Chapter 2
It Wasn’t the Dancing
“Don’t you think we are a little too old for this game?” Luke asked John as they sat in the small wooden rowboat. For the past few summers, the boys had passed many days on the lake pretending to be pirates, but they were now in their teen years. Wasn’t it time to stop acting like children?
They stopped rowing. “This is not a game!” John joked.
“I am exploring my career options. I think a pirate could make an interesting occupation, but I will not know for sure until I test it.” As always, his sandy blonde hair stuck up in every direction.
Both boys had abandoned their coats and neckties and sat in just their shirts and trousers.
Sometimes, when he really wanted to get into the character, John would tie his belt around his head, but this particular pair of pants were slightly too large.
Although that made them perfect pirate attire, it unfortunately meant they would not stay up without the belt to fasten them.
“You do not have a career choice!” Luke rolled his eyes. “You are stuck as an English lord, just like me.” Though, only yesterday, the baron had been thinking similar things. Of course, he had been considering true careers, not piracy.
“Argh, an English lord ye’ say.” John did his best buccaneer accent, holding out his hands. “Empty ye’r pockets. Them lordies are always goods f’er a shilling.”
“A shilling?” Luke questioned. “I don’t think you have a future in robbery if you are only looking for shillings.” Both boys laughed.
“Fine,” John relented, “what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” What were twelve-year-old boys supposed to do? “Talk?”
“Talk?!” John did not seem to find the idea entertaining. Though honestly, Luke was not sure he did either. “Talk about what?”
Luke shrugged. “School?” John gave him a disgusted look. No surprise, it was summer break after all. “Politics?”
“We are twelve. Not fifty!” The suggestion truly wasn’t a horrible one. Both of them had a future as political leaders, and most of the subjects they learned in school—and the conversations they had in their common room after—were indeed political.
“Well, what do twelve-year-olds talk about?” Luke asked in frustration.
John offered a few suggestions, “Horses, girls, food, pirates …”
John loved horses, and Luke had already heard him talk about them endlessly. He moved to the next item on the list. “Girls,” Luke answered quickly, “let’s talk about girls.” But he hadn’t really thought about what subject he had selected until he felt his cheeks grow hot.
“All right,” John set down his oar. “Do you know any pretty girls?” He looked more like a detective vying for information than a young teenager casually chatting with his friend.
“Not that come readily to mind.”
John bobbed his head, unsurprised at his friend’s naivety on the subject.
“Clara has a friend,” he added lazily. “I think her name is Sarah? Or maybe Iris? I don’t know.
She is pretty. She has these dark blue eyes.
” It was the first Luke had ever heard John mention one of Clara’s friends in a positive light.
He was usually annoyed by their constant vicinity.
“How do you get Sarah and Iris confused?”
“Well, one of the friends is Sarah and one is Iris. Clara has never clarified which was which.” John shook his head. “She has way too many friends to keep track of all of them.”
“You know,” Luke commented, “Clara has blue eyes.”
“Not dark blue, though,” John responded, as if the difference was highly important.
“True. They are more like the sky on a clear summer day.”
John gave him a funny look. “That is a bit … poetic?” Luke could not decide if that was good or bad. “How would you describe her hair?”
Clara’s hair. Hmm … “Like a fallen drop of sunlight?”
“Eww!” John pushed himself back, causing the little boat to sway significantly. “You are in love with my little sister!”
“I am not!” Luke protested as he gripped the wooden sides. If anything, the girl scared him. “I just …” He wasn’t sure what to say, “... like poetry?”
“You do?” John sounded doubtful.
“I suppose,” Luke answered. He did not know why he had given the unusually detailed descriptions, but he definitely did not want his friend to think he had feelings for his younger sister. John certainly wouldn’t approve. And it wasn’t true, anyway. Luke was terrified of the girl.
His plan backfired when John confessed, “I like poetry, too! Especially Shakespeare’s sonnets. I was reading one the other day…”
John and Luke talked about poetry for the next half hour.
It was certainly not what Luke had expected.
He wasn’t even sure he actually enjoyed poetry, not that he could admit that to John after he had expressed his hidden affection for it.
But Luke definitely did not feel childish as they rowed around the lake, discussing iambic pentameter and poetic syntax.
It was much different than their usual afternoons.
We are growing up, Luke realized. While that had been his original intent, it now seemed much too boring. Soon, they would both be true, dull, English gentlemen, talking about work and horse races, and boring adult things. He wasn’t quite ready to give up his childhood.
“All right, that is enough of that!” Luke insisted, shaking his curl-covered head. “Let’s play pirates!”
Mother stood in the ballroom with a short, round man. He had a dark curly mustache, and legs that seemed much too small to support his large belly. “Lady Clara,” she addressed her daughter formally, “allow me to introduce you to Monsieur Andre Dupont, your dance master.”
Clara curtsied. “Bonjour, Monsieur Dupont.”
“Ahh,” he directed his comment to Lady Merritt, “A dignified young lady. Yes, I shall teach her to dance, and then surely, this one shall be a duchess.” He moved his arms in an unusually large fashion as he spoke. It was highly distracting, though not nearly as much as his rich French accent.
Mother dipped her blonde head in gratitude. “Yes, we do believe young Clara will be a lady of rank someday.” She smiled affectionately at her daughter. “But she still has much to learn, including dancing, so let’s begin.”
Monsieur Dupont pulled out a pocket violin and plucked a few notes.
“Oui. Yes. We shall start with rhythmic exercises.” And for the next quarter hour Clara practiced walking in time to the music.
She felt she was doing well, (how hard could walking be?) but the dance master had many, many critiques.
After another fifteen minutes, Papa entered the ballroom. “How is she doing?” he asked Mother, who stood off to the side.
“Very well,” she whispered back, “but I have told Monsieur Dupont to be quite particular. Dancing is possibly the key component to her advantageous match.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Violet?” he asked her flirtatiously, placing a loving hand at the small of her back.
Mother looked up at him through her lashes. “Well, it was my dancing that drew you to me, was it not?”
Papa bent down and tucked one of her loose curls behind her ear, his hand lingering loving around her cheek. “You dance? Why, I hadn’t the slightest idea.” His dark eyes were full of mirth.
Mother laughed. “Oh, come here, Matthew,” she playfully relented, pulling him out into the middle of the floor.
The short pluck of the violin was truly not suitable for a full dance, but that did not stop the married couple.
Papa and Mother whirled and twirled around the ballroom, and as Clara watched, she could almost picture them young, in love, and dressed in their finery.
Their affection for each other played visibly across each of their faces.
I want that, she looked longingly. I want to dance around the ballroom with someone I love. They would look at me tenderly and-
“Lady Clara!” the instructor scolded, “Your eyes must remain straight ahead.” She fixed her gaze on the patterned, gold wallpaper and angrily wondered when she would actually begin dancing. “Lighten your feet!” Monsieur Dupont berated.
Unfortunately, keeping her feet from stomping when she was frustrated turned out to be quite difficult. What was the point of this? She had been walking for years! This whole lesson was an utter waste of time.
Clara heard a giggle from the other side of the room and risked a quick peek. Her parents had stopped dancing, and Papa whispered something in Mother’s ear, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, her hands rested on his chest. Then, he kissed her, short and sweet.
“Matt,” she gave him a playful swat, “not in front of Monsieur Dupont!”
“He is French, this will not faze him in the slightest.” He bent down and kissed her again, much longer this time.
While most children would have been uncomfortable seeing their parents behave in such a manner, Clara only felt a strong desire to have such a relationship. I want someone to kiss me in the middle of the ballroom.
“Lady Clara!” the dance master rebuked.
“I know,” she sighed in frustration, “eyes forward.”
“I should get back to work.” Papa groaned. “Join me for tea later?” Mother promised to stop by the study, and Father moved to the exit, pausing in the doorway. “And for the record,” he called back to her, “it wasn’t the dancing.”