Chapter Sixteen
If she stayed at the ball one moment longer, her coach would be a pompion again, her horses mice, her coachman a rat, her footmen lizards, and her cloaths become just as they were before.
Maria dreamed of herself in flowing gold muslin and silk stockings, dancing at the ball with the prince.
Perhaps she slipped or swooned, for one of his arms encircled her shoulders, and he whispered something she could not catch.
Too, too soon the dreaded clock struck, the moment of her transformation drawing close.
She gave his chest a reluctant push, sighing, “I must go,” but he only clutched her harder, his other arm coming under her knees so that he swung her, carried her, across the ballroom.
It was too wondrous—like sailing above the world, and her godmother’s instructions fell away because perhaps the prince might love her even if she wore rags… ?
Her own arm crept up to clasp his neck, his bare neck, and she twisted fingers in his hair, murmuring, “You will love me, won’t you?”
“It might already be done,” breathed the prince, disentangling himself. “Now shhhh…”
He lowered her, lay her down again in softness and warmth, before carrying her hand to his lips. Then he was gone.
Later, as the starlit world of dreams receded, Maria became gradually aware of more commonplace sounds: muffled voices, a passing vehicle in the street, the clink of pattens. And nearer at hand, the scraping of the fireplace.
Reluctantly she opened sleepy eyes wide enough to take in the hunched form of Rundell doing exactly that, and she watched her, thinking how tedious to be a maid-of-all-work, up before everyone else and seeing to their comforts, with no one to see to one’s own.
One’s comforts.
Maria’s eyes flew open.
For she was entirely, deliciously comfortable. But—why was she not pressed to the back of the sofa, to avoid sliding off the damask upholstery to the floor? Why was she, in fact, in the bed?
I am in the bed.
Was she misremembering? Had she, actually, slept in the bed last night, and relegated her tall husband to the narrow, too-short sofa?
By curling her body inch by silent inch and bringing her head further down the pillow, Maria could see the sofa, but there was not a thing upon it. Not Benjamin Ellsworth, nor rumpled blankets, nor neatly folded blankets. Nothing.
He put me in the bed.
Then it had not been a dream, him carrying her? Because surely she would remember if they had both shared the bed the night before. Oh, mercy. She could only pray that winding her fingers through his dark hair had been part of her dream.
Rundell straightened and stretched her back.
“Where is Mr. Ellsworth?” whispered Maria.
The maid turned. “Downstairs, madam. He said you might like a small fire up here, though I’ve built them in the parlor and dining room already for him and Mrs. Charles Ells—”
“Thank you. That won’t be necessary,” Maria interrupted, throwing off the covers and smothering a gasp at the cold. But she would not loll about if everyone was awake. What would Mrs. Ellsworth think?
Her earlier sympathy for Rundell was forgotten as the maid regarded her, a smugness about her mouth which Maria didn’t like.
It could have meant a dozen things, all of them unwelcome.
I see Mrs. Ellsworth’s arrival forced you two to give over squabbling.
Or, Pretending to be thick as sweethearts now, are we?
Or, You can’t fool me! I know you didn’t share that bed, or why would the sofa be up here now?
She was downstairs as soon as she could make herself presentable, discovering her husband and mother-in-law just beginning breakfast. Benjamin she could hardly look at (he’d carried her to the bed!), but she returned Mrs. Ellsworth’s glowing smile with a sheepish one.
“Ah! There she is. I need not ask if you slept well, my dear, for you are a picture, with your rosy cheeks. What do you say, Benjamin?”
He regarded the ruffle of Maria’s cap, just above her right ear and said, “Yes. A picture. Soft and warm. That is—er—ahem.”
“Soft and warm” reminded Maria of the Barstows’ cat, in whose furry belly she had been wont to bury her face when she was young, to Outlaw’s vexation.
But this morning, in her blue wool dress and muslin cap, such a description seemed hardly fitting.
Was he thinking of how she felt when he carried her—or was she the only one thinking of it?
With an effort she forced the question from her mind and helped herself to rolls, cheese and eggs. “And you?” she asked. “Did you…sleep well, madam?”
“Oh, yes. How do you say…like a top! I slept like a top.”
“A-And you, Benjamin?”
He cleared his throat a second time, folding the newspaper Austin had brought from the senior common room the day before.
“Ahem. Yes. As well. Like a top. Which is good because I must make an early start, I’m afraid, having shirked my duties yesterday.
Otherwise I would have waited to eat with you, Maria. ”
“Oh! I didn’t know. I wish you would wake me up next time.”
“Something tells me that would not be an easy task,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You and I might have slept like tops, Maman, but Maria here is more like…”
“La belle au bois dormant,” his mother supplied, chuckling. “The sleeping beauty in the wood.”
“Or in the Pembroke Street lodging house,” amended her son. “But never fear, Maria. My mother came down only a few minutes before you. I hope the two of you will be able to amuse yourselves today. It may be a long one because there is a dinner Austin and I will have to attend.”
“Bah,” said Mrs. Ellsworth. “I am content to do whatever dear Maria likes. If she would like to sit at home sewing, we will do that. If she would like to walk, we will walk. Reading, shopping, calling upon her sister…” She fluttered her fingers to indicate her freedom, and Maria felt a little thrill.
Though circumstances might have denied her a friendship with George Denver’s Miss Hancock, at least for the length of Mrs. Ellsworth’s visit she would have a companion.
And maybe Mrs. Ellsworth would come to love her, not just for her son’s sake but for Maria’s own.
“It sounds, then, like I will hardly be missed,” he teased. Rising, he came around the table to drop a kiss on the top of his mother’s head. Then he must take his leave of Maria, who sat at the foot, and she straightened primly to receive her identical share.
His hesitation was infinitesimal.
Wilting inwardly, Maria supposed he was reluctant even to kiss the top of her head.
She could have no way of knowing, however, that in his tiny pause, her husband saw a hundred mornings of his boyhood—a thousand of them—where his father bid his mother good-bye.
If ever Charles Ellsworth had been distracted or perfunctory about it, Jeanne Ellsworth’s good-humored protests recalled him to his duties.
In this moment, in fact, Benjamin weighed the possible consequences of trying to get away with a cursory salute to his wife.
It would not do, clearly. Not if he hoped to escape his mother calling disapproving attention to it.
But the consequences of simply coming at Maria without warning might prove equally uncomfortable.
Before his courage could falter, he strode over to her, bending to place his lips very near her ear. Then, doing his utmost to appear besotted and flirtatious, he murmured rapidly, “Beg pardon. She will be expecting affection. Try not to act surprised.”
The next thing she knew, he playfully bumped the tip of his nose in that same ear and then kissed both it and the defenseless tender spot behind it, the brush of his lips leaving a trail of fire.
Maria’s resulting gasp and blush said little for her acting skills and everything for her genuine astonishment, but by the time he reached the door, she managed to stammer out, “G-Good—have a good day, darling.”
Mrs. Ellsworth beamed.
The two Ellsworth wives chose shopping for the day’s activity. Or, at least, they chose window-gazing.
“You must tell me what you love,” insisted Mrs. Ellsworth as they walked the High Street.
“Besides my son, of course,” she added mischievously.
“Is it music? Reading? Dancing? Benjamin is a very good dancer, don’t you think?
I think it is not good to be too tall, and he is not too tall.
Too-tall men dance sometimes like windmills—all long arms and limbs. ”
“There is—an assembly at the rooms this Friday, Miss Hancock told me,” Maria blurted. She hadn’t meant to say it, but the question about Benjamin’s dancing panicked her, whether because of her dream the night before or because she dreaded admitting she had never danced with him.
Dark eyes glowing, her mother-in-law seized her arm and halted her. “Vraiment? If it is so, we will certainly go! Then I will have the pleasure of seeing you dance and dancing myself with him and Austin. Quel délice!”
“Oh—I don’t know how delightful it would be,” Maria tried to retreat, alarmed by her own heedlessness. “I have only ever danced with my family. At home or—or on private occasions.”
“Don’t be shy, Maria,” coaxed Mrs. Ellsworth. “It is no different in public, except perhaps a few gentlemen will ask to be introduced to you. I suspect in a place like Oxford the young men outnumber the young ladies.”
“But I should have consulted Benjamin first. You must not depend on us attending, Mrs. Ellsworth. We had better do what Benjamin likes.”
“What nonsense! You are his new bride, and if you told him you wanted him to paint his nose red and scale the outside of Tom Tower, he had better do it,” her companion insisted. “But he will be glad to grant you this. My boys love to dance.”
But the thought of attending the assembly with her husband and seeing his eyes wander to Miss Allen was not to be borne. Or would it be worse if he deliberately refused to look at her? Which action would betray the stronger feeling? And would their prior acquaintance require him to partner her?