Chapter Twelve
B rilliance was bursting with excitement at the notion of being in Lord Hewitt’s arms once again. Dressing for the ball, she vowed she was trembling all over, awaiting their first dance. Riding side by side earlier in the day had been delightful, too, as they talked about anything and everything. However, at the point where they turned and headed back to Lady Twitchard’s estate, their hostess made them switch partners again.
Brilliance had a notion it was only because she was riding with Lord Hewitt. Worse, she had been paired with Mr. Denham, whom she had not spoken with since the first evening’s introduction assembly. He made up for lost time by proving himself a tedious chaff-cutter, rattling on enough to jaw her dead.
By the time she was back in her room, luxuriating in a lukewarm bath before the six o’clock dinner, Brilliance had forgiven Lady Twitchard. She was merely protecting her female guests as a good hostess should. Surely at the ball, though, even Lady Twitchard must concede there was no harm in dancing.
Brilliance descended the main staircase as slowly and gracefully as she’d been trained and walked through the east wing toward the ballroom. All the while, she wished she could run. Dressed in the gown she’d saved for the occasion, gold silk slid softly over her skin, neckline to hem, with a fitted bodice and little cap sleeves. The entire effect was softened by an overlay of paler gold lace tatting. Feeling splendid in the London modiste’s creation, she couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she followed a trail of well-dressed men and women through the open double doors.
Dozens of candles in wall sconces set before mirrored disks and hundreds of candles in chandeliers suspended high overhead, dripping with crystals, lit the room like bright sunlight. Brilliance had seen the maids early that morning cleaning each and every crystal teardrop with vinegar.
The floor, previously covered with thick carpets, had been exposed and polished with beeswax. It shone, too, to the point one could gaze down and see one’s reflection. Everything was sparkling and glittering, like being inside a jewelry case.
Colonel and Lady Twitchard were just inside the doorway, greeting their guests.
“Everything is spectacular,” Brilliance told them. “I am grateful to be here.”
“We are grateful for your presence,” her hostess returned, although the Colonel was busy with his snuff box rather than noticing his guests.
Nodding, Brilliance moved on, hoping to find Martine who had already left her room when Brilliance went to look in on her. Before she saw her friend, however, she spied Lord Hewitt.
If she’d been alone, Brilliance would have gasped at the way the sight of him in his black tails affected her. Her heart squeezed, and her stomach twinged. This had to be how her parents felt upon first seeing one another ... or at least, when her father had helped her mother to remain standing after knocking into her.
Her feet took her involuntarily toward him. When he turned and noticed her, his eyebrows rose above his spectacles, and then he smiled.
Oh, that smile!
And then Lady Twitchard stood between them. Her hostess must have raced from her post greeting guests in order to block Brilliance. But the woman, no matter how well-intentioned, was not her mother. Brilliance would not allow herself to be deprived of the delights that could only be had in Lord Hewitt’s arms.
Thus, with barely a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Good evening, again, my lady. Did I mention how wonderful your ballroom looks?” And she skirted her hostess as if edging around a prickly raspberry bush, finally reaching Lord Hewitt.
Immediately, he grasped her gloved hand and bowed over it.
“You are exquisite, my lady. Dare I say radiant?”
She shrugged. “That is more aptly said of my dear sister, Ray, but I appreciate your kind words.”
He frowned and removed his glasses, slipping them into a pocket. “Let me try again. The brilliance of your beauty outshines every other female here.”
“Oh, I like that very much,” she said. “Thank you. And you look very fine, my lord. So handsome, I could swoon — if I were the swooning type.”
His cheeks flushed an impressive shade of rose. “Thank you.” His gray-green eyes gleamed in the candlelight.
“Hewitt,” said Colonel Twitchard, sidling up from nowhere. “Would you care to —?”
“I will do whatever you wish,” Lord Hewitt said, “ after I have danced with this lovely lady. You cannot expect me to leave her standing here.” Then he gestured to her. “Just look at her, Colonel.”
“Yes, I see,” their host said. When the Colonel actually took in Brilliance’s appearance, head-to-slipper, his eyes widened.
She smiled at his admiring expression — it was sweetly unexpected. Then the cornet player, seated on an oval platform in the room’s center, gave the signal for the start of the first dance — a few short blasts. The sound reverberated along her spine, and Lord Hewitt took her arm and led her to where the other dancers were lining up.
The rest of the musicians, a pianist, a violinist, and a cellist, began to play. Brilliance finally had her heart’s desire, dancing with Lord Hewitt. After a few turns around the room, she told him, “Although I believe you are a superior musician to the pianist, tonight, I am glad you are not playing on the dais.”
“Why, thank you, my lady.”
“Can you believe we have known one another only a week? I vow it feels longer. Tomorrow, I shall be sad to say goodbye to you.”
He startled. “Perhaps we will meet again in London.”
Brilliance had hoped for something more reassuring. While she knew she shouldn’t ask him outright, still she could determine his future whereabouts.
“When are you returning to London?”
“In the autumn,” he said, keeping his gaze steadily upon her.
She thought of all the events she might attend in the next two months.
“I may be betrothed by then,” she said sadly. How terrible she would feel if Lord Hewitt were to come back into her life after she had grown a tendre for another man. But then, if she had given her heart to someone else, she wouldn’t feel quite so terrible, after all. Yet Lord Hewitt might be devastated.
“I only tell you that because I have a full social schedule planned. I would hate for you to decide I am the woman you most admire in all the world only to leave it until it is too late.”
He looked as if he were choking, but a moment later, he recovered and merely shook his head.
“You are as outrageous as ever.”
“Am I?” Brilliance was puzzled. “I am simply trying to save you from heartache.”
“In that case, I am most grateful.” His hand holding hers squeezed a little harder while the other pressed firmly against her lower back.
Was he telling her something? She sighed.
“I hope we may have another dance before the ball is over,” Brilliance said. “Moreover, unless we put our heads together, I doubt we shall find the opportunity for another kiss.”
Lord Hewitt faltered abruptly, and Brilliance nearly crashed into him before he resumed the flow of the dance.
Then she couldn’t help repeating, “Put our heads together! That is funny.” She chuckled. “For it is precisely what I would like us to do, but your cousin and the Colonel have been successfully playing chaperone for the better part of two days, have they not?”
He nodded, saying nothing.
“We could try tonight,” she volunteered as the music ended.
Lord Hewitt escorted her from the floor in thoughtful silence, and pain stabbed at her heart. He wasn’t going to give her any encouragement, it seemed. How odd! She’d been sure, at the beginning of the week, that they were destined for a mutual understanding and a lifetime of love.
Just before he turned away to find his next partner, he caught her gaze. “Will you do me the honor of a second dance later?”
Speechless, Brilliance nodded. Hope flooded her. Lord Hewitt did care for her.
He did!
Not for the first time , Vincent found himself thinking what an uncommon woman Brilliance Diamond was. It was practically a miracle that she had grown up in the bosom of the highest echelon of Britain’s social strata without absorbing its oft-times cunning ways and while not taking on its lowlier nature of prevarication or subterfuge.
Moreover, despite an intriguing quality of innocence about her, she seemed to have emerged into the full-flowering of female maturity without being battered and injured. It was almost as if no one would think to take advantage of such an open and willing soul. More likely, she had been incredibly fortunate.
The exact opposite to his own scarred psyche. He hadn’t tried to throw himself off a bridge as composer and pianist Robert Schuman had done, plunging into the Rhine during a fit of melancholy. But the betrayal three years earlier had scarred him greatly enough that Vincent didn’t know what he could offer a sweet lady who was telling him openly she would like to keep company.
That evening, the angelic essence of Brilliance was accentuated and amplified by her glittering golden gown. Upon first seeing her walking toward him, stunned by her appearance, Vincent had thought her the embodiment of all that a man could want in a woman — her spirited beauty and a sense of genuine sincerity, along with her blue-eyed gaze shining with eagerness.
But her question had caught him off guard. A part of him wanted to promise her he would seek her out in London. And he knew he would be disappointed to learn of her betrothal. Yet she could hardly expect him to declare an inappropriately premature intent out of fear that she would be snapped up by someone else.
Could she?
On the other hand, he could not imagine a more suitable female. She lacked a few of the artistic graces one often found in an educated female of the upper class. Brilliance couldn’t sketch, paint, play music, sing, shoot, use a bow, or do needlepoint. She was better in a carriage than on a horse but, self-admittedly, not a good driver.
Regardless of her shortcomings, she seemed as capable of being an excellent wife as any woman he had ever met. More so!
When the ball was half over, Vincent claimed her for their second dance. Her smile as he’d approached caused him a pang of ... regret, perhaps? That he didn’t have a similarly trusting nature. That he couldn’t sweep her into his arms and tell her how she interested him to the point of having spent the entirety of the ball watching her. While he was partnering other ladies and she danced with the other gentlemen, she still claimed all his attention.
When they began a slow waltz, for which he was exceedingly grateful, a question tumbled from his lips. “Have you ever had your heart broken?”
Without hesitation, she said, “No, my lord. I have never had my affections engaged to such an extent that it could be broken.” She gave a small shrug, barely discernible while they were dancing. And then she stared into his eyes. “But I am not, at this moment, ignorant of how that might feel.”
Before he could think about why he had asked her such a personal question, she sent it winging back at him, “Have you?”
Brilliance was so painfully honest, how could he not honor her similarly? Moreover, he had been the one to bring up the delicate subject.
“Yes,” he confessed.
Her gorgeous jewel-tone eyes widened, and he could practically see her curiosity flickering in their depths along with her sympathy. And to her credit, that was what she first professed.
“I am sorry to hear that. I heard something of your pain in your playing.”
He hated to think his past still managed to leak out of him, as if he were a badly patched wine barrel.
They twirled around one end of the room, moving as if they were one entity.
“If only we could be as the animal kingdom,” she added.
He smiled despite himself. “Your meaning?”
“Oh, my lord, it is well known that many birds, and I am sure other creatures as well, simply decide to become mates and then are perfectly satisfied staying that way for the rest of their days.”
He nodded.
“Not love at first sight, I warrant, but something deeper,” she continued. “They agree to build a nest and watch over their eggs, and to do that over and over for the rest of their lives. Very mature, if you ask me, doing their bird duty.”
“Bird duty,” he repeated, biting back a laugh. She was speaking matter-of-factly, but he could sense there was a profound truth buried therein.
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Even though it seems impossible that they fell in love upon first deciding to be partners, reasonably thinking, they must love deeply during the course of their lives while caring for one another and for their babies. Don’t you think?”
“We are still talking about birds, aren’t we?”
“Indeed,” she said.
Vincent considered. “It makes sense that they are not indifferent to one another.”
“Indifference,” she scoffed. “That’s a tepid notion. But we have strayed from the point,” she said.
He had never carried on such a conversation while dancing. What’s more, he had forgotten the point.
“Which is?” he asked.
“Swans don’t worry over hair color or the daintiness of the lady’s feet. They don’t waste time leaving calling cards and paying fifteen-minute visits so they can discuss the weather. They don’t spend months dancing around the subject before forming an attachment. Nor do they then, with a cruel and fickle nature, decide upon another.”
Vincent considered. “Surely that is because they have shorter lifespans and because ... well, they are birds!”
She heaved a large sigh, which was a beautiful sight in her dress. “I suppose. Did you love her quite ardently?”
He startled. Brilliance had changed the subject, or rather brought it back to heartbreak so swiftly she left him dazed. She had finally given in to her curiosity, and he had to admire the duration of her restraint in questioning him.
Luckily, the dance ended before he could form an answer. Nevertheless, while they walked, she looked up at him expectantly. In fact, Brilliance nearly collided with another guest, but Vincent tugged her aside in time.
“No answer,” she mused.
“The discussion during dancing ends with the dance,” he said, hoping that sounded like a societal truism.
Her pretty mouth formed a small O .
“Is that a rule? I had no idea.” Then she smiled. “Maybe we should have a third dance at the evening’s end.”
He couldn’t help grinning at her words. She wished to glean the details from him and wasn’t trying to hide it. Yet since he felt relaxed and happy with her, he would prefer to focus on the present than get mired in the past. For him, it held something more insidious than a single fickle female, worse even than simple treachery, although Lydia had been treacherous enough.
“Would you like to take a stroll in the garden?” he offered. “Perhaps another look at my cousin’s topiaries?”
He shouldn’t have asked her. Given their brief intense history, he knew what would happen, as did she. If Lady Brilliance agreed, she would expect a kiss, and Vincent would gladly grant it. He was, in fact, nearly desperate to embrace her again. His cousin had been very effective in keeping them apart except for earlier by the stream. And when not her, then the Colonel.
Suddenly, they had almost run out of time, and he wasn’t ready to see the back of her as she climbed into a carriage and rode away.
“Despite the freedom I have enjoyed all week,” Brilliance said, “because I am at a ball, my instincts have me looking around for my mother or one of my married sisters.”
“House parties are an anomaly unto themselves, are they not?” he said. “Yet at this one, because my cousin is an upstanding woman who takes her duties as hostess very seriously, there have been few hijinks.”
“Hijinks?” she repeated, allowing him to lead her toward the terrace. “Do you mean of a lascivious nature?”
He said the most carelessly frank things to Brilliance Diamond upon topics he wouldn’t dream of bringing up with other ladies, such as heartbreak or the loose behavior of the average house guest. Vincent had caught Lord Fincham in a steamy embrace with Miss Newton, and Lord Patterson in flagrante delicto with a chambermaid.
Neither shocked him particularly, except he recalled thinking how glad he hadn’t discovered Brilliance in any such vulgar position — unless it was with him. Even then, he couldn’t imagine her going along with something like Patterson’s ill- advised and hackneyed tumble on the floor of one of the bathing rooms.
Thus, he had to question his intentions by taking her out into the darkness. Not lascivious! He felt something more honorable than that. At least, he liked to think so. All of Lady Martine’s warnings returned, like a swarm of wasps.
Changing his mind at the door, Vincent halted with his hand on the small of her back. “Perhaps it is too chilly after all.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Brilliance said, thrusting open the door and stepping outside. “The air is warm tonight. Besides, look, the lamps indicate our hosts’ intent for their guests to enjoy the outdoors, don’t you think?”
Vincent looked around.
“It’s not as though we are alone out here,” Brilliance continued.
She was right. He had been rather rakishly wanting to get her outside where they could have some privacy, not taking his gaze from her gold-clad, fairylike form long enough to see that others were enjoying syllabub and sherry out of doors.
He relaxed, glad she wouldn’t suddenly realize he had maneuvered her into an unsavory situation like a predator.
“There you are!” Alethia said as if he had done that very thing and completed the dastardly deed behind a hedgerow.
“Come now, Cousin. We are simply enjoying this splendid July night. You cannot fault us for joining our fellow guests out of doors.”
Alethia frowned and then understanding dawned. “No, of course not! I only meant I was glad to find you. I’ve had news from London that affects all of us.”