Chapter Two #2
She was greeting everyone with quiet dignity.
She was not doing a great deal of smiling and absolutely no simpering.
Not, that was, until they had been announced and Owen appeared before her and offered his hand.
She smiled with bright and open pleasure then, something her peers would doubtless consider a social blunder of major proportions if she wished to indicate an interest in him.
A look of haughty indifference was the more accepted tactic to bring a man to heel.
Owen was smiling back as she placed her hand in his and he raised it to his lips.
“You have reserved the second set for me, I hope?” he said.
“You have not had a great deal of competition,” she said. “I will be dancing the opening set with Bertrand.”
No competition. The opening set with a relative. What other woman would admit the former or seem pleased about the latter? Though Watley was a handsome fellow, it was true.
Then it was Nicholas’s turn to bow over the lady’s hand. Her cheeks had flushed slightly and her eyes had brightened during her encounter with Owen. She looked at Nicholas with candid curiosity.
“You do not look so massive out of the saddle and without the scarlet uniform and the beaver helmet,” she said, surprising him. “Your face, now that I can see it all, does not look so formidable or so—” She stopped abruptly.
He raised his eyebrows and waited for her to complete the thought.
“So cruel,” she said. “I beg your pardon. That is too stark a word.”
Cruel. No woman to his knowledge had ever used that word to describe him before now, even those he had disappointed by deflecting their advances. He prided himself on his good manners.
“May I hope that you still have the supper dance free?” he asked.
He had not intended to dance with her at all unless, as was unlikely, she showed signs of becoming a wallflower during the evening.
But that particular dance would give him a chance to sit and converse with her over supper, and…
And what? Decide if she could possibly be the sort of bride to make Owen happy? As though his opinion mattered.
Cruel. He did not know whether to laugh or be offended.
“I do,” she said, frowning slightly. “Shall I reserve it for you?”
“If you would be so good,” he said, and moved on to shake hands with Netherby.
“Just look at this,” Owen said as they moved on into the ballroom. “The place is bursting at the seams, and the dancing has not even started yet.”
“Your Miss Cunningham must be pleased,” Nicholas said.
Owen frowned. “She is not my Miss Cunningham, Nick,” he said. “Mrs. Haviland is over there, trying to attract your attention. You had better go and pay your respects to your Miss Haviland.”
“Touché,” Nicholas said.
“She is devilish pretty,” Owen said.
“Yes, she is,” Nicholas agreed before he made his way across the ballroom floor, smiling as he went, to where the general’s wife stood with her daughter. Though pretty was perhaps too tame a word to describe Grace. She was downright beautiful.
And apparently willing to accept his suit.
—
The part of the evening Winifred had dreaded most was over.
A trickle of guests had still been making its way along the receiving line, but Aunt Anna had decided it was past time for the dancing to begin.
In her opinion, anyone who arrived this late deserved to go without a personal welcome.
She presented Winifred formally to Bertrand, who took her hand, bowed over it before placing it on his sleeve, and led her onto the floor, which had emptied of milling guests to make way for the dancing. He smiled at her and winked.
“Will you look less terrified if I promise not to tread on your feet or allow you to trip over mine?” he asked her. “Come, Winnie. You have danced at balls before. I have seen you—enjoying yourself quite exuberantly, I might add.”
“But they were small family affairs and really not at all intimidating,” she said. “I have never before been alone in the middle of a fashionable ballroom, with the gathered ton gazing at me and waiting for me to put one foot wrong.”
“What?” he said. “Alone? I am nobody, then, am I? Besides, other couples are following our lead.”
It was true. The floor was filling with dancers, forming long lines in anticipation of the first set.
The orchestra had finished tuning their instruments.
And those who were looking their way were more likely to be gazing at Bertrand, who had achieved the seemingly impossible to appear even more handsome than usual in crisp black and white evening dress.
They must be pitying him, obliged as he was to lead off the ball with her.
But she was not going to start belittling herself just because there were dozens of young women more beautiful than she and certainly more elaborately dressed.
She was Winifred Cunningham, and she was pleased with herself.
Even her appearance. She did not want to be like other women. She wanted to be herself.
“You are certainly not nobody, Bertrand. I daresay every other woman in the room is gazing with envy at me.” She grinned at him suddenly. “Those who are not gazing at you in envy, that is, because you have me for a partner.”
“That’s the spirit, Winnie,” he said, chuckling.
But there was no more time for talk. A sort of hush had descended upon the ballroom as Avery welcomed everyone from the orchestra dais and announced the opening set of country dances. The musicians struck a decisive chord, and the ball began.
Despite herself, Winifred felt a shiver of excitement along her spine.
There was a certain family resemblance between Owen Ware and Colonel Ware, she thought, though nothing particularly obvious.
They were about the same height, though the colonel looked taller, with his very upright military bearing and his broad shoulders and what must be powerful muscles in his arms and chest and thighs.
Both were fair-haired, but the colonel’s hair was a mix of light brown and blond and waved over his head to give him a slightly tousled look.
His face was more weathered than his brother’s and somewhat more rugged.
And there were his jaw and his mouth, firm, perhaps stubborn.
They were what last week had left her with the impression of cruelty.
One would certainly not wish to be one of his men, caught neglecting a duty. Or an enemy facing his sword.
Goodness, had she really called him cruel to his face? She felt her cheeks grow hot at the memory and looked at Bertrand, who smiled reassuringly back at her.
He was devastatingly good-looking—Colonel Ware, that was.
And attractive. If there was a difference between the two.
Not in the way Owen was handsome and attractive, though.
He did not have Owen’s lean grace or…sparkle.
He was noticeably older—probably in his thirties?
Owen, she knew, must be twenty-eight or thereabouts, the same age as Bertrand. They had been at university together.
She was twirling down the set suddenly, Bertrand’s hand firm against her back to prevent her from spinning away out of control.
The other dancers in the lines, ladies on one side, gentlemen on the other, clapped in time to the music as they watched.
Winifred laughed with exuberance. She did not expect to dance all night, but she did like dancing and must enjoy every chance she had—the next set with Owen, who had joined the other line with his partner for this set, and a dance later in the evening with Colonel Ware.
That was not a happy prospect, however. Somehow she found him a bit frightening—no, intimidating was a better word.
And it was the supper dance. She knew what that meant.
They would sit together for the meal, and unless she could maneuver matters otherwise, they would engage each other in almost exclusive conversation for at least half an hour.
Did he sense a possible romance between her and his younger brother? Did he intend to grill her to discover if she was worthy to be admitted to the ranks of his hallowed family? Had he already made up his mind? Did he intend to warn her off?
She had no intention of being intimidated.
Correction: Since that was already happening, she had no intention of giving in to it.
She was not at all sure Owen was interested in her in that way anyway.
She was not sure she was interested in him.
But she did know that she liked him enormously and that he was just the sort of man with whom she might settle happily.
He limped very slightly, Winifred thought, her mind returning to Colonel Ware.
It was the only physical imperfection she had detected, though really it was very minor.
An old battle wound, perhaps? She must ask Owen.
No, she must not. It would really be an unpardonably indelicate thing for a woman to ask about a stranger.
The set was over far too soon, perhaps because she had not given it her whole attention. Gentlemen were leading their partners off the floor, clearing it for the next set.
“Thank you, Winnie,” Bertrand said as he led her back to Aunt Anna’s side. “You are an excellent dancer. Enjoy the rest of the evening.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I will.”
“Yet suddenly you look again as if you are facing your own execution,” he said. “Dare I predict you will dance every single set of the evening until the last guest totters homeward?”
Winifred laughed, though it occurred to her for the first time that he might be right.
The Duchess of Netherby was hosting this ball and it was in her honor.
Aunt Anna was always a perfect hostess. It would be a matter of great pride and importance to her to see that her niece was not without a partner all evening.
So much for that quiet corner.
—