by Mary Balogh
She rapped him on the arm with her fan. “Their mamas would line them up to dance with you if it were not an ungenteel thing to do,” she said. “And their daughters would be only too happy to stand and wait. I may be slightly partial since you are my daughter-in-law’s brother, but I do believe you are the most handsome young man in the ballroom. Is he not, Lizzie?”
Colin laughed and hoped he was not blushing.
“You look very distinguished in black and white,” Elizabeth told him, her eyes twinkling.
“Which is a tactful way of saying I am not the most handsome man here?” he said. She had called him just that at the Boxing Day party, he recalled.
“I have seen two or three who might give you some competition,” she told him. “Lady Dunmore is certainly going to be able to boast tomorrow that she hosted the first grand squeeze of the Season so far, is she not?”
“Who would dare contradict her?” he asked. “She has been declaring it so, apparently, for the past week. The next set is to be a waltz. Will you dance it with me, Elizabeth?”
“Oh, do, Lizzie,” Mrs. Westcott urged. “You know how you love the waltz above all other dances. And poor Lord Hodges may be doomed to being a wallflower if you refuse, for most of the very young ladies will not be allowed to dance it.”
“You have exposed my worst fear, ma’am,” he said, and she laughed and tapped him on the arm again and turned her eyes upon her daughter.
“It would appear that I must do my charitable deed for the day and waltz with you, then,” Elizabeth said.
She had not told her mother about their private arrangement? He wondered why not. The two of them seemed close.
“It is the supper dance,” he reminded Elizabeth as he led her onto the floor.
“Is it indeed?” she said. “Does that mean we are going to have to converse for all of half an hour over our supper? I hope you have enough observations about the weather to keep awkward silences at bay.”
“If I have not,” he said, “I can always resort to assassinating the characters of a few of our fellow guests.”
“Ah, a man of infinite resources.” She laughed, and he felt instantly happy. He loved her laughter.
They stopped on the dance floor and stood face to face, smiling at each other. He set one hand behind her waist and held up his other hand for hers. She took it and set her left hand on his shoulder. She smelled good—of a lightly floral scent with hints of something more spicy. He was not good at identifying perfumes, only at appreciating them—or not. Most girls he had danced with emphasized the floral a bit much.
“I wonder,” he said, “if there will be hand clapping and foot stamping and a few exuberant whoops tonight.”
“Poor Lady Dunmore would swoon quite away and never lift her head in public again,” she said.
The music began at that moment, and he twirled her into the steps of the waltz, noting, as he had on Boxing Day, how light she was in his arms, how her spine arched inward beneath his hand, how she followed his lead without faltering and without causing him to fear that he would tread on her dancing slippers or that she would trip over his shoes.
There were other couples waltzing, though not as many as for the other dances. Most of the very young people stood on the sidelines watching and trying not to look wistful. Ross Parmiter was waltzing with Lady Jessica Archer, John Croft with Miss Cowley, Colin’s first partner of the evening—and looking at her, interestingly enough, rather as if he was falling in love. The ballroom smelled like a garden. There was cool air wafting through the open French windows along one side of the room. Candlelight from the chandeliers overhead seemed to swirl with the rhythm of the dance.
But after a minute or two Colin stopped noticing his surroundings. He even forgot the ease with which they danced together, he and Elizabeth. He felt only the exhilaration of waltzing with a partner who loved the dance as he did and moved in his arms as though she fit there. As though she belonged there. She danced with a slight smile on her face, more dreamy than deliberate, a sort of Mona Lisa smile. And this was how dancing should always be, he thought. It could go on for all of the rest of the evening as far as he was concerned. The circle of their bodies and the space between were a warm and private world within a larger world of color and music and dance.
But inevitably the music drew to an end.
“We did agree, did we not, Lady Overfield,” he said as they stopped dancing but did not immediately let go of each other, “that we would waltz at every ball of the Season?”
“We did indeed, Lord Hodges,” she replied, the dreamy smile fading to be replaced by her more habitual twinkle. “And I shall hold you to the promise. You waltz better than any other partner I have ever had. But do not tell my brother that, if you please.”
“My lips are sealed.” He offered his arm to lead her into the supper room and was very glad he had chosen this waltz rather than the one later. He felt happy and lighthearted, as he had not felt since he left the country. For a while he could forget about the weight of his self-appointed task of reordering his life and simply enjoy the company of a poised, beautiful woman.
And I shall hold you to the promise. He felt flattered. No—he felt honored.
“Let us make it the first waltz at each ball, shall we?” he said.
Her eyes were smiling warmly when they met his. “The first it shall be,” she agreed.
* * *
• • •
Lady Dunmore must be feeling very gratified indeed, Elizabeth thought as they entered the supper room. Chairs were close packed on either side of the two long tables, and every one was occupied, as far as she could see. Several smaller tables had had to be arranged about the perimeter of the room to accommodate the remaining guests. Colin seated her at one of them, and she was secretly glad.
“I have never particularly enjoyed waltzing at London balls,” he said, shaking out his linen napkin and spreading it on his lap.
“Yet it is the very dance you have engaged to perform with me at each ball of the Season,” she said.
“Oh.” He looked at her, startled, and then laughed. “I have never much enjoyed it—before tonight. It has always been such a chore. One feels obliged to remember the steps and execute them with precision and elegance, to guide one’s partner without either treading upon her dancing slippers or crashing into another couple with her, and—as if all that were not enough—to converse with her too.”
“But you did not converse with me,” she pointed out as she set a collection of savories and sweets on her plate from the selection in the middle of the table.
“I did not, did I?” he agreed. “You see? I am an abject failure. But I felt comfortable enough with you simply to enjoy the dance. I knew I would, though. It is why I asked you to waltz with me at every ball.”
Comfortable. There was not much romance in the word, was there? But why should there be?
“And you did not once tread upon my feet,” she said.
He grimaced. “I did it once,” he told her. “The very first time I waltzed in public. My partner was a true lady, though. She brushed off my profuse apologies with the smiling assurance that it was nothing at all, but for all of the following half hour I could see that she was gritting her teeth in mortal agony.”
They both laughed as he filled his own plate. But they were interrupted before he had finished when Lady Dunmore came hurrying up to their table.
“Lord Hodges,” she said, sounding mortified, “you really ought not to be sitting at one of these tables, removed from our other guests. There is an empty place close to the head table. Do let me seat you there.”
Colin glanced at Elizabeth. “I am quite content to be here with Lady Overfield, ma’am,” he assured her.
She turned to Elizabeth, as though noticing her for the first time. “Ah,” she said. “Now where can we place you, Lady Overfield? Perhaps closer
to Mrs. Westcott?” She looked along one of the long tables.
“Please do not exert yourself, ma’am,” Colin said, a firmer note in his voice. “Lady Overfield and I are perfectly happy with each other’s company. We are, after all, almost siblings. My sister is married to her brother.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” she said. “Very well, then, but you really ought to have been more appropriately directed when you stepped into the room.” She moved away, clearly vexed with her servants.
“I do believe,” Elizabeth said, “you have been approved as a suitor for Miss Dunmore’s hand. Are you happy about it?”
He thought. “She seems to be a sweet young lady, though a little on the shy side,” he said. “Getting her to contribute more than a monosyllable here and there to a conversation is a bit like pulling teeth.”
“But she is very pretty,” she said.
“She is,” he agreed. “Exceedingly.”
“You are doing what you were thinking about at Christmastime, then?” she asked him. “You are looking for a bride?”
“I suppose so,” he said. “It seems cold-blooded. But I daresay one cannot have a wife if one does not first seek one.” He looked at Elizabeth.
For a moment she felt a stabbing of envy. If she were only ten or fifteen years younger . . . But even as a girl she had not been renowned for her good looks. She would have been no competition for someone like Miss Dunmore. She had actually been surprised when Desmond began to court her, for he had been a handsome man, much sought after by other ladies.
“And what of Sir Geoffrey Codaire?” he asked. “He was your partner in the first set, and I cut him out for the waltz. He was making his way toward you, and I broke into a run to reach you first.”
“Oh, you did not,” she protested, laughing. “What a spectacle you would have made of yourself.”
He always looked particularly boyish—and impossibly attractive—when he grinned, as he did now. Then he was serious again. “Is he the one you are going to marry?” he asked.
“Goodness,” she said. “There is no offer on the table.” She glanced to where Sir Geoffrey was sitting, talking with Sir Randolph Dunmore at one of the long tables. By chance she caught his eye and smiled.
“But there has been and will be again?” Colin asked. “Is he the one who offered for you last year? And do invite me to mind my own business if I am being offensive.”
“He was indeed obliging enough to ask me last year,” she admitted. “Whether he will repeat the offer this year remains to be seen. It is altogether possible he will take me at my word and content himself with being my friend.”
“And would you be disappointed?” he asked.
Would she? She did not know what other prospects she might have. One of the other gentlemen who had shown some interest last year seemed to have lost it this year. He was here tonight and had not come near her. The others were not here at all and might not even be in town. Besides, none of them had entered into anything that might honestly be described as a courtship.
“He is a worthy gentleman,” she said.
“And worthiness matters to you,” he said. It was not a question.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It is of primary concern, in fact. If I remarry at all, it must be to someone I can trust.”
“Trust to do what?” he asked, leaning back so that a servant could pour their tea.
Elizabeth waited until the man had moved on to the next table. “To remain worthy for the rest of our lives,” she said. “I cannot be more specific than that, I am afraid.”
“You want your life to be predictable, then,” he said.
“Yes, I do.” She sighed. “It sounds dreadfully dull, does it not? But dull predictability has its attractions, Colin, when one is thirty-five years old and has experienced all the perils of unpredictability. I would know what I was getting into with Sir Geoffrey and what to expect.”
“You do not want any laughter?” he asked her. “Or any joy?”
“Does worthiness preclude them?” she asked. Though she could not actually imagine laughing with Sir Geoffrey. Or feeling joyful with him.
“You were made for joy, Elizabeth,” Colin said. “Remember Christmas?”
She remembered it all too well. It stood apart from everything else in her life for years past—perhaps ever.
“Not every day can be Christmas,” she said.
“Perhaps it ought to be,” he said, and she thought wistfully of snowball fights and sled runs and kisses in the snow.
“What of you?” she asked. “You have danced every set so far this evening, each time with a different partner. Have you met anyone else in addition to Miss Dunmore in whom you feel any particular interest?”
“I have enjoyed dancing with them all,” he said, “though with you most of all. I have not felt Cupid’s arrow penetrate my heart, if that is what you mean, not even over Miss Dunmore. The only time I looked across the ballroom and found myself gazing transfixed upon a special someone, she was you.”
His eyes were smiling, and Elizabeth laughed. It was a lame joke. Even so, she felt sad, for the same thing had happened to her when she spotted him in the receiving line and realized he had come after all. As though his attendance was all on account of her and his promise to waltz with her. As though she had come here for no other reason.
She was supposed to be thinking of Sir Geoffrey tonight and of her future. She was supposed to be thinking of security and trust and good sense, not lamenting that she had been born fifteen years too soon.
“What qualities are you looking for?” she asked. “Beauty and sweetness of character?”
“More strength of character, I suppose,” he said. “Being my wife will not be easy.”
“You plan to be a bad-tempered tyrant, then?” she asked.
“I hope not,” he said. “No, what I meant was that being my baroness will not be easy. Not under the circumstances.”
The circumstances being his mother, she supposed, and the fact that he had not yet really taken up his inheritance and put the stamp of his own character upon it.
“I have not even been to Roxingley in eight years,” he said. “My mother lives there.”
Yes. The girl he chose as his bride would have a difficult time of it. She would need great strength of character. She was not to be envied—except in her bridegroom.
“Elizabeth.” He leaned forward slightly across the table, the smile gone from his eyes. “Tell me how I am to find a woman just like you.”
Her heart turned over. Her stomach too. His eyes, gazing into hers, were as earnest as she had ever seen them. She set down her cup in its saucer, careful not to rattle it. She was thankful she had not drunk much or eaten anything.
“Well, let me see,” she said. “For one thing, there is no one just like me. There is only me.” What did he see when he looked at her? A mature woman who had all of life’s answers? “For another, I have years of experience of life that the young ladies among whom you are seeking a bride cannot be expected to have. They will learn, however. None of us can escape the ups and downs of life, and we all gain far more from experience than from any advice we hear from loved ones or read from any book.”
He gazed at her for long moments before saying anything.
“Girls are raised for marriage, are they not?” he said. “For being wives and carrying out wifely duties, including the running of the marital home.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why do they not all rebel?” he asked.
“Because we are raised to believe that is what we want,” she said.
“And is it?” He frowned. “What did you want, Elizabeth?”
“Marriage.” She smiled. “And happily-ever-after.”
“I am sorry it did not work out for you,” he said, searching her eyes with his own. “And now you want marriag
e again with a dull, solid fellow?”
It did seem a bit like madness when there were such things as laughter and joy in the world. But they were fleeting things and not always available. Solidity of character was dependable.
“I want my own home,” she said. “I want to be part of a couple so that I do not have to feel lonely at events like family Christmases. I want—I hope for—children.”
“Your need is emotional,” he said, “yet you look for safety and dependability. My need is practical, yet I dream of love. I would like to be in love with the woman I marry. But there are so many other considerations that I suppose are more important. I dream of perfection, Elizabeth. You do not dream at all.”
She felt stricken. Of course she dreamed. Oh, of course she did. Did he not understand that even her modest hopes might be beyond her grasp if no one offered for her? No one upon whom she could depend, anyway.
“I am being an insensitive lout, am I not?” he said when she did not reply. “I daresay you would prefer to be head over heels in love with Codaire if it were possible. I have made you look unhappy in the middle of a ball, when I should be making you smile. Let us talk about something else. I had a letter from Roe this morning—from Wren. She tells me Alexander keeps insisting that the baby smiles at him when she knows very well it is merely wind.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth said. “That is sweet. I so envy them.”
“Because they are married and in love?” he asked her. “Because they have a child? I was supposed to be changing the subject.”
“I had two miscarriages during my marriage,” she told him. And goodness, she was not in the habit of talking about that. Never that. Even with her mother.
“Perhaps,” he said after a brief silence, his voice low and gentle beneath the hubbub of conversation at the long tables—and he reached out a hand to cover the back of one of hers—“you will have better fortune with Codaire or whichever of your suitors you choose to marry. You have had a number of dancing partners this evening. All the single ones among them must realize what a perfect treasure you are.”