held her cup aloft. She joined it gingerly with its saucer on the table as she considered her response. “My lord,” she said slowly. “There was a detailed accounting of scheduled activities enclosed with your invitation. I am sorry to say the gentlemen have not been invited to any of today’s events. I do hope you are not angry.”

  “I assure you I am not,” he said shortly. He rolled his hat under his arm and turned his gaze here and there as if he knew not where to look.

  “I must commend you for your patience.” Indeed, she had never seen him so content to be still. “Perhaps I might be of some assistance. Pray, tell, for whom are you waiting?”

  “Waiting? Ought I to be?” He allowed his gaze to rest on her a moment before he turned away again.

  “I couldn’t say, but it appears you are looking for someone. Might it be Mr. Callerton? Surely you brought him along with you this morning.”

  “No. Should I have?” he asked. He favored her with a questioning look that amounted to what she deemed an untoward interest.

  “Why, yes. I suppose if you thought you were meant to be at Dance Hall, you might have assumed the same would apply to him.”

  “Yes, I see,” he mused as if the thought had never entered his mind. “He was still abed when I left Dun Hafan. I can only assume he excels at reading schedules of the sort enclosed in invitations.”

  She softened the laugh that rose into her throat with a smile. “Very well, I suppose there is naught to be done about it now.” A suspicion began to make its way into her mind, one that suggested the earl knew well enough he was not meant to be on the premises until the morrow. “However,” she said as she stood as if in dismissal, “I regret to say that Mrs. Smith will never allow the presence of a gentleman for today’s lesson.”

  He looked down as if to formulate his reply. When he looked up again, his face lit with pleasure. “Why, here is she of whom you speak. Perhaps she shall reconsider.”

  “My lord! What has brought you here today?” Mrs. Smith asked, pure delight peppering her words, while the young ladies in her wake stifled their giggles behind her back.

  “It seems I have erred. Mr. Wainwright persuaded me, along with Mr. Callerton, to attend your house party to which he was invited. However, he failed to avail us of the rules. I should not have wandered about so freely if I had known I was not expected. I credit my eagerness to your hospitality; the ball last night was one of the most pleasant I have had the privilege to enjoy.”

  As her self-proclaimed suitor, Analisa felt he should have, at the very least, cast a furtive glance in her direction along with such words. It was curiously deflating that he had not.

  “I am honored, my lord.” Mrs. Smith’s face was pink with pleasure. “Pray, pardon the lack of a personal invitation; I should have been delighted to issue one if I had been made aware that you have returned to our shores. But, hold a moment! I have had the most splendid thought! You must remain and assist me with today’s etiquette lesson.”

  “I am honored,” he said with a slight bow. “But I believe I am truly meant to be elsewhere.”

  “Perhaps, but you are wanted here, my lord. Your sojourn to the Continent qualifies you as a fine etiquette instructor, if your dancing is any indication. Doubtless you did not notice my presence last night,” Mrs. Smith said with a coy smile, “as I took great pains to remain unseen. However, I see all,” she claimed with a wag of her brow. “You are a beautiful dancer. As you might have heard hither and yon, it is the dancing at Dance Hall that does the deed.”

  “And what deed is that?” He attempted but failed to hide the shock in his expression.

  “Why, the coming together of a man and a woman,” Mrs. Smith pronounced as she advanced into the room while Emily, Mary, and the others followed eagerly in her wake. “They meet, they dance, they fall in love. It is a simple as that.”

  “I would that it was so, Mrs. Smith.” He produced the hat from beneath his arm and placed it on his head. “If an act as commonplace as a waltz had such power, it . . .”

  “It what, my lord?” Mrs. Smith gazed at him, her head tilted to one side like one of her stuffed birds, while the young ladies looked on, equally expectant.

  Analisa found that she too was most anxious to know his reply. However, the silence stretched out until even the girls refrained from whispering amongst themselves. At long last, a tiny smile tugged at a corner of his mouth, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. “Very well, then,” he said as he again removed his hat. “I shall be pleased to assist your lesson. That is not to say they are in dire need of such,” he added with a glance that brushed the face of each young lady present. “The salons of Venice were peopled with dolts compared to the pretty manners I witnessed last night.”

  “Bravissimo, my lord!” Mrs. Smith cried as a chorus of sighs and titters bloomed at her back. “Girls,” she said, spinning about, “
go on up and we shall be with you presently.”

  The young ladies swarmed from the room, their excited chatter a hum in the air. Emily proved to be more sedate in her departure, but Mary gave Analisa a roughish moue over her shoulder.

  Analisa barely restrained a moan as she sank into her chair. “I am utterly humiliated on their behalves. If that is the comportment that compels a man to wed, then I am doomed for a spinster, indeed.”

  “Never say so, Miss Lloyd-Jones!” Mrs. Smith scurried to put an arm about Analisa’s shoulder. “I am afraid the earl,” she said with a wave that indicated Lord Northrup at her side, “is too generous in his assessment. Most of these young ladies would do well to emulate your polished manners.”

  Analisa smiled her gratitude, but could not bring herself to rise and follow the others. “I shall be along in a moment; please do proceed without me.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Smith cried in a small voice. “If you insist, but I shall be down presently to retrieve you in the case you wallow overlong.”

  Miserable, and on no account she could discern, Analisa waited for Mrs. Smith, followed by Lord Northrup, to quit the room before she laid her head upon the table. As she allowed herself to know fully all that she had lost in the past irretrievable months, tears gathered in her eyes. The latest Season’s crop of debutantes were silly, to be sure, but they were young. Doubtless they would all soon marry, whilst Analisa merely grew a year older. She wondered whom Lord Northrup would wed once he gave her up, then wondered why the very notion should smite her heart. It was all too perplexing.

  With a sigh, she sat up to draw a handkerchief from her pocket and felt a hand on her shoulder. “Dear Mrs. Smith, you are so kind,” she said, dabbing at her nose. “What can I have done to deserve you?”

  “Mrs. Smith is correct.” The words were spoken in far too deep a voice to belong to the animated hostess of Dance Hall. “Despite your beauty, it was your unfailingly pretty behavior that first led me to believe you should make me an unexceptionable wife.”

  Mortified to be discovered weeping, and gravely doubtful of the earl’s words, Analisa shot to her feet. “Again, you make sport of me! Allow me to tell you what I think of you. I freely admit your capacity to arrive at conclusions with such remarkable speed is most commendable. However, if I am not too bold, I must insist that it is precision that you lack.”

  He looked at her in some surprise. “You truly do not believe you should make me an unexceptionable, nay, an excellent wife?” When she did not reply, he uttered a grunt of exasperation. “Miss Lloyd-Jones,” he said, pressing her into her chair, “we are meant to marry.” He took up a chair opposite her and leaned forward, his expression earnest. “I wrote you letters; your father has verified that you received them—one each month totaling twenty-one in all. I made no secret of my intentions, neither my expectations. There is only a date to be selected and the license to procure, and we shall be man and wife.”

  Despair flooded her heart, but she refused to wring her hands in his presence. “How can this be?” she asked with a show of false courage. “You claim to find me possessed of characteristics desirable in one’s wife. And yet, you were only too happy to be rid of me so early in the evening. I wonder, had you comprehended how your departure last night threatened to leave me bereft of a dancing partner?” It was a small thing compared to the whole of it, but it needled her. “Wasn’t your sojourn on the Continent long enough for me sit out every dance?”

  He gave her a questioning look. “Matters should prove different once our betrothal is made public. In the meantime, you know as well as I that it would not be seemly to dance with you more than twice of an evening.”

  Analisa studied his countenance whilst she contemplated her reply. He looked a bit lost. “Truly, Mr. Wainwright has not informed you of the rules of this house party,” she said in disbelief.

  “Have I not said as much?”

  “Then you haven’t come here this morning fully aware you should be the only man present?” she asked, alert to any token of deceit.

  “I was aware that I should arrive before Mr. Callerton,” he said slowly, “but I deemed it equitable; he went to great lengths to inform me of how he monopolized your evening after my departure last night.”

  “Oh!” she cried. “How rag-mannered you must think me!” Her skin bloomed with heat, and she knew it had turned scarlet from head to toe. “But, as you must realize, all the others had paired off already.” She noted that he looked as nonplussed as ever and pressed on. “At Dance Hall we are allowed to dance with whomsoever we choose, as often as we choose. It is Mrs. Smith’s intent for the ladies and gentlemen to pair off. She believes it is a feature of her house parties that results in so many marriages. It is also the explanation as to why she does not allow the men to spend the night here, and for reasons that are all too apparent. However, that is one rule that has not seemed to escape your notice.”

  “I wonder how it possibly could. The butler would not allow us across the threshold without making it absolutely clear that we should be booted out the door the moment the ball was at an end. Besides which, I have no desire to put myself forward as one in search of a wife. What other purpose should I have to attend the ball but to see you? Once my two dances with you were at an end, I felt it best to take myself off.”

  He was so patient, so kind; it was all too bewildering. “What you must think of me! It is no wonder you quizzed me about my manners,” she said in a small voice.

  “I have done no such thing. I spoke the pure truth when I commented on your admirable manners. However, dancing most of the night with Callerton, well, I do confess I thought it ill done of you. I most willingly beg your pardon.”

  Analisa forced aside the gratitude that swelled in her heart. “And I must do the same. But, I must ask, with whom had you expected me to dance? You have them all terrified to so much as speak to me.”

  “Have I?” He gave her a measured look. “Callerton danced with you, and what is more, he seems to have survived it unscathed.”

  Analisa laughed. “Time will tell. If he is not present tomorrow, I shall deem him rolled up in a ditch somewhere between here and Dun Hafan never again to be seen.”

  It was the earl’s turn to laugh. She admired how it enlarged his eyes and made his countenance glow.

  Her heart light, she decided that twitting Lord Northrup was pleasant work, indeed. “Do not say you granted Mr. Callerton permission to dance with me prior to last night. It would be a humiliation past bearing. And, oh! Not Mr. Wainwright as well? I have been utterly deluded. I thought perhaps he loved me, just a little,” she said with a sad smile.

  “But of course he does,” he said, his smile fading. “As do . . . others.” He dropped his gaze to the tabletop and studied a scratch in the gleaming wood with an intensity the men of her acquaintance most usually only afforded a horse at auction.

  “Others?” she asked in astonishment. “I had not thought it possible.” The pain of many months spent in doubt as to her worthiness to wed threatened to overwhelm her once again. Instead, she trained her thoughts on the way in which a ray of sunlight caught his hair afire, motes of dust dancing in every direction like so many tiny sparks. He looked up too suddenly for her to turn away, and his gaze caught in her own. As much as she wished to, she could not look away; his eyes were so beguiling, so blue, and so very wounded.

  “I am persuaded you know of what I speak,” he said, his brow furrowed. “You have had my letters.”

  She did have them, somewhere, but she was reluctant to tell him the truth: that after the first few missives, she had declined to read most of the ones that followed. She knew he deserved to know of it, but she pushed the notion of confession from her mind together with the import of his words.

  “Let us speak no more of it at present,” she suggested. His lack of an immediate reply to this proposal felt nearly as disconcerting as the bouts of angry exhortation to which he had treated her in the past. “We had best join the others,
” she urged as she rose to her feet. “Mrs. Smith will be fretting.”

  He rose as well. “Miss Lloyd-Jones, it seems that you spoke true last night; indeed, you cannot like me. To wed you against your desires . . .” He gripped and re-gripped the brim of his hat. “The very notion is repugnant to me. When last we met, I was young and self-important, too enamored of my position to consider you anything but delighted to be my wife.”

  Analisa knew him to be correct. Indeed, when last they met, he was a boy to whom she had often been tempted to read a catalog of his faults. The man that stood before her was older and even wiser, one who no longer hid behind a defense of pure arrogance. She found that she had no wish to injure him and chose her words with care. “Yes, very young, and I so heedless and contrary,” she said breezily. “I often do just as I please. Father supposed you would take me in hand, but Colin agreed that I should only lead you a merry dance.”

  He looked down at the hat between his hands, the air thick with words unspoken. Finally, he sketched a bow and paced to the door. She watched him go, her heart a jumble of emotions, foremost among them the desire that he remain by her side. To her astonishment, he turned around when he gained the door and regarded her with an unwavering gaze.

  “Miss Lloyd-Jones, I attended the ball because I wished to speak with you of our future together. More than that, I wished to see you; it has been so long since we have met.” He paused and allowed himself to gaze openly upon her hair, her eyes, her lips. “When I discerned your distress, I felt it as my own. My only wish was to see you happy. You wanted to dance, and so I took steps to ensure that you did so. Your happiness made me happier,” he said with a somber smile, “than I have felt in recent memory.”

  “I know not what to say,” she said, feebly.

  “No, you must say nothing, only hear me out,” he insisted. “I left Dance Hall last night firm in the belief that I had indeed become a better man, a man more worthy of you. And yet, I find that I have not changed at all; until a few moments ago, I fully anticipated that you would like the man I have become every bit as much as I had expected you to like the boy I was before I went away.”