Chapter 25 - William
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE- WILLIAM
The ballroom of the Duke of Bedford was awash in the glittering glow of a thousand candles in the crystal chandeliers above the parquet dance floor. William tugged at the lapels of his jacket as he entered, frowning at the assembly as he and his sisters were announced.
Many of the guests were already dancing.
The strings in the corner struck a lively tune that carried over the murmur of conversation, the tinkling of champagne flutes, and scattered laughter.
Heads turned in their direction as they entered, but not nearly as many gentlemen as he would have liked—for it was the gentlemen who mattered to his sisters.
His sisters didn’t seem to notice or care, however.
Claire looked positively regal in her taffeta navy gown that showed a great expanse of shoulder and neck.
Her hair was swept off her face, with several tendrils left to drape about her cheeks to soften the effect.
She’d left her neck and decolletage bare, only adding a pair of dramatic gold earrings that William had brought back from India.
"Well, we're here," she said grimly. "Let the games begin, I suppose."
Margaret rose to her tiptoes, attempting to see over the crowd. She wore a gown of pale sea-green that set her blonde hair aglow. Every single freckle on her clear skin seemed cast in stark relief beneath the candlelight.
The waist was nipped, showcasing her figure to best advantage, and William had cleared his throat at how much of her figure was on display.
It was nothing scandalous—far from it. Only, he’d never viewed Margaret through that particular lens—she’d always been covered from head to foot in great swaths of fabric.
That was before Dahlia Warrington got her manicured hands on her, however.
Beatrice and Lily had undergone the same transformation.
Granted, they were the most conventionally beautiful, but still, William had never seen them look as well as they did that night.
Beatrice wore a dress of rose pink. The gown appeared almost liquid in the candlelight, as if the fabric had been poured over her frame.
Seeing them assembled in their finery, William was more convinced than ever that he’d made the right decision in coercing Dahlia Warrington to help with their wardrobes.
Even though he gazed on them with the eyes of a brother, he could see that his sisters made a very pretty picture.
Combined with their dowries, he surmised that some gentlemen would be extremely interested, indeed.
William scanned the room, looking for that familiar blonde head. Dahlia had been absent from his house the past couple of weeks, and though he’d pretended not to notice, her absence vexed him to the extreme.
He kept lifting his head from his ledger, wanting to tell her some small anecdote about one of his businesses or to ask her opinion on something, but she wasn’t there. It pained him to admit that his sisters—though as lively as usual—didn’t provide nearly the entertainment that Dahlia did.
I miss Rachel, too, he hastened to add mentally.
After all, it was not one specific lady he missed, but the general merriment of the addition of the two Warrington sisters together. Or so he tried to convince himself.
William saw many blondes and many beautiful ladies, but not the one that his eye searched for.
His frown deepened, and he posted himself near a large potted fern, hoping that his glower would keep opportunistic mamas and their interested daughters away.
Already, he’d spotted several hopeful glances and coy fan fluttering cast his direction.
"I'm going to go see if they have the good punch," Margaret said, her eyes bright.
He quirked an eyebrow. "What's the good punch?"
"Last year there was a ball in which the hostess floated great mounds of iced cream in the center of her bowl. Ever since, the great dames have all been trying to outdo each other with their punch."
“How do you know? You weren’t out last Season.”
She blinked. “People talk.”
“About punch?”
“People talk about everything, brother.”
He waved her on. "Go on then. Report back to me and tell me whether it's worth the effort it'll take to fight my way over there."
William had worn a suit of charcoal grey in a fine worsted wool. It was a dastardly expensive outfit, though not nearly as colorful as what some of the other gentlemen wore. Bright colors weren’t his style—it was all he could do not to sneer at a lime-green silk waistcoat as it paraded past.
William hoped his dark outfit would help communicate that he was here strictly as a chaperone. If his sullen scowl didn’t impress upon the female set that he wasn’t interested in their attention, he hoped the restraint of his suit would do the job.
Lily and Beatrice seemed content to stand beside him, even as Claire headed across the room without so much as a by-your-leave.
William wasn’t worried about her getting into trouble; if anything, a secret tryst in the garden might benefit Claire.
Perhaps then she might have a little light in her eyes, a smile upon her lips.
Though he’d never say so out loud, William had high hopes for the Season where Lily and Beatrice were concerned. Margaret and Claire were his greatest concerns.
"Well," he said a little impatiently when both Lily and Beatrice showed no signs of leaving. "Go on, then. Mingle. Do whatever one does at a ball."
"Don't be such a brute," Beatrice chided with a small smile. "We’re taking the lay of the land. Claire and Margaret are the type to charge off through the crowd, not us."
"Perhaps they’ll have more success than you, then. Look, Claire is already speaking to a gentleman."
"That's just Lord Rutheridge." Lily shook her head. "If he ever looks at her with more than friendship, or vice versa, I'll eat my finest hat."
"Sounds like an excellent way to get a stomachache."
"It’s a saying, William. Sometimes it's exceedingly clear that you've been abroad for so many years."
"I know full well it's a saying. I was being purposefully obtuse for the sake of humor. It's not my fault that it went over your head."
Lily gave a noncommittal hum as her eyes scanned the room.
She looked positively radiant in an emerald-green gown that somehow lit her eyes from within and added luster to her ash-brown hair.
Her eyes snagged on someone across the room; they widened slightly, but she looked down and swallowed deeply before William could tell who had caught her attention.
"What is it, Lily?" he asked. "Did you see a young lady wearing the same dress as you? If that’s the case, I shall call Miss Warrington a fraud and demand she return my money to me."
"It was no one.”
She shook her head too fervently for it to be the truth, but as William was coming to understand, young ladies were surprisingly full of secrets—and he would not pry them from her if she didn’t wish to share them.
"Have you actually paid her, then?" Beatrice said. “Dahlia, I mean?”
"I'll pay her when she sends me a bill," William groused. "Everyone knows that you don't pay until you receive a bill."
"Perhaps she doesn't know that. It's not as if she's ever been the one doing the paying, and I doubt she's ever sent anyone a bill before."
He frowned; she might be right. Perhaps that was the cause of her recent retreat from their household—Dahlia didn’t know how to ask for what she was owed and she felt awkward about it.
"Well," he prompted, "do you have the lay of the land yet?"
Beatrice rolled her eyes and took Lily's arm in hers. "Come, sister, let's fetch some punch or champagne before our brother starts snapping at us like we're errant dogs."
"Hasn’t he been doing that already?"
"I believe he can get much, much worse.”
“You’re right, we should depart,” Lily said, her eyes twinkling. “He's already dumped the four of us onto society at once. Our family hardly needs more negative attention."
William scoffed at their backs and shook his head.
Across the room, the strings started up another dance—a waltz this time, by the sounds of it—not that William could see more than the tips of people's heads through the crush, not that he cared to watch at all.
He retreated to the other side of the pillar and leaned against it, his arms crossed against his chest.
How many of these events would he have to attend before his sisters were sufficiently attached?
Perhaps the Marquess of Salisbury had the right of it in enlisting an elderly aunt to bear the brunt of this chaperoning business.
Though, if he were being honest with himself, William had hoped he’d see Dahlia tonight.
He wasn’t too proud to admit to himself she was half the draw of coming.
They had become friends, hadn’t they? William had spent the past weeks—nearly all day, every day—listening to her thoughts, her ideas, her dry sarcasm, and her witty responses at his sisters’ silliness.
It was no great surprise, then, that he missed her.
It didn't mean anything. At least, not the way he suspected his sisters would think it did.
William scanned the room, noticing a few familiar faces but none that he cared to make the effort to greet at the moment.
Beaufort was safely away to one of William’s country houses, though the man’s former betrothed was here, wearing an outlandish gown of pale orange satin riddled with bows and ribbons.
Daisy looked rather like a deranged scoop of sorbet with whipped cream on top.
She was dancing with some gentleman he did not recognize, and William wondered if she’d soon sink her claws into another man, so that Beaufort might be free of her faster than he'd hoped.
William didn't know the gentleman in question, so he wasn't sure whether he wished such a fate upon him, however.