by Connie Mason
The lack of a royal presence was topmost on everyone’s mind. It seemed whenever Serena joined a group of her guests that afternoon, conversation ground to a sudden halt. She caught more than one look of pity directed her way.
Lysandra, however, was not silent and didn’t hesitate in telling Serena where she went wrong.
“I knew removing yourself from Town was a bad idea. Since you weren’t there to be seen out and about in Society, the tabloids have had to make up things about you.” She’d rolled her eyes and affected an injured sniff. “At least I hope to heaven they were made up and you haven’t really been seen consorting with gypsies. However, I couldn’t swear to it either way. You never tell me anything anymore.”
With good reason. Serena had pled yet another headache and avoided Lysandra for the rest of the day. Now she met her maid’s gaze in the mirror.
“It’s all right, Eleanor.” She punctuated the statement with a curt nod, which set the gemstones threaded through her tresses sparkling in the candlelight. If she wasn’t going to host royalty, at least she was making a good show of looking the part herself. “You’ve done a wonderful job with my hair. If the royal duke isn’t here to see your handiwork, it’s his royal loss.”
“Don’t let the marquis hear you say such things.” Amelia draped the ruby pendant over Serena’s head and fastened the clasp at her nape. “He won’t be pleased.”
“I’m not entirely pleased myself about a number of things. For example, it’s ridiculous of Father to exclude you from the ball,” Serena shot back. “You love to dance and you know it.”
“That’s of no import,” Amelia said, looking a little bedraggled in her serviceable gray serge. She’d been as occupied as Eleanor with preparing Serena for the occasion and hadn’t spared a moment for herself. “Besides, you know someone in my position is only welcome at this sort of occasion if there is an imbalance between male and female guests. Since Mr. Alcock arrived with his wife and a marriageable daughter in tow, we have more need of spare men than women.”
The name pricked Serena’s ears. “Alcock? Who is he?”
“A Member of Parliament. I forget which borough he represents, but it’s probably one of the little old ones with only a handful of voters,” Amelia explained as she smoothed down the drape of fabric attached to Serena’s shoulders. It flowed down her back in a waterfall of silk that would have looked quite at home on a Roman goddess. “It makes Mr. Alcock almost impossible to unseat, which means he’s likely been in Parliament forever and amassed his own network of cronies and allies. Because of that, unfortunately, the marquis has to give his ilk more attention than he would normally warrant.”
It surprised Serena that Amelia knew so much about the inner workings of Parliament. She must have been attending more closely than Serena did when her father began to wax political over the supper table.
From what little she’d been able to glean from the cryptic conversation at the castle, the Member of Parliament seemed to have some sort of hold over Jonah and his friends which required them to do his bidding in a mysterious matter.
“And Father has doings with this Mr. Alcock?”
“Evidently,” Amelia shrugged, “or the man wouldn’t be here.”
From a story down and a wing away, strains of the string quartet warming up wafted toward them. Someone repeatedly struck the A on the piano so the musicians could tune their instruments. Serena smiled. The pianist was sober enough for one note at a time, at least. She wondered if she’d ought to mention to Amelia that he shouldn’t be served any punch that wasn’t watered down, but then decided she had enough on her own plate without worrying about someone else’s.
In another moment, a sprightly Purcell tune tickled Serena’s ears.
“It’s begun,” Amelia said. “The marquis will be waiting for you at the head of the staircase. He wants to walk you down. Now let me look at you one last time.”
Serena rose and gave a graceful twirl, feeling a bit like an overdressed marionette, minus the strings, but still ready for a play.
It would have to be a farce, she decided. No royal duke was coming for her to make her father proud. Jonah had manipulated events to spend unchaperoned time with her but didn’t seem to want to swoop in and snatch her away in any respectable manner. Her heart still beat regularly in her chest, but it ached all the same. For Amelia’s sake, she pasted what she hoped was a bright smile on her face.
“Oh, you are beautiful, my dear,” Amelia said, her eyes shining. “Your mother would have been so proud.”
Would she? Her mother had always admonished her to be herself. After being powdered, pressed, and poked for hours, Serena felt like someone else entirely. She suspected Miranda Osbourne would have been more likely to advise her to do the unexpected and have a little adventure. No staid and respectable garden for her. Serena’s mother reveled in vibrant chaos.
I wish I could ask her what to do. Then maybe she’d have the courage to pull off her gem-encrusted slippers and spend the night dancing barefoot on the new spring grass under a star-spangled sky.
Or maybe her remembrances of her mother were tainted with wistfulness and yearning for more time with the parent who’d been snatched from her too soon. Her mother surely couldn’t have been as unconventional as Serena remembered her or the staid marquis would never have chosen her.
Amelia gave her a quick hug. “Hurry, my dear. Your father will be waiting.”
Eleanor scuttled over to hold the door open and Serena floated through it, her gown’s many diaphanous streamers fluttering in her wake. Her modiste had gone a little wild in her quest to recreate the glory of the classical age. But then, from the corner of her eye, Serena caught her reflection in the long looking glass at the end of the hallway.
When the gown was in motion, the effect was ethereal. She looked like a young Daphne fleeing from her lover. Just the sort of image that made a man want to pursue, she realized.
The new style had cost the earth, but it appeared she hadn’t paid the modiste enough for the gown after all.
When she rounded the corner and met her father at the head of the grand staircase, the expression on his face cemented that thought in her mind. His eyes misty, his smile broad, he’d never looked more pleased with her.
Which was strange considering she’d failed to bring down the biggest trophy of the Season—a royal buck.
The marquis gave her a deep bow and pressed a kiss to her gloved knuckles.
“How like your mother you look tonight,” he whispered. Then he offered her his arm and they began to descend.
“Father, I know you’re disappointed. I’m sorry things did not work out the way you wanted with the Duke of Kent,” she said softly. If she didn’t say it now, there’d never be a better time.
“Who says they haven’t?” her father answered in hushed tones. “Not all is as it seems, my dear. You’ll see. Now, don’t worry a particle about anything. All I want you to do tonight is enjoy yourself. I know Society can be cruel during unsettled times, but take note of any who laugh at your expense. Trust me. You will have the last laugh.”
The marquis patted her hand and Serena basked in this unexpected moment of fatherly approval. Then he escorted her into the ballroom and partnered with her for the cotillion.
After that, Serena’s dance card was fairly full, but she never had to consult it because as soon as one musical piece was done, another elegantly dressed fellow presented himself before her for the next dance. She snatched occasional glimpses of Jonah, looking dark and dashing in his simple but perfectly tailored ensemble. But it was always a fleeting glance between other dancers, and she never caught him gazing back at her. Finally, she begged off when Lord Nathaniel Colton arrived to claim her for a reel.
“Of course you’ll be wanting a rest, milady,” he said smoothly as he offered her his arm to escort her from the dance floor. “It will afford me the opportunity to introduce you to my wife, Lady Georgette. I don’t believe she’s had the pleasure yet.
But be forewarned. She’s a bit of a crusader, and while she heartily approves of your generosity toward orphans, she’s likely to try to recruit you to help with her work among the ‘soiled doves’ of Covent Garden as well.”
Serena was charmed by Lady Georgette who, as Lord Nathaniel predicted, did try to enlist Serena’s support for her academy for former prostitutes, and also introduced her to her friend Lady Olivia and her husband Lord Rhys Warrington.
“You dance beautifully,” Lady Olivia said to Serena. “I’m terribly jealous. My husband,” she gave Lord Rhys a playful swat on his lapel with the back of her hand, “keeps insisting that I should sit about like an old woman simply because I’m in…an interesting condition. Honestly, it’s such early days no one would even know if he didn’t trumpet the news about like a rooster who thinks he made the sun rise.”
The married ladies enjoyed a hearty chuckle at Lord Rhys’s expense.
“I merely wish to make certain you don’t tire yourself, my dear,” her husband explained stiffly.
“Oh, pish! If I get any more rest I’m likely to start hibernating,” Lady Olivia said, her eyes dancing and her feet tapping to the music. “Oh, Rhys, it’s a waltz. Take me out onto the dance floor this minute or…”
“Or what?” he asked with a lift of a dark brow.
“Or I’ll run off and dance with the gypsies.” Lady Olivia cast her husband an impish smile and Serena decided she liked the woman very much indeed. “I’ve heard Lord Wyndleton shelters a troop of them on his land hereabouts.”
“He does,” Serena confirmed. “Lord Rhys, I suggest you waltz with your wife. She’ll be much safer here than traipsing around a campfire.”
The Warringtons took to the floor and began the intimate dance.
“Please, join your friends, if you like,” Serena said to Lord and Lady Colton. She pretended to consult her dance card, but she knew there was no name penciled in beside the waltz. Even though she wondered what it would be like to try the dance, she wouldn’t dream of doing so with a man in public. It would be a surefire scandal.
“If you’re sure—” Lady Georgette began, but her husband waltzed away with her before she could finish her thought. From the practiced way they moved together, sinuous and graceful, Serena gathered this was not their first waltz.
She watched the handful of couples brave enough to attempt the sweeping steps around the floor with barely concealed longing. There was something magical about the way the gentlemen gazed down at their ladies, something intimate and precious. It made her wish Jonah’s name had appeared on her dance card for this tune.
“Serena, what on earth?” Lysandra came up to her and hissed into her ear. “You ought to give the dancing master the sack with no character.”
“It’s not his fault.”
“Then who was daft enough to put a waltz on the dance program?”
“I was,” she confessed.
Lysandra’s eyes went round as an owlet’s. “But once word of this outrage gets back to the Duke of Kent—”
“The waltz will be over and it will be of no consequence.” Why couldn’t Lysandra just enjoy the way the music washed over them, languid and yearning? Music was a vapor. A will-o’-the-wisp. Once the piece was done, there was nothing to prove it had ever existed except in the memory of the way the lush chords shivered over her skin. “Besides, it’s not as if I’m—”
Suddenly Jonah was standing before her, bowing over her hand. He straightened and looked down at her, his manner so formal, she hardly recognized him. “May I have the honor of this dance?”
“Serena,” Lysandra whispered. “You mustn’t.”
That settled it. She simply must. She squeezed Jonah’s fingertips and sank into a low curtsey. “The honor is mine.”
Twenty-five
To dance with someone is to perceive their estimation of their own worth. The care with which one places a foot in order to achieve the best affect can reveal a good deal about the dancer. How one comports oneself on the ballroom floor mirrors one’s station in life.
To waltz with someone, on the other hand, is to realize that the eyes are indeed the window to the soul and unless one is very careful, one is likely to tumble hopelessly through the open sash.
From Le Dernier Mot,
The Final Word on News That Everyone
Who Is Anyone Should Know
“I must thank Lady Lysandra sometime,” Jonah said as he led Serena onto the floor.
“Why? She doesn’t like you a bit, you know.”
“That much is obvious. But I wasn’t sure you’d accept my invitation. Telling you that you mustn’t dance with me was the best way to ensure that you would.”
Serena laughed as he folded her into the promenade position so that they were joined hip to hip. Even in this hold, the waltz required them to maintain eye contact. “You obviously know too much about me.”
“And yet not as much as I’d like.” He’d sounded so cold toward her at the castle ruins. There was plenty of heat in his gaze now.
Which was the real Jonah?
“I didn’t know you could dance,” Serena said, a little breathless at being so close to him in public. Surely the other guests could hear her heart pounding and sense the way her insides cavorted about like a drunken faery.
“I can do many things that you don’t know about.” His voice rustled over her, deep and stirring with promise. He led her through an under arm-turn and snuggled her against his hip again, though this time they faced opposite directions. They moved slowly, one step per measure in a small circle. “Where did you learn to waltz?”
“At school after the headmistress called for lights out. Though I must confess when I danced it with Lysandra, there was a good deal more giggling involved.”
He smiled down at her. “I imagine there was.”
The man had seen her naked and yet she’d never felt quite so bare before him as she did now when she was required to look into his eyes without respite before a roomful of people. Jonah turned her in his arms and they began the slow circles facing each other. The ballroom became a blur of color at the edges of her vision. The many candelabras turned into vibrant pinwheels of light.
Every bit of her was intensely aware of each place their bodies touched. The brush of her breasts against his chest set the tips aching. His hand at her waist was so warm, she felt the heat of him through the layers of fabric separating them. They moved together to the music and it reminded her of how they’d moved together in other more intimate ways. His lead was so firm, she had no chance to stumble or mistake where the dance was heading. He turned her as he willed, and she melted in his arms.
And always there were his eyes—those deep green eyes. They were flecked with gold, she realized, and fringed with lashes as dark as his brows. And behind them, there was the man.
His eyes were saying what his lips never had.
He wanted her. That wasn’t in the least doubt, but there seemed to be more there as well.
Was that love in his gaze? Surely it was. She couldn’t be imagining it. There was such tenderness on his features, much more than she’d have expected of someone who’d led such a life as his, one devoid of any softness or ease. And she seemed to hear a question he hadn’t given voice.
Couldn’t, he’d said at the castle.
Why ever not? she wondered. Serena had received plenty of proposals during her first Season and they weren’t all from men the ton considered eligible. Was it only the difference in their stations that kept Jonah from asking for her hand?
“I was thinking today of an old saying,” she began.
“Let me guess.” The warmth in his gaze was replaced by an inquisitive glint. “‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’?”
“No.” She hadn’t intended to turn this into a guessing game. “It’s—”
“‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Funny that so many old sayings involve feathers, isn’t it?” There was no need for him to whisper. It w
asn’t as if they were saying anything that shouldn’t be overheard, but something about the intimacy of the waltz seemed to require it.
“No, that’s not it,” she hissed in frustration. He was completely spoiling the romantic mood of the dance. “And in any case, I don’t mean for you to guess.”
“Oh. My apologies. Perhaps you’d better tell me then.” This time he bent his head so he could whisper directly into her ear. His warm breath washing down her neck sent shivers of wicked sensation over her skin. The romance was definitely back. “What were you thinking?”
She leaned into him a bit as they executed another turn. “I was thinking about how a ‘cat may look at a king.’”
He raised his head and frowned down at her. “And you’re the cat in this scenario.”
Drat. Well, she supposed she could see how he might have thought that, seeing as how a royal duke was only a few heartbeats from being a king. “No, I’m not the cat.”
“Am I the king then?” he asked with a beaming smile.
She wanted to tell him it didn’t matter who was the cat or who was the king. The saying meant that in some instances, differences in station truly made no difference at all. That if he were hesitating because she was the daughter of a marquis and he a mere baronet, he should realize it didn’t matter to her a snippet. If he asked her, she’d say—
“Well, am I?” he prompted. “Or does the proverbial cat have your tongue?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, Jonah. You’re the king.”
“Good. That’s all I wanted to hear.”
She clamped her lips shut.
“You’re upset,” he guessed, an amused grin still tugging at his mouth. “Why?”
“Because you’re being purposely silly and this is not the way a waltz is supposed to be.”
“All right. Since we’ve exhausted all other possibilities, in this metaphor you must have considered yourself the king and me the cat. And as far has how a waltz is supposed to be…” His smile faded and a smoldering look replaced it. “Would you rather hear how I want to pull out all your pins and shake the stars from your hair?”