Chapter 10
There was no lingering after the dinner, for more guests were arriving for the ball and now was the time for the formal reception line. Beth felt very like an actor moving onto the next scene of a play.
She stood between the duke and the marquess and touched hands with what seemed to be hundreds of people. Again there were the astonished looks, the speculation, and the envy. She could swear she saw a few matrons look closely at her waistline.
It was a relief when the dancing began, for then she could escape this scrutiny, but when the marquess led her out for the opening minuet it was, in a sense, the first time they had been out of the earshot of others since their sotto voce discussion at the table.
She braced herself for a hostile comment, no matter how sweetly uttered. It did not come.
“You look nervous,” he said. “Have you forgotten the steps?”
“My dear sir,” she retorted, “I was raised in a girl’s school. I have been watching, learning, and teaching dancing all my life. I could perform a minuet in my sleep.”
“Ah,” he said with a mischievous glitter, “but have you ever performed it with a man?”
They were taking their place among the four couples who were to open the ball with the formal minuet, facing toward the duke and duchess at the head of the room. “Assuredly,” said Beth. “I frequently gave demonstrations with Monsieur de Lo, our dancing master.”
“The minuet a deux? ” he queried.
“Occasionally,” Beth replied, mistrusting his tone.
“That is generally held to be the cause of so many susceptible young ladies falling in love with their dancing masters. All that staring into one another’s eyes.”
“I assure you—” Beth’s protest was cut off by the opening chords of the music.
Along with the other dancers she made obeisance to the duke and duchess.
Even as she pointed her right toe and sank slowly down on her left leg and rose she was aware of the elegance of the marquess’ bow.
A spirit of competitiveness stirred in her.
He was well-trained in the courtly art, but she was, after all, a professional.
They turned to face each other. She watched him carefully.
When, as she expected, he performed a deeply elaborate full bow, she sank into as deep a court curtsy as her skirt would allow, her eyes correctly on his at all times.
Then she rose slowly with smooth control.
She did not place her hand in his outstretched one until the last moment to make it clear to all that she needed no assistance in rising.
A ripple of applause ran around the room.
He smiled and a slight inclination of the head gave her the victory.
Then he took both her hands and raised them for a kiss while still maintaining the eye contact.
Beth began to see what he meant. A minuet a deux, constantly gazing into the partner’s eyes, could easily turn a young girl’s head.
How fortunate that she was not a young girl and that they were dancing in a set of eight.
The music proper began and Beth could look away as she and the other ladies moved into the center using the slow and graceful minuet step then joined hands to circle. The ladies circled to the right as the gentlemen circled to the left.
Having been so recently a teacher Beth couldn’t help assessing performances.
She could not recollect the name of one young lady, but she and Miss Frogmorton performed well but with a little more of the bounce of a country dance than the glide which was necessary.
Phoebe Swinnamer was the fourth lady and she glided like a swan.
She was, however, inclined to pose for effect every now and then and thus break the flow.
The ladies broke the circle to join their partners again, left hand to right, continuing the circling for one more step so as to smoothly link both hands and circle each other, eye to eye.
“Monsieur de Lo was a very good teacher,” the marquess complimented her.
“As was your master, my lord,” said Beth kindly. “Though you could perhaps point your foot a little more.”
He raised a brow. “Are you perhaps accusing me of not being high enough in the instep, my dear?”
Beth hit her lip to stifle a giggle. They let one hand drop and flowed into the next movement deliberately holding eye contact as long as possible. Phoebe Swinnamer looked sour and almost missed a step.
Beth had to admit that her teaching experience and her demonstrations with Monsieur de Lo had not alerted her to the potential for flirtation in the stately dance. No, not flirtation. Seduction.
Lady and gentleman moved around each other but never far apart and ever aware. They came together, intensely linked by hands and eyes, the slow movements allowing skilled dancers who did not need to think of their steps to linger upon one another like a slow kiss.
Caught by her extraordinary thoughts Beth stared up at the marquess as she slowly circled him. It was the look in his eyes which was causing all these ideas.
“We will do a minuet a deux at our wedding ball, Elizabeth.”
“No,” Beth said instinctively.
“But yes. It is the custom!”
The dance separated them again. It seemed very like their life together: brief moments of contact always moving into division.
A minuet a deux would be an appropriate beginning to their marriage, and it was ridiculous to fear it.
It would merely be a prelude to the greater trials of their life together.
After the minuet the dancing became general and much less formal.
Beth danced a country set with the duke.
After that, she passed from one partner to the next, glad to be lost in the dancing instead of pilloried for idle curiosity.
The young eligibles had been dragooned by the duchess into doing their duty by the wallflowers, so Beth found herself dancing mainly with the older men, which suited her very well.
Only one gave her a problem. Lord Deveril.
He was sallow and bony but with a kind of brutish strength in his jaw and hands.
He also smelt. Not particularly unwashed—there were a number of people present who had obviously not taken up the fashion for cleanliness—but stale and slightly decayed.
It could have mainly been his teeth, for when he smiled, which was rarely, they could be seen to be rotten.
“You must consider yourself a lucky young lady,” he sneered at one point. “Not many plain Janes without a fortune find themselves so favored.”
His manner was so unpleasant that Beth felt free to retort sharply. “On the contrary, my lord. The marquess is the fortunate one. Not many young bucks find themselves a woman of sense.”
He showed his rotten teeth. “Now what would they want with such a thing? What good are brains in bed?”
Faced with this appalling ill-breeding Beth would normally have walked away, but she didn’t want to create a scene, and this dreadful man was a guest. “I must ask you not to speak to me of such things, Lord Deveril,” she said coldly.
“Good gracious. But you claimed to be a woman of sense. Surely you know the purpose of marriage? It is stated explicitly in the service.”
Beth took refuge in silence, praying for the dance to end. It did at least move into a pattern which prevented conversation for a while.
But inevitably she found herself back with her partner.
“We are having such beautiful weather, are we not?” she said determinedly before he could pick his own topic.
“A perfect spring,” he agreed. “Seeing the birds in their nests turns all our minds to matrimony. After all, I have no legal heir, not even a distant cousin. Like the marquess, I have obeyed the call of duty and selected my own satin pillow for the long cold nights.”
Beth punished him with silence and heard with relief the music die.
As he led her from the floor Lord Deveril said, “Speaking of birds, my little pigeon, you should ask the marquess about the doves at Drury Lane.”
Beth had not the slightest intention of asking the marquess anything at that man’s instigation, but she sought him out from a simple desire for protection. She felt as if she had brushed up against something noxious.
His raised finger brought her a glass of champagne, and she drank deeply from it for refreshment and choked. “I think I would do better with lemonade, my lord.”
“If you’re going to quaff it like that, I should think so. You look hot. Why don’t we walk on the terrace?”
She looked at him suspiciously, but he smiled. “Don’t worry. We won’t be alone. There are a number of couples out there in the cool. Come.”
It was refreshing, and he had told the truth. They were not alone though there was space enough for a kind of privacy.
“Are you enjoying your first ball?” he asked. He seemed to be genuinely friendly. With the memory of that brief moment of pleasure during the kiss and their occasional accord during their battles of wits, Beth began to hope.
“It is pleasant enough,” she said. “Except for Lord Deveril.”
He frowned. “A man like that shouldn’t even be here. Lady Gorgros brought him and it was decided not to create a fuss by throwing him out. Why did you agree to dance with him?”
Beth remembered it was Lady Gorgros who had presented the viscount to her. “I accepted anyone who asked,” she admitted. Then she shrugged. “They all seemed respectable.”
She saw him stiffen and fix his interest on her. “Was he not respectable? Am I to call him out?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted. “Of all the stupidities of fashionable life, the worst is the habit of men fighting each other over trifles.”
Ice settled. “Of course. You would consider your honor a trifle. How then did he offend you? Call Mary Wollstonecraft a doxy?”
Beth opened her mouth to blister him, but it was impossible with others close by. Beth discovered she had a crashing headache and closed her eyes.
“Elizabeth?”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Are you unwell?”
“I have a headache,” she bit out.