Timeless Regency Collection: A Midwinter Ball

by Heidi Ashworth

  “I shall just fetch it, miss. I thought if I took it from the cold of the larder too soon the buds would only droop the sooner.”

  As Ruby quit the room, Analisa studied her reflection with more care. The red rosettes on her dancing slippers were perfection, but the row of ribbon blooms in a faded, softer shade of red seemed suddenly too juvenile. Impulsively, she took a pair of scissors from the dressing table and snipped the threads that held the garland to the hem of the dress.

  “Miss, what have you done to your lovely gown?” Ruby cried when she returned with the coronet.

  “Do you not like it? I believe it makes for a more sophisticated hemline. And, see here,” Analisa said as she pulled a few buds from the coronet. “I shall make a little bundle of these and pin them here, at my waist.” What she did not reveal was that she wore the red buds in hopes that, from them, Lord Northrup would divine the truth of her feelings.

  “You shall be the most beautiful lady in the room, miss,” Ruby pronounced as she affixed the rosy crown, “but not if you keep frowning as you are so doing.”

  “Yes, you are quite right.” Analisa attempted to smile as naturally as ever but did not favor the result. With a sigh, she turned from the pier glass and began to move about the room.

  “Now, miss, you shall have your hem torn or worse before the ball has properly begun.”

  Analisa barely registered Ruby’s words of caution. “Perhaps I had best refrain from going down to dinner and ask for a tray in my chamber, instead. I don’t believe I shall be able to eat a thing, at any rate.”

  “You must eat, miss! You shall need your strength for the dancing.”

  Analisa hardly noticed the girl’s reply, and it was some time before she noticed that Ruby had slipped from the room. With a flutter in her stomach, Analisa realized it was time to descend the stairs and enter the dining room. In need of courage, she picked up the note from her father and read it again. Suddenly, his words took on a different meaning, and she despaired in the case they referred to Mr. Callerton rather than the earl.

  The flutter in her middle became a feeling of dread as she forced herself to open the door and move down the passage. Other girls were doing the same, and she was grateful to descend the stairs on the arm of Emily, who looked positively resplendent in her cream gown.

  “Matters shall work themselves out,” she insisted. “All shall be as you wish.”

  Despite her doubts, Analisa gave her friend a warm smile.

  In the end, supper was a sore trial. Mr. Wainwright sat across from Emily and showered her with the compliments to which he had treated Analisa less than a week prior. Meanwhile, Mr. Callerton sat by her side and continuously attempted to place his hand on her thigh under cover of the table. This led her to view him with such distaste she wondered how she could have ever thought him clever or even handsome. The final blow came with the failure of Lord Northrup to arrive. When queried, Mr. Callerton insisted he had not seen the earl at Dun Hafan since he had returned to the house on Mrs. Smith’s horse the evening prior.

  Once dinner had been consumed, Analisa realized she had no other choice but to enter the ballroom on the arm of Mr. Callerton. Her heart sinking, she mused on how different matters stood from the night of the Folly Bally. It had been a night full of heady promise, all of which had burned to ashes in a matter of days. She felt utterly listless and far more cheerless than she could remember.

  As Mr. Callerton promenaded her down the length of the room, she watched the expressions of her friends. Emily’s face was aglow, Mr. Wainwright’s too; Mary Arthur’s full of happiness as she danced with her new beau. Analisa lifted her chin in an effort to banish the envy that ate at her heart. It was then that she beheld the man who stood alone at the end of the room, his back turned to her.

  She thought perhaps she was dreaming; it was so like the night of the Folly Bally. Only this time, Mr. Callerton was by her side, and the man at the end of the room, as much as she wished him to be, could not be the earl. And then he turned.

  She knew this man, and yet she did not. Gone was the petulant boy, the one with the freckles and the rusty hair she had never quite been able to dismiss. In his place was the man whose heart she had come to know through reading the letters he had so faithfully written to her, one who had earned her love.

  Just as before, his eyes opened wide when he saw her, and as she looked into their blue depths, she comprehended the message written in them. She saw pain and regret, but there was also burgeoning hope and a bottomless well of love. Every muscle in her body was poised to run into his arms, but Mr. Callerton had tightened his grip on her.

  “Why, Laurie, I should have thought you slunk off in defeat by now,” Mr. Callerton drawled. “I believe I made it clear that Miss Lloyd-Jones has chosen me.”

  The moment Analisa had most feared had arrived. “Mr. Callerton, please do not.”

  “I have warned you, Callerton,” Lord Northrup said in a low voice. “I shall not allow you to tell such lies of Miss Lloyd-Jones.”

  “Lies?” Mr. Callerton crooned. “I have offered, and she has accepted. Where is the lie in that?”

  “It is true.” Analisa turned to face Mr. Callerton. “I have made you a promise, but find I cannot honor it.” Too apprehensive to note the reaction of either man, she regarded the marbled floor.

  “See how she plays the innocent maiden,” Mr. Callerton chided, “when, in reality, she is a—”

  His accusation was stopped cold in his mouth when the earl swung his fist and landed it on Mr. Callerton’s face with a bone-jarring blow.

  He immediately released Analisa and threw a hand to his nose. “You cur, you have no right!” he cried. He looked wildly about the room for aid, but the others danced closer to the music and seemed not to notice anything untoward.

  “It is you,” Lord Northrup grated, “who have no right to disparage the good name of the woman who is soon to be my wife!” He grasped Analisa by the hand and pulled her towards the door. “We are leaving!” He drew her through the nearest door, along the passage, and down the stairs at a pace that threatened disaster for her dancing slippers.

  “But what of Mr. Callerton! I do hope he hasn’t sustained a serious injury,” Analisa cried, but she received no reply. She supposed he was too angry to speak, and she felt her apprehension rise. “Where are you taking me? Do not say we are to mount a horse and ride, pell-mell, through the night.”

  Lord Northrup turned and caught her by the shoulders. “Would you, if I asked it of you?” He locked his gaze in hers, expectantly.

  The apprehension dissolved as she gazed back at him, at the ruddy locks she longed to touch, the mouth she longed to feel on hers, the deep blue eyes whose pain she longed to banish. “Yes, anywhere,” she heard herself say and knew that it was true.

  He ran his knuckles, rough from their recent abuse, along her cheek and gave her a brief smile. Then, gathering her under his arm, he led her down the same passage they had traversed the day before until they reached the door into the greenhouse. “Here we shall be safe from Mr. Callerton’s scandalous accusations.”

  Analisa followed him into the warmth and could not help but note how much warmer still was the hand that enclosed hers. “My lord,” she began hesitantly. “I must confess to you what I have done.”

  He took both of her hands in his and pulled her close. “My name is Gabriel.”

  Analisa swallowed the lump that rose in her throat. “Very well then, Gabriel. Mr. Callerton was speaking the truth. He asked me to marry him, and I promised him that I would. I very much wish that I hadn’t; you must believe that.”

  He seemed not in the least disconcerted to learn the truth. “Has he hurt you?” he asked urgently. “Pray tell that he has not taken liberties. I shall never forgive myself if, in addition to my other sins, I should have failed to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” Analisa frowned in bewilderment.

  He drew her by the hand to sit on the selfsame bench she had shared w
ith Mr. Callerton the day prior. “It is I,” he said earnestly, “who has brought you to his notice, I who must answer for his appalling behavior.”

  “It was only a kiss,” she said quietly as the tears started in her eyes.

  “That is all?” he asked with a baffling intensity.

  “Yes,” she assured him, “but I had thought it of no consequence as we were soon to be married.”

  “Shush,” he murmured as he gently put a finger to her lips. “It is not your actions I excoriate but his. And mine.”

  “Yours? But why?”

  He renewed his grip on her hand. “I might have refrained from inviting such a man to come home with me, one whom I had known for only a short time and whom I had no business introducing to gently bred young ladies. Certainly,” he said with another squeeze to her hand, “not to you.”

  “I confess, I do not understand.”

  “Then I shall enlighten you,” he said, his face darkening. “Mr. Callerton’s intention was to set you up in a cottage far from all you know so that he might call on you when he was of a mind to do so.”

  “He never spoke of such,” she insisted. “Though I don’t think it in the least odd that, once married, we should live in the country or that he should sometimes stay in town.”

  “Analisa,” the earl asked, somewhat impatiently, “did he once speak of when your marriage might take place? Has the word so much as passed his lips?”

  “Yes, of course,” she insisted as she thought of the exchange between herself and Mr. Callerton. “I was in no doubt of his intentions; he clearly wished to marry me.”

  “My dearest Analisa, it is to your credit that you see only good where there is naught but evil. Mr. Callerton is the sort so vile as to see evil where there is only good. He still has not arrived at a realization of the truth: that you did not comprehend his true objective.”

  “No!” She felt the blood drain from her face. “How could he believe me such that I would ever agree to . . .? Oh! It is insupportable! Has he told you this?” she asked, aghast.

  “He said enough when I saw him after I arrived at Dun Hafan last night for me to have suspicions. I confess I was tempted to believe the worst of you after all that has passed between us. I have never known such a difficult night but, come the dawn, I knew how mistaken I had been to doubt you for even a moment.” He possessed himself of her other hand and trained his gaze on the pair of them in his. “And still, my pride was such that I could not bring myself to warn you of Mr. Callerton’s perfidy as soon as I might have done. It is yet another wrong requiring your forgiveness.”

  “Gabriel.” His name in her mouth was like music. “It is I who need beg your forgiveness. You have saved me from a fate I dare not even contemplate, while I have done naught but trifle with your emotions and lead you on a merry dance. And all of this in the face of your steadfast care for me.” She knew she ought to have spoken of his love but wished to hear the word first from his lips.

  He shook his head. “You are not to be repudiated. You are too young to be expected to know your own heart.”

  “And yet,” she said gently, “you claim to have known yours since you were a boy.”

  His head jerked up at her words, and he searched her face eagerly. “You have read my declaration? Dare I hope for such?”

  “For that,” she said softly, putting her hand to his cheek, “and more.”

  He favored her with the intensity of his gaze, then seized her hand in both of his to press a lingering kiss to the center of her palm. He raised his head, his hair glowing in the light of the candles, and put her hand to his chest so she might feel the thundering of his heart.

  It wasn’t until he briefly lifted his other hand to touch lightly the crown of roses that she saw how he trembled. “You have turned my paltry gift into an abundance,” he murmured. “I thank you for that—for the good tidings it bore. I knew not how you would receive me tonight. I very nearly faltered but knew that if naught else, I must warn you of your peril. When I saw you on his arm, I feared you should not heed me. And then I espied these buds in your hair, and I took heart.”

  “It is your courage I regard most highly,” she said softly. “The courage to wait for me, then to leave me—to come to Dance Hall upon your return to England when you had no reason to hope.”

  He looked down at her hand still against his heart. “During the course of my travels, there were times when my courage failed, when I did all in my power to repress my feelings, to conceal them, or, at the very least, control them. I even wished, at times, for a means to erase the words I had sent off across the sea. For a while, in Switzerland, I thought my dreams useless, that I had no choice but to endeavor to forget you.” He looked up with a smile and cupped her chin in his hand. “In the end, these sorrows only served to strengthen my desire to make you mine.”

  She felt her eyes well with tears of happiness. “I fear I have wronged you in so many ways and do not feel worthy of such devotion as yours. And yet,” she confessed, lifting her gaze to his, “I find I am in want of more.”

  “Devotion,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and drawing her up to stand in the circle of his arms, “only follows where love leads.”

  She felt her heart turn over in her chest, giving rise to a constriction of her throat. With nary a thought for the admonitions of Mrs. Smith, Analisa slid her arms up along his shoulders so as to indulge her desire to twine her fingers in the curls at the nape of his neck. “And, where, precisely, is that?”

  She saw something flare in his eyes just before he dragged her hard against his chest and kissed her with a tender passion that exceeded her expectations.

  “Analisa,” he breathed, “my darling girl, it leads to you.” He ran his lips along her cheek and across her brow. “Will you, at long last, give this weary traveler the home for which he longs?”

  In answer, she drew tighter her arms around his neck and guided his mouth to hers. Such was her absorption that she did not hear the approach of Mrs. Smith until the moment she parted some palm fronds at their side through which she thrust her head.

  “Well! I have never seen such a display of improper behavior at one of my house parties!”

  “It is nothing over which you must brood, Mrs. Smith,” the earl insisted. “We are betrothed.”

  “Oh!” she cried as she threw her hands to her mouth. “I thought I should never see the day. But, as we all know,” she said gaily as she waved an arm over her head in parting, “it is all on account of my famous dancing lessons.”

  “As you may recall, we did not attend the lesson,” Analisa said with a laugh.

  “Nevertheless,” Mrs. Smith called over her shoulder as she bounced through the doorway into the house. “As a matchmaker, I am a qualified success!” Whereupon she shut the door behind her with a snap.

  Lord Northrup laughed and, relaxing his hold, looked down into Analisa’s face. “We are betrothed, are we not?”

  “Well, indeed, I cannot be sure,” Analisa drawled as she broke out of his embrace and sat again upon the bench. “I do not recall that you have properly offered for me. As I have learned, to my sorrow, innocent young ladies are in danger of suffering from misapprehension.”

  His answering smile was full of joy, and at that moment she knew she could never love anyone as well.

  “I shall depart for London in the morning to obtain a special license, whereupon we shall be married whenever you desire. Only, my love, do bear in mind: it is already overlong that I have waited for you.”

  She cocked her head and considered. “I think I should like Colin and Elizabeth to attend our wedding. I shall ask Papa to insist they return from India immediately.”

  “If that is what you wish,” he replied with remarkable patience. “Now, come.” He took her hand and drew her to stand once again in his arms. “Let me love you, and perhaps you shall change your mind about your brother.”

  As Lord Northrup bent to kiss his betrothed, Mrs. Smith watched through a cr
ack in the door. “At long last, my reputation is restored,” she murmured, and with a most excellent pirouette, she returned to the ball.

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  Heidi Ashworth is the award-winning author of the best-selling Miss Delacourt Regency Romance series. A San Francisco bay area resident, she is an unapologetic anglophile and dreams of when she can return to England. In the meantime, she enjoys spending time with her husband and three children, in her garden and dreaming up new stories.

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  Chapter One

  North Yorkshire, January 1824

  When Mrs. Wallington announced over breakfast that the residents of Pine Park would soon host guests, her daughter Olivia gave the news little thought and simply took another sip of her morning tea.

  Her mother removed her reading glasses and laid the letter on the corner of the table. “It will be pleasant enough to see Andrew, I suppose,” she said in a tone that sounded like she referred to a pebble in her slipper rather than to her newly wedded and only son.

  Olivia set her teacup onto its saucer with the quietest clink she could manage, knowing her mother disapproved of young girls making noise, even typical ones made in the course of a meal. This included “young girls” of eight and twenty, who were no longer young or girlish. She waited an extra three seconds before speaking to be sure of not interrupting anyone.