Elizabeth Mansfield (8 page)

He was soon joined by Lord Ainsworth. "Still a bit damp out here," his lordship remarked.

"Dry enough for me," Percy responded. "I just came out to blow a cloud."

"So I see." Lord "Ainsworth perched on the balustrade. “Too bad the rain didn't stop earlier. We might have gotten in some good shooting."

"Perhaps tomorrow. I'd like to join you, if I may. Nothing I like better 'n a bit of good shooting."

"Yes, of course. Come down at six, if the weather looks promising." Harry glanced at the other man from the corner of his eye. "How's the shooting down in Suffolk? You do come from there, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. My land marches with the Rendells', you know."

"So I heard." He paused and looked down at his boots, as if he were studying their design. "Lady Madge says you and Miss Rendell were childhood sweethearts."

"Kate and I did grow up together. But I'm not sure about being sweethearts."

Harry lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Not sure?"

"I've been after her for years, I admit that. Everyone knows it. But Kate's not an easy girl to pin down." He removed his pipe from between his lips and threw Harry a sly smile. "Just lately, though, I've begun to have hopes..."

"Have you, indeed?" Harry peered at the other man interestedly. "Given you signs, has she?"

Percy expelled a plume of smoke and nodded. "Of late she has. And—would you credit it?—just as I was about to give it all up."

"Were you? Why was that?"

Percy shrugged. "I'd tried to woo her with a poem. That was a mistake." He took a last puff and tapped the bowl of his pipe on the edge of the balustrade. "Women!" he said with a rueful laugh. "I'll never understand 'em."

"But that's the greatest part of their attraction," Harry said. "We're not meant to understand them. In the game of love, women are like feats of magic— they lose their charm when we figure out how they work. Wasn't it Congreve who wrote,

'Women are like tricks of sleight of hand,
 

Which, to admire, we should not understand.'?"

"Hrnmmph," Percy grunted. "That may be so, but how are we supposed to win 'em if we can't understand 'em? Take Kate, for example. Wouldn't you think a woman who reads poetry would be pleased at being offered a bit of verse? But no, just the opposite."

"Perhaps," Harry suggested, suppressing a grin, "it was the wrong verse."

"No verse would have been right," Percy said decidedly as he pocketed his emptied pipe. "Well, I'm ready to go back inside. Join me, old fellow?"

Harry nodded and rose from his perch. "May as well. It's too damp out here."

The two men rose and started back. “Take my advice, Ainsworth," Percy said, clapping Harry on the shoulder, "if you should decide to woo a lady, don't do it with poetry."

FOURTEEN

To everyone's intense relief, the day of the ball dawned crisp and clear. All the men (including their host and Sir Edward, who hadn't joined them the last time) cheerfully went off for their delayed hunt, eager to participate in some manly action and get out of the way of the preparations for the ball. The group included an overjoyed Benjy, who'd been permitted to join them on his promise that he would ask for no other activity than to assist in reloading the firearms.

Meanwhile, the women, understanding that they should leave the public rooms clear for the staff to prepare for the evening's festivities, remained closeted in their rooms, massaging their faces with cucumber lotion and giving their abigails plenty of time to wash and dress their hair. Thus, the household staff was able to scurry about unimpeded while they prepared for the big event.

The entire staff was needed for those preparations. Chandeliers had to be lowered and dusted, hundreds of fresh candles had to be pressed into dozens of wall sconces, the furniture in the great hall had to be pushed against the walls and the carpets rolled to clear the center of the room for the dancing, and card tables had to be set up in the small, adjoining rooms. Below stairs, the French cook and his assistants busily rolled dough and minced lamb and boiled barley water and undertook the dozens of other tasks required for preparing a menu of
hors d'oeuvres
that included truffles cooked in ashes, cabbage flowers with Parmesan cheese, carrots
à la béchamel,
mushrooms
Provençal,
lobster salad on crisp orange biscuits, Chinese hermitage, oysters
au gratin, croque
with pistachio nuts, and little apple
soufflés.
The evening promised to be grand indeed.

At eight that night, the house guests, bedecked in their most elaborate finery, assembled for a light dinner. While they dined, the local gentry arrived and assembled in the ballroom. As the dinner guests began their meal, they could hear the musicians, thirty-six of them, tuning up. The sounds added to the excitement in the air.

Deirdre entered the dining room after everyone else was seated, and the first sight of her caused a chorus of gasps. She was breathtakingly lovely, her cheeks blushing pink, her gleaming hair piled atop her head with a few tendrils left free to curl about her face, and her eyes agleam with joy. In her opal-white brocaded silk gown, with its gauzy silver overdress, she was positively resplendent. Kate had never seen her look so beautiful and so happy.

Someone who did not seem happy was Benjy. Though dressed to the nines in a shiny new dinner coat and striped waistcoat, he nevertheless kept his head lowered over his plate all through the meal, never smiling at any of the pleasantries being exchanged all around him or offering a word to anyone. After dinner, Kate took him out to the hallway. "What's wrong, Benjy?" she asked. "Did something go amiss at the hunt? Didn't you enjoy it?"

"The hunt was splendid," he assured her, his face lighting up at the memory. "Harry actually let me shoot. He helped me hold up his rifle and aim for a grouse. And I hit it! Right on the mark!"

"Well, that certainly
was
splendid. Then why were you looking so blue-deviled?"

"Because Grandmama says I may not go to the ball." The excited gleam faded from his eyes. "If my mother were alive, I'm sure she would've let me stay. Grandmama is much too old-fashioned. I must go up to bed, she says. She thinks a fourteen-year-old who hasn't even learned how to dance has no place in a ballroom."

"She's right, of course," Kate said, nevertheless patting his shoulder sympathetically. "It would be terribly dull for you to stand about on the sidelines, watching the rest of us cavort about."

"Then how am I ever to learn, if I'm not permitted to watch?"

This surprised Kate. "Do you
want
to team to dance? I thought boys your age only wanted to learn shooting and cricket and the manly sports."

“To be honest, Kate, I'd really like to be able to dance," Benjy said, reddening. "You see, sometimes our headmaster invites the girls from the Marchmont Academy for a social evening, and several of the fellows get up and dance with 'em, but I always stand about like a dolt."

"But isn't there someone at school who can teach you?" Kate asked, touched. "One of the fellows who knows how?"

"It's embarrassing to have to ask," the boy muttered glumly as he turned and started toward the stairway.

"Wait!" Kate called after him. "I'll teach you, Benjy! It'll be great fun."

Benjy swung about eagerly. "You will? When?"

“Tonight! Why not?" She brightened as the idea grew in her mind. "Listen, Benjy, go to the library, find yourself a book, and read for a while. I must go to the ball for an hour or so, for I'm promised to Percy for a waltz and to some others for a few of the country dances; but I'll slip out as soon as I can. I'll join you in the library and teach you."

Benjy's eyes lit up. "Would you really, Kate? That'd be smashing!"

"Yes, I think it will be. If we leave the library door ajar, we'll surely be able to hear the music. And we can dance to it!"

But before her words had left her tongue, his face fell again. "No, I can't," he said, taking a backward step, "it wouldn't be right. I can't ask you to miss the ball on my account."

"Nonsense, I'd much rather dance with you in the library than with any of the dandies and prigs who'll offer to stand up with me in the ballroom."

He shook his head. "No, thanks, Kate. Grandmama would have my head if she heard I made you miss the ball."

"She won't hear it. And I promise you, word of honor, that I won't be missing anything that would give me more pleasure than dancing with you. So run along to the library and wait for me. I won't be more than an hour." And, without giving him a chance to phrase another objection, she turned on her heel and ran off.

It was, as it ought to be, Deirdre's night. After the dinner guests had joined the assemblage in the ballroom, the orchestra broke into a rousing rendition of
Rule Britannia
as Deirdre made her entrance on her father's arm. To the applause and cheers of the crowd, Charles gallantly handed her over to her betrothed for the first dance.

It was the gayest of affairs. The house glowed with lights, and the lively music, combined with sounds of laughter, rang against the high ceilings and echoed gaily in the air. Deirdre was indeed having the night of her life. She waltzed twice with her betrothed with such abandon that, each time, the others on the floor stopped to watch them. Then, besieged with partners, she danced every dance with enthusiastic gaiety, apparently enjoying every partner's companionship with equal delight.

For Kate, however, the ball was less than delightful. For one thing, she wasn't able to wear the lavender ball gown she'd intended to, having foolishly worn it before, so she was forced to wear a very pale yellow lustring with a modest decolletage and girlishly puffed sleeves. It made her feel dowdy. For another, Percy was forever at her elbow. Because she'd encouraged his attentions the day before, she had not the heart to give him a set down now. But his shirt points—the highest of any man in the room—and his tightly curled hair, arranged in plastered-down ringlets across his forehead, made him conspicuous. Dancing with him was an embarrassing ordeal.

Worst of all, she still was still smarting from Harry's unkind remark of the day before. Soon after she entered the ballroom, he came up to her and asked her to dance, but she refused him. She would have enjoyed standing up with him, but her pride did not permit it.
If he thinks me too strong-minded,
she told herself defiantly,
then let him see how right he is!
But that act of refusal gave her only the bitterest of satisfaction.

Later, Sir Edward claimed her for a country dance known as Horatio's Fancy. "Your mother refuses to stand up with me," he complained as soon as they joined hands.

"Don't take offense, Sir Edward. Mama insists that dancing is for young women only," Kate explained.

"That's deuced nonsense," he said, huffing and puffing with the strain of performing the steps. "If elderly fellows like me can do it, I don't see why—"

But Kate did not hear the rest. She was distracted by the conversation of the couple just behind her. One of the voices was Harry's. "I've heard the warning repeated often," he was saying, "that love and marriage must be regarded as two separate states. You see, in the game of love, no matter what fellow you marry, you're certain to find, on waking the next day, that he's someone else."

Deirdre's high-pitched laughter rang out. "Oh, Harry," she cried loudly enough for the people near her to turn about, "you can't cozzen me. I know that your eternal 'in the game of love' is nothing but a dreadful tease!"

The movement of the dance separated them, and Kate could hear no more. But she couldn't help mulling over Harry's words. What did he mean by them? Was he trying to warn Deirdre away from wedding the fellow who was supposed to be his good friend? Or was he only teasing, as Deirdre had said? Then a truly dreadful possibility occurred to her.
Good heavens,
she asked herself in horrified confusion,
does he want her for himself?

FIFTEEN

Sir Edward, having handed Kate over to her next partner, Percy Greenway, made his way back to where Isabel was seated beside a potted palm. Still puffing from the effort of dancing, he mopped his brow with a large striped handkerchief and dropped down on a chair beside her. "Your daughter dances delightfully," he announced.

"Thank you," Isabel said, keeping herself from smiling at his obvious exhaustion.

"You surely dance as well as she," Edward went on when he'd recovered his bream. "You should have stood up with me."

She felt a wave of annoyance. How long would the fellow keep harping on her refusal to dance? "I hope, Edward," she remarked, "that you are not the sort who whines when he doesn't get his way."

"Whine?'' His eyebrows rose in offense. "I don't whine."

"No one believes himself to be a whiner, even if he is one," she said bluntly.

"I am
not
a whiner!" he cried. "I see nothing 'whining' about expressing disappointment at your refusal to dance with me."

She dismissed his defense with a wave of her hand. "We would have made a laughable couple."

"Why?" he demanded.

"We both look so ... so peculiar."

"Peculiar?" He was truly puzzled. "Why do you think we'd look peculiar?"

"I because of my feathers instead of my widow's cap, trying to appear youthful. As if I could possibly appear youthful with this plump, middle-aged figure of mine. And you..." She hesitated.

"And I?" he urged, leaning forward.

"And you with your powdered hair and long waistcoat that's at least two decades out of date. One would think you'd never even heard of Beau Brummell."

"I've heard of him," Edward muttered. "It doesn't mean I have to dress like him."

The doors to an adjoining drawing room opened at that moment to reveal a lavish buffet. Several of the guests who were sitting on the sidelines watching the dancing rose and started to move in that direction. Thankful for an opportunity to escape from this discussion that was beginning to sound very much like a quarrel, Isabel suggested that they join the parade toward the repast.