“Cold? Yet it's such a warm evening. Quite unseasonable.”
Putting the utensil down, Sarah folded her hands in her lap. Despite the noise all around her, she straightened the instant his voice sounded through the din. Perhaps it was wrong, unladylike as her Aunt Whitsun would have said, but her eyes went at once to the door, ignoring her right-hand neighbor.
“You know,” Mrs. Flint said. “My son, Nigel, suffers agonies from the cold. I'm always knitting him something warm. Why, last year ...”
Sarah had to turn back and face Mrs. Flint while that lady spoke. She could not be rude and turn her back, though no one could expect reasonable answers under the circumstances. When at last free to look again, she saw Lord Reyne, half-hidden behind a silver candelabra. He was listening to Sir Arthur. So far as she could see, he made monosyllabic answers. All she asked now was to be able to sit, chin in hand, and gaze upon him.
Evening clothes became him well, playing up his fair coloring against the black self-effacing fabric. His linen was white, bringing out his tanned skin. He was too thin but ate little. What was he thinking of, she wondered, to cloud his eyes so? She remembered well his brief smiles and longed to see one now.
All at once, as though he felt he were under observation, Lord Reyne ran his eyes down the table's opposite side. When his stern gaze passed over her, Sarah felt herself blush. Immediately, she began to talk to Miss Calpurnia Grissom on her left, although she had nothing to say to her.
“I ... I ... the hunting should be good this year?”
“Oh, without doubt. My father says ...but I think ...” Fortunately, Miss Grissom was the sort of woman who possessed profound opinions on every conceivable subject. Safe from having to comment beyond a yes or no, Sarah dared to raise her eyes again to Lord Reyne. He jabbed without interest at the sliced beef that had replaced the soup. She wondered if he was thinking about pineapples. Would it be too forward of her to offer to go at once to Tahiti for one?
Embarrassed, Sarah recollected she could not spend the entire dinner staring at Lord Reyne, dearly though she would have liked to. When she at last turned her attention to the gentlemen across the table, it was to discover Harcourt Phelps staring back at her with a scowl. This cleared immediately upon her smile.
“I say, you will keep a dance clear for me?” She was about to answer yes, when from beside him, Harold said, “And for me?”
“I get her first dance, because I'm oldest and asked first.”
“Oh, have it your own way. I prefer to claim the final dance. Perhaps I can see you home, Sarah? Or did you come with your parents?” He half-waved at Mrs. East.
“I'm staying with your sister, tonight.” The young male faces brightened. “Along with half a dozen other girls.” Harcourt surveyed the long line of ladies opposite with the air of a sultan invoicing the latest bunch of harem beauties. “I shan't dance with anyone but you,” he announced at the end of his appraisal.
“Neither shall I,” his brother answered at once.
Lady Phelps had other plans. Between the older gentleman who did not dance and the younger gentleman who did not wish to dance, her duty was clear. Too many girls with their backs against the wall would ruin her party. Except for war, she found men preferred to shirk unpleasant duties. She glided about the ballroom, influencing her sons to do the pretty. Even Harvey, highly indolent as a rule, was persuaded by maternal authority to step out onto the floor with every female in the room.
In his adolescence, he had shot up two feet in one year, without growing the strength to match his length. He chose Sarah almost at once. “I have been many places,” he said in his rather snuffling, drawling voice, aped, had she known it, from some of the finest bucks in the country.
“Yes, I know you have, Harvey.”
“I mean to say, that I have danced in many places, and it is rare to find a girl who is ... well, tall enough for me. It's a dreadful thing to talk down to a female. Quite ... quite enervatin'.” He smothered a yawn and smiled into Sarah's eyes.
“It isn't right,” Harold muttered to his rival. “Harvey's the heir. He could sweep her away, and we'd never have a chance.”
“True,” Harcourt replied. “But he's dreadfully weedy. Sarah likes the outdoor life.” Inhaling, Harcourt imperiled the seams of his tight evening coat.
Unconsciously, Harold imitated him. Poet he might be, but there was nothing wrong with his thews or sinews. He'd kept up and sometimes surpassed his twin in many athletic feats, though he might despise mere brawn. Many young girls sighed.
Catching Lady Phelps’ stern eye, the twins separated to perform duty dances, though they spent more of that set glaring at their eldest brother than flattering their female partners. During the rest of the sets, they glared at each other.
Though Sarah knew all the steps, her attention was neither on her dancing nor on her partners. The compliments passed around her like shreds of mist, because they did not come from Lord Reyne. After dinner, he had disappeared. No, wait, there he was, talking to Lady Phelps. Looking over her shoulder at the earl, Sarah stumbled.
With a bow, her partner took responsibility for the mistake, then proceeded on, releasing her hand to turn away. Sarah began to follow. At her next step, however, the cold floor communicated itself to the sole of her foot. Sarah paused, as the dance went on without her, and looked down. Her delicately colored stocking peeked out from beneath the hem of her gown. She wiggled her toes, to be certain she saw what she saw.
One sandal had definitely come off. Looking about, she beheld it, only a foot away. Sarah began to bend for it, but the stays Molly had insisted she wear precluded any deviation from perfect uprightness. With a stricken look, she glanced up at her partner. Finding she had not followed him through the dance, he came over at once, kicking the sandal away, unaware he'd done so.
It slid across the slick floor, was checked by another girl executing a turn, and then was sent skidding backwards by another male dancing pump. Hastily, Sarah shoved out her shod foot to stop it, only to misjudge the distance. The sandal went shooting on. Revolving slowly, it came to rest against the foot of the Earl of Reyne.
Sarah saw Lord Reyne look down and then back to the face of his hostess. For a heartbeat, he continued to talk pleasantly before he glanced involuntarily downward again, a tiny frown drawing his brows together.
The brilliant blue eyes darted right and left, scanning the feet of the women present. The fashion was for skirts to be extra long this year and his investigation met with defeat.
He smiled once more upon Lady Phelps, even as he drew out his handkerchief to wipe his brow, though Sarah had not noticed any perspiration upon it. Dropping the linen square, he laughed at his clumsiness.
After a moment, he waved to one of the footmen, keeping his own foot upon the handkerchief. She saw him point down and smile apologetically. The servant, young Fred, hesitated when he stooped and touched the square of cloth. He looked up from his bent position and said, “My lord?”
“My handkerchief, if you please.”
“Yes, yes, Fred, what is the difficulty?” Lady Phelps asked. “Kindly pick it up for his lordship.”
Lord Reyne wore a bland smile. Picking up the handkerchief in both hands, the footman handed it to the earl, who, in return, handed over something that glinted in the candlelight.
Folding the handkerchief with some difficulty, Lord Reyne tucked it once more into his inner breast pocket. The sandal had vanished, but Sarah had not seen it kicked away.
Pleasantly, Sarah said to her partner, “I think we shall sit down now.” The floor was cold, but she contrived to walk without favoring her right foot. She sat alone for a few moments after sending the young man off to fetch her a cooling sip of lemonade. Aunt Whitsun had said that this was the best method of distracting a man. Sarah felt a brief shock that Aunt Whitsun should be right about something.
Lord Reyne still stood beside Lady Phelps. Glancing at the card dangling from her wrist, Sarah realized she had only u
ntil the end of this second dance of the set, now beginning, to reclaim her sandal. Then some man, whose name she could not quite make out, would come to escort her through another.
Searching out Lady Phelps, very noticeable in a bright pink silk tunic over her evening dress, Sarah rose to approach the gentleman beside her hostess. Though she shrank from speaking to Lord Reyne about such an embarrassing subject, she could not pretend to have two sandals for the rest of the evening. The marble was very cold and quite slick beneath her silken stocking.
Hesitating behind the gentleman, she feared to break in on Lady Phelps’ conversation. But that lady, best friend of Mrs. East and, she hoped, future mother-in-law to Sarah, smiled as soon as she saw her. “My dear, do you know Mr. Breed?”
The gentleman turned, and Sarah wondered how she could have made the mistake. He was dark, but utterly different in every other respect to Lord Reyne.
“Yes ... I mean ... no ... how do you ... that is. Lady Phelps, can you read the next name on my card for me?”
“Why, yes. Oh, dear, my handwriting grows worse and worse,” said Lady Phelps. Craning her neck, she tried to spot the gentleman among her friends. “He was here speaking to me one moment ago. There he is, going out into the garden. He did say he wanted some air, but I thought he knew ...”
“Thank you,” Sarah said with a hasty bob. She saw the small door close, leaving no mark in the paneling to show where it had been. Having played nearly as often at Hollytrees on wet days as at her own home, Sarah knew the secret passage well. An earlier ancestor had not wanted to spoil the symmetry of the ballroom with any entrance other than the great main arch.
She scurried down a long stuffy hall, the music and laughter muffled behind the closed door. “Lord Reyne?” she called. The slowly moving earl paused.
“Miss East, isn't it?”
He remembered her!
“Yes, I ... I believe you have my sandal?” What a bald way of putting it. Sarah could have kicked herself, shod or not. Why hadn't she listened when Aunt Whitsun had taught her how to comport herself around men? She'd seen other girls lower their lashes and half-turn their heads, but these tricks only made her dizzy.
“Is this it?” he asked, as if the floor had been littered knee-deep with misplaced footwear.
“Yes, it was too big. I couldn't keep it on.” Taking it from him, she held it unsure of what to do. Without stays, she could have bent down at once or lifted her foot across her thigh to rebuckle it. She bit her lip in consternation.
Lord Reyne said apologetically, “Pray, forgive me for not replacing it on your foot, but as I told you ...”
They regarded the inanimate object with frustration. “I can't go back without it,” Sarah said.
“No, I quite see that. Permit me to give you my arm. Miss East. We'll step outside. It's too warm in this hall for thought.” He pushed open the door under his hand. They both inhaled instinctively as the cool, scented breeze curled around them “Lean on me. Miss East,” he said.
“Oh, I don't want to hurt you.”
“I think I can support this burden.” The smile she'd waited for touched the corners of his lips and pulled powerfully on her heartstrings. Beneath her hand was pure muscle. She could feel it flex as he clenched his hand. Lord Reyne escorted her at once to a stone bench at the edge of the terrace.
“What are we to do about your ... ?” He flicked his fingers at the sandal.
“I don't know. I'm ...” She longed to seem competent in his eyes, as she had when climbing the tree, but it was impossible. With heat rising into her cheeks, she confessed, “I'd do it myself, but I'm wearing stays.”
Had this interview taken place but one month earlier, it would have still been light enough at ten o'clock to see Lord Reyne's face. Now, however, there was only the darkening sky of twilight above them, the crescent moon hardly noticeable through a misty haze. Therefore, Sarah could not be certain of the meaning of the choked sounds coming from him. “You're all right? I didn't hurt you?” she asked in some anxiety.
His coughing fit ended. Lord Reyne said, “Why this concern. Miss East? I assure you I have offered support to far heftier ladies than yourself.”
“You said you'd been wounded. Harmonia said horribly wounded, and I thought perhaps your arm ... ?”
“So, I am the subject of girlish gossip?”
“Oh, no, I asked her about you.”
“Well, permit me to put your mind at rest. My wounds are not horrible, but honorable. I was shot, I fell, and was ...”
He'd received a ball in the thigh during the first charge. He could not recall now what it had felt like. That moment was too quickly overlaid by other memories, though he knew an obscure pride at having kept his seat and at turning about to lead the next attack.
The dust and the heat and the sharp smell of blood, cutting through everything else. The scream that he strove to keep behind his lips, only to fail as he tumbled from the saddle. The face of the dead Spaniard beside him on the field. And above all, the feel of a bayonet in his back, swelling up to override every other sensation, even of the pain of the ball in his chest.
But he had lived, and that was something. He could look down and see the gleam of bright hair beneath the rising moon and know the beautiful eyes of Miss Sarah East were looking back. He knew many men who would never see anything more, nor hear the gentle voice of a naive girl, nor, for that matter, breathe the scent of an English garden. Thinking of them, Alaric wanted to cough, to go back to that stuffy hall, for there at least he could inhale without remembering those others.
“Lord Reyne?”
He shook his head, and she saw a quick gleam of teeth. “I was decorated. Miss East, for my regiment took the hill we were after. And that is the total sum of my military career. The doctors assure me I should soon be as flexible as any acrobat. I do, however, regret that day has not yet come, for your foot's sake.” He half-bowed, wryly.
“I think I know what we could do about that.” How sweet to be able to combine herself with him, even if only for a moment. She stood up, the big toe of her right foot just brushing the ground. “You see how we are at the very edge of the terrace? There's a ha-ha down there. It's not very deep. If I sort of dangled my foot, could you ... ?”
“Attach your sandal? I think I could. Where does one get down?” He took the sandal from her gloved hands.
“There are some stairs over there.”
Looking up a few minutes later, Alaric saw a white oblong object hovering in mid-air. “Can you come down any further?” he whispered. Obliging, the object dropped a trifle.
Though he could feel the strain across his back when he lifted his hands, Alaric realized the girl was balanced precariously on one foot. If he made too many demands, she might tumble off the wall. Touching her foot, he felt her tremble and hoped to God the chit wasn't ticklesome.
“Good evening,” she said from above his head. Alaric stayed his hands on the slim ankle. For the first time, he realized the strangeness of his position, deep in a ditch, looking up like a decadent Romeo at the girl above. “Oh, no,” the girl said. “I'm just enjoying ... enjoying the view. I mean, the night. Isn't ... isn't the moon lovely?”
Sarah fought down a giggle. If only he wouldn't touch her so gently. She said to the elderly couple before her, “Mother? I know she's about some ... somewhere. I saw her inside. No, no, she'll be glad to have you call at any time.” She felt another laugh bubbling up. Containing it was painful.
Now her left knee began to shake with the strain of sole support. And the dear woman before her was telling her the entire recipe for eel soup that Mrs. East had requested. Then, the tormenting touch on her foot was gone, and in its place, a palm pressed under her right sole, pushing up to offer a steady platform on which to stand. Gratefully, Sarah rested against it, though by no means putting her full weight down.
When Sarah was once more alone, Alaric quickly fastened the last two buckles, forcing his fingers to hurry where they would have lin
gered, strictly of their own volition. Golden Sarah East, dressed in a white gown that hinted at the firm curves beneath, was as lovely as any woman he'd ever seen. But a blossom in her first youth was not the sort of girl a man of character engaged in a flirtation. Especially when he had but recently pledged himself to another.
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Chapter Three
Now that they stood together, Sarah realized it had been worthwhile to spend extra care over her appearance. Nothing less than perfection would do if she were to dance with Lord Reyne. With her sandal secured, she felt she could redeem herself in his eyes by stepping lightly over the floor. He had brought her in from the garden with considerable haste, and she hoped it meant he was eager to partner her. But here he was, bowing away.
“Lord Reyne,” she said, crushed. “Lady Phelps wrote you down for this dance.” Fumbling for the card, she showed it to him as though it were a writ from on high.
“Did she?”
“Yes, see?'’ When his face betrayed not even polite interest, Sarah felt like a fool, gauche and forward. Aunt Whitsun had often called these her faults.
“Very well, then,” he said, touching his cravat. “If she wrote me down, I must fulfill my duty.”
“If you are unable ... if it will pain you ...”
“Confound it. Miss East. I am not an invalid.” Alaric held out his hand to her, commandingly. Yet, he'd danced little since returning home, not even at Brighton, gayest and giddiest of watering-places. He watched as the other couples took their places. “Do you know this one?”
“I learned it a few months ago, at Leamington Spa where I stayed with my great-aunt.”
“Ah. Well,” he said, swinging her hand a little as though unsure of what to do with it. He smiled at her. “I suppose I can stumble through somehow.”
Sarah was astonished to see that Lord Reyne never put a foot wrong, though he acknowledged the steps of the chassez bagatelle were new to him. She'd had three weeks with a dancing instructor and still sometimes made a fiasco when embarked upon it.
A Lady in Love Page 3