by Mary Balogh
“I daresay they were,” Avery said, wondering idly if Anna had embarked upon the shopping expedition looking like the prim governess or the country milkmaid. He might have taken a saunter along Bond Street himself if he had known . . . No, he would not. There was a certain kiss that needed to be forgotten. It certainly would not do to encounter his fellow kisser anytime soon.
The dancing master had also arrived at Westcott House with his own accompanist, Avery’s stepmother reported one evening. Anastasia knew the steps of several country dances, but, oh dear, Mr. Robertson had discovered that she danced them with vigor and no idea at all of what she should do with her hands and her head as she danced. She did not know how to waltz and apparently had never even heard of the dance until a few days ago.
“She certainly must not attend any balls for a while,” the duchess added. “Perhaps not even this year. But by next year she will be twenty-six. I only wonder what sort of a husband we will be able to find for someone of such advanced years.”
“Probably the sort who fancies acquiring a vast fortune with his bride,” Avery said.
“I daresay you are right,” she agreed, brightening.
“And when are the waltz lessons to begin?” he asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Avery, you should just see the straw bonnet she purchased on Bond Street of all places. It is enough to make me weep, and the milliner ought to be ashamed of herself for stocking it. It is the plainest thing you could possibly imagine. Elizabeth bought a very pretty and fashionable hat at the same shop. One wonders if she even tried to exert some influence . . .”
But Avery had stopped listening. He really was, he thought, going to have to start dining at his club more often. He drew the limit at ladies’ bonnets as a topic of conversation. There was a ball this evening that Edwin Goddard had reminded him he wished to attend. The Honorable and delectable Miss Edwards had amassed a large court of admirers. A space on her very full dancing card could always mysteriously be found, however, whenever the Duke of Netherby hove into sight and sauntered by to ask for one, usually a waltz.
He dressed with meticulous care—but when did he not?—and made his appearance at the ball. He conversed amiably with his hostess for a few minutes, ambled along to join the crowd about Miss Edwards, conversed amiably with her for a minute or two while she flirted with her eyes and her fan, and the rest of her admirers fell back in almost open resentment, and then nodded amiably and moved on and out of the ballroom and right out of the house less than half an hour after he had entered it.
Nothing but bland amiability.
Tonight Miss Edwards had looked even more fetching than usual. But sometimes one was just not in the mood for a ball or even for an acclaimed beauty. He stood on the street taking snuff and considering his options before turning homeward in all his evening finery. It was not even midnight.
He wandered along to Westcott House the following afternoon to find a dancing lesson in progress in the music room. A severe-looking young woman with a very straight back and a sharp red nose upon which were perched wire-framed spectacles sat at the pianoforte, while a tall, thin man, clearly her father and presumably the dancing master, stood before it. The dowager countess was seated to one side of the room, the inevitable Lady Matilda beside her. Mrs. Westcott, Cousin Althea, stood near them, smiling with pleasure at the scene before her. Riverdale was standing in the middle of the floor in waltz position with Cousin Elizabeth.
And beside the pianoforte stood Anna, her hair styled a little more severely than it had been after it was cut, with not one strand out of place, and wearing a white muslin day dress as plain as any dress could be that had clearly been expertly styled and made of expensive fabric. Her hands, her neck, and her face were the only parts of her body that were visible. The dress had a high round neckline and long, fitted sleeves. The skirt fell in soft folds from a high waistline to her ankles. Not for her, obviously, the newest fashion of showing the ankles. She was wearing stays, which emphasized her slimness and gave her a bit of a bosom, though not much of one in the eyes of a connoisseur. On her feet she wore white dancing slippers, which looked at least two sizes smaller than her black shoes and a ton lighter.
Avery looked her over through his quizzing glass while everyone turned his way. He lowered the glass and made his bow.
“Do carry on,” he said, gesturing to the dancing master with the hand that held the glass.
“Alexander and Elizabeth are demonstrating the correct positioning for the waltz,” Lady Matilda explained to Avery rather unnecessarily. “I still maintain that it is an improper dance, especially for an unmarried lady or for a lady not dancing with her husband or brother, but my protests always fall upon deaf ears. It has become fashionable, and those of us who speak up for propriety are called old-fashioned.”
“I would have danced every single set of waltzes at every single ball I attended if someone had only invented the dance when I was still a girl,” the dowager said. “It is impossibly romantic.”
“Oh, it is, Eugenia,” Cousin Althea agreed, “and Alex and Lizzie dance it so well. Mr. Robertson is fortunate to have them to demonstrate for Anastasia.”
Avery stayed where he was, just inside the door, while the dancing master pointed out to Anna just exactly where and how Elizabeth’s hands were positioned and the exact angle of her spine and head and the expression upon her face—which Elizabeth immediately ruined by grinning at Anna and waggling her eyebrows. The dancing master bowed to Anna and invited her to stand with him as though they were about to waltz. She allowed her right hand to be taken in his left, rested the fingertips of the other hand gingerly upon his shoulder, and stood as far from him as the length of her arms would allow, her spine arched outward rather than in, a look of grim determination upon her face.
“A little more attention needs to be paid toward your posture, my lady,” Robertson said, and she shot upward to stand ramrod straight. “And rest your palm upon my shoulder and spread your fingers elegantly just as Lady Overfield has hers. Allow your features to relax almost but not quite into a smile.”
She grimaced and clutched his shoulder, and Avery saw what his stepmother meant. At this rate she might be ready to attend her first ball five years from now, by which time she would be so firmly upon the shelf that she would be gathering dust there. Had she been taught the steps yet? Who the devil was this dancing master?
He sighed and wandered out onto the open floor. “Allow me,” he said, waving the man back and taking his place. He took Anna’s left hand in his right. It was cold and stiff, as he had rather expected. He stroked the fingernail of his thumb over her palm before placing the hand on his shoulder just where it needed to be. He drew his thumb along the length of her fingers before withdrawing his hand and spreading it behind her waist and taking her other hand in his. She looked into his eyes in clear dismay as he took a step closer to her, and he held her gaze while, without moving his hand in any way that would be visible to the onlookers, he coaxed her to arch inward slightly from the waist.
“If Robertson has his tape measure with him,” he said without looking away from her, “he may inform you if you have allowed the requisite number of inches of space between us. One must not err by even half an inch if one does not wish to cause the banning of the waltz from every ballroom in the realm for all eternity. You are permitted to smile provided you do not bounce up and down with hilarity.”
Her lips twitched for a moment with what might have been amusement.
“Perfect, my lady,” the dancing master said, examining the space between them with the naked eye rather than with a tape measure.
“Now all that remains, Anna,” Elizabeth said with a note of quite improper levity in her voice, “is to learn to waltz.”
“It is necessary, Lady Overfield,” Robertson said, a suggestion of reproach in his voice as he bowed gracefully in her direction, “to perfect the p
ositioning of the body first so that the steps may be performed with grace from the start. The steps themselves are simple, but what the accomplished waltzer does with the steps is not. Allow me to explain.”
Avery wondered if the man’s accompanist ever got actually to play the pianoforte. It was possible that Riverdale had the same thought, which was a somewhat alarming possibility.
“Lizzie and I will be pleased to demonstrate the basic steps, Anastasia,” he said, “while you watch and Robertson explains.”
“We will keep fancy twirls to a bare minimum,” Elizabeth added, “though they are what are most fun, are they not, Alex?”
Avery released Anna, who proceeded to give her full attention to the demonstration that ensued, and the dancing master talked without stopping despite the fact that it had always seemed to Avery that any infant who could count to three could learn to waltz in one minute or less. Riverdale, of course, waltzed faultlessly—did he ever do anything that was not perfect?—as did his sister, though she did commit the cardinal sin of smiling up at her partner and even laughing at one point as though she were actually enjoying herself. It was enough to make one wince with horror.
“Perhaps, my lady, you would care to try the steps with me,” Robertson said after a few minutes, having held up one hand to stop the music. “We will take them slowly without music while I count aloud.”
“Or,” Avery said with a sigh, “you can waltz with me, Anna, at the proper pace, with music. I shall not count aloud, however, having discovered that it is possible to do so silently within the confines of one’s own mind.”
For one moment she hesitated and he thought she was going to choose the dancing master.
“Thank you,” she said, and stepped up to him and set her hand on his shoulder without help.
She felt incredibly slender, he thought, and incredibly dainty, accustomed as he was to holding women of an altogether different physical type. His nostrils were teased by the smell of . . . soap?
His attempt to waltz with her met with little success for the first minute or so and he was aware of murmurings from the sidelines. Perhaps, he thought, beneath the simple folds of her white dress she had two wooden legs. That would explain the length of the skirt. Or perhaps she could not count silently after all. Or perhaps she was just terrified. He held her gaze, spread his fingers just a little more widely above and below her waist, circled the tip of his thumb once lightly over her right palm, and took her into a sweeping twirl. She stayed with him every step of the way, and he saw that slight lift at the corners of her mouth again. Her eyes gazed back into his with less desperation.
And she waltzed. After another minute or so he was aware that Riverdale and his sister waltzed too while their mother clapped her hands on the sidelines. But he kept his eyes upon Anna, who had surely been born to dance—strange thought. Stranger was the thought that he had never until this moment realized what a very— What was the phrase the dowager had used? He had never realized what an impossibly romantic dance it could be. He had only ever noticed the intimacy and the suggested sexuality of it.
“Very good, my lady,” Robertson said when the music came to an end and the dowager countess too clapped her hands. “We will polish the steps and refine the positioning of your body at your next lesson. I thank you for your kind assistance, Your Grace.”
Avery ignored him. “No frills or flounces, Anna?” he said. “No curls or ringlets?”
“No,” she said. “And I do not care that you disapprove. I will dress as I see fit.”
“Dear me,” he murmured, “whatever gave you the notion that I disapprove?”
And he strolled away to converse with the older ladies for a few minutes before taking his leave.
Eleven
Dear Joel,
You would not recognize me if you were to see me now. My hair has been cut. It is not short, but it is definitely shorter, and Bertha Reed is learning from my cousin Elizabeth’s maid how to dress it more becomingly than its usual style. I am even to have a few curls and ringlets when I venture out to an evening event—which I will be doing soon when I attend the theater as the Duchess of Netherby’s (my aunt’s) guest. She thinks it is time the ton had a chance to look at me now that I have been at least partially transformed. As though I were a prize bull—though that does not sound like a particularly appropriate analogy, does it? But I shall feel like a prize something. An idiot, perhaps?
And my clothes! I have refused to bow to that society idol, FASHION—what is it, after all, but a ploy to keep people buying and buying so that they will not become UNfashionable?—but even so I have been made to understand that I simply must change my dress at least three times every day, and often more than that. What one wears in the morning will not do for the afternoon, and what one wears in the afternoon will certainly not do for the evening. What one wears at home will not do for walking out or riding in a carriage or going visiting. And one cannot be seen to be wearing the same old thing—even if it is only two weeks old—or even the same old little collection of things wherever one goes. The goal of any lady, it seems, is to give the impression that she never wears the same garment twice. I resisted as far as I was able, but you cannot imagine the strain of pitting my will against those of a duchess (aunt), a dowager countess (grandmother), other titled ladies (aunts), and a French modiste, who is all French phrases and waving hands, though she slips occasionally into what I believe is a Cockney accent. I have so many clothes that Bertha declares she could open a shop and make her fortune. I went shopping with Lady Overfield (Cousin Elizabeth) one morning on fashionable—one cannot quite escape from that word—Bond Street and Oxford Street, and we came home with so many packages, most of which were mine, that it is amazing there was room left in the carriage for us or indeed that there were any goods left in the shops.
But, having already written so much, I realize that you probably have no interest whatsoever in all the details of my changed appearance, do you? I now know everything there is to know about the English upper classes. They—we, I suppose I should say—cannot all be lumped together as rich and privileged with nothing to distinguish them from one another except perhaps size of fortune. Did you know, for example, that if there are four dukes in a room—which heaven forbid there ever would be—all waiting to be seated at the dining table, they cannot be seated in any random order. Oh dear me, no. For no duke—or any other title or rank for that matter—is quite equal to any other. One will always be more important than the other three, and then one of those remaining will be more important than the other two, and so on. It is dizzying and ridiculous, but so it is. I have had to learn not only all the various titles and ranks, but also exactly who fits where into each and who must take precedence over whom. Anyone who makes a mistake has committed social suicide and will be consigned to aristocratic purgatory with only a faint hope of being sent back for a second chance.
I am learning to dance. Oh, you may well protest that I already knew how since you have danced with me on a number of occasions. It is not so, Joel. Our dancing education was woefully inadequate, for it taught us only what to do with our feet and not what do to with our hands and fingers and heads and facial expressions. I shall pass along just one hint for your own future use. Never, ever smile while you are dancing, at least not to the extent of showing your teeth. It is just not done.
But the waltz, Joel—oh, the waltz, the waltz, the waltz. Have you ever heard of it? I had not. It is—well, it is heaven upon earth. At least, I think it must be, even though I have tried it only once. Aunt Matilda, the eldest of my father’s sisters, thinks it quite improper because one dances the whole set with just one partner, face-to-face and touching the whole time, but my grandmama describes it as impossibly romantic—her very words—and I have to agree with her. I believe I like my grandmother, though that is another subject altogether.
There is one other thing I will be able to tell you about only
in retrospect, for I hardly dare think of it in advance. I am going to be presented to THE QUEEN, Joel!!!! (Miss Rutledge would have an apoplexy.) I am going to have to walk up to her chair (her throne?) and make my curtsy. I am in very intensive training, for there is a way to walk up and a way to retreat and a way to curtsy that applies only to the queen—and to the king, I suppose, but he is said to be mad, poor gentleman. I shall report after the ordeal is over—if I survive it, that is.
I must come to the point of this letter, which is already very long and will probably bore you to tears. Though we have never been boring to each other, have we? Anyway . . . I heard this morning from the Earl of Riverdale, Cousin Alexander, that my half sisters have indeed gone to Bath to live with their grandmother, Mrs. Kingsley. Their mother has gone with them, though I do not believe she intends to stay. The letter I sent to Hinsford Manor in Hampshire, inviting them, even pleading with them, to stay and consider it their home for the rest of their lives if they wished, was not answered. Young Harry, my half brother, went to see them but only very briefly. He has a commission in a foot regiment and is to join it shortly. He refused my offer to share my fortune but did explain that it was our father’s money he was rejecting, not me. I can understand that, though it breaks my heart that my attempts to share have been spurned.
Anyway, to come at last to the real purpose of this letter (will this woman never get to the point, you must be muttering between your teeth). Can you discover where Mrs. Kingsley lives and somehow keep an eye upon my sisters? I really do not know quite what I am asking, but you see, they are no longer Lady Camille and Lady Abigail Westcott. They are merely the Misses Westcott, natural daughters of the late Earl of Riverdale. I am not sure how Bath society will take to them. Will it shun them? Much, I suppose, depends upon the influence wielded by their grandmother—or upon their own attitude. My heart is heavy for them. I do not know them at all. Camille, the elder of the two, was very unpleasant during that horrid first meeting with Mr. Brumford. She was haughty and rude and overbearing. But I hardly saw her under the most auspicious circumstances, did I? And oh dear, the very next day her betrothed jilted her because of her illegitimacy. I wish violence upon his person. Shocking, indeed, but I think I really do. How dare he break my sister’s heart!