Chapter 13
“You have three spaces remaining on your card, Miss Fairchild.”
Eleanor stood beside the pillar nearest the entrance to the ballroom, radiating the intensity of someone delivering intelligence of national importance.
Her silver gown caught the candlelight from the chandelier above, a vast crystal constellation that threw prisms across the polished floor.
Garlands of white roses climbed every column.
A string orchestra played on the raised platform at the far end with the earnest concentration of men whose employment depended on keeping forty of London’s most influential guests in motion.
“I am aware,” Louisa said.
“You have been here for less than an hour. Lord Hathaway claimed the first. Sir John Everett claimed the second. Mr. Fairfax, who has never once asked you to dance in four Seasons, materialized beside the punch bowl as though he had been lying in wait.”
“He was lying in wait. He told me so. He said he had been watching the door.”
“Good heavens.” Eleanor pressed her gloved fingers against her temple. “Louisa, do you understand what is happening?”
“Men are asking me to dance.”
“Men are competing to dance with you.” Eleanor caught her arm. “Frederick claimed two.”
The warmth that spread through Louisa’s chest was familiar: the old, steady glow of being noticed by the man she had admired for years.
Frederick had approached her within minutes of her arrival, his manner more assured than she had seen it.
He had bowed, complimented her gown, then requested both the cotillion and the quadrille.
Two dances. An unmistakable declaration of interest, by any standard of polite society.
“He was quite attentive,” Louisa said.
“He was more than attentive. He looked at you as though he had only just realized you were in the room. Which, frankly, is years overdue.” Eleanor paused. She tilted her head. “Why do you not look happier about this?”
“I am happy.”
“You look as though you have been asked to catalogue a library. By alphabet. In Latin.”
“That is how I look when I am happy. You have known me long enough.”
Eleanor studied her for a long moment. Louisa met her gaze, keeping her face arranged into a pleasant expression she had been practicing since the carriage.
“Your card,” Eleanor said, reaching for it.
Louisa surrendered the small booklet. Eleanor opened it, scanning the penciled names.
“Lord Langley for the cotillion. Lord Langley again for the quadrille. Lord Hathaway, Sir John, Mr. Tyndale, Lord Barrett, Lord Dalton for the supper dance.” She looked up. “That leaves two empty spaces. The Scotch reel and the final waltz.”
“I am aware.”
A ripple moved through the room. Louisa felt it before she saw it: a shift in the music of conversation, the turning of heads, the subtle recalibration that occurred whenever someone of consequence entered late.
She did not need to turn toward the door.
She knew, from the way Eleanor’s expression changed, from the quickening murmur that passed through the nearest cluster of guests.
Oliver had arrived.
She turned. He stood in the entrance, scanning the room. His gaze moved across the assembled guests with practiced ease, accustomed to rooms full of people who wanted to be near him.
His eyes found hers. He held her gaze for a beat that lasted longer than it should have, long enough that the heat crept up the back of her neck. Then he smiled, the slow, lopsided curve that started in his eyes, and turned to greet Lady Acker.
“He is late,” Eleanor observed. “Half an hour, at least.”
“I had not noticed.”
“Oh, is that the truth?”
Louisa did not respond. She watched Oliver bend over Lady Acker’s hand with a grace that made three young ladies near the refreshment table exhale in audible unison.
Lord Hathaway appeared at Louisa’s elbow as the first dance was called, bowed, and led her onto the floor before she had quite finished setting down her lemonade.
“Miss Fairchild. A pleasure. I trust you are well this evening?”
“Very well, thank you, my lord.”
“Capital. Capital.” He guided her through the opening figure with the stiff competence of a man who had learned his steps forty years ago and resented every one since. “Warm tonight, is it not?”
“It is.”
“They will insist on lighting every candle in the room. I have said as much to Lady Acker. Half the candles would do. Saves wax. Nobody would notice the difference.”
“I expect you are right.”
“I am invariably right. It is my curse.” He delivered this without a trace of humor and handed her off at the turn.
The country dance brought Sir John Everett, who was young, cheerful, and determined to discuss his new mare for the duration of every figure.
“Sixteen hands, Miss Fairchild. Sixteen. My man says she is the finest animal he has seen come out of Leicestershire in a decade.”
“That is high praise.”
“He wept, Miss Fairchild. A grown man. I could not look at him for the rest of the afternoon.”
Louisa smiled. Sir John was harmless. He required nothing from her beyond the occasional nod, and he supplied his own enthusiasm in such generous quantities that the dance passed quickly.
Mr. Fitzwilliam was less easily managed. He materialized at her side the moment the set ended, his collar damp, his forehead glistening beneath the chandeliers.
“Insufferable,” he announced, as though resuming a conversation they had not been having. “Twenty-eight degrees at minimum. I enquired of the footman. He could not confirm. No thermometer, Miss Fairchild. A gathering of this size and no thermometer. One shudders to think.”
“One does.”
“At Lord Waverley’s last autumn, they had the foresight to open every window on the eastern side. Dropped the temperature considerably. I made a note of it.”
“You keep notes on room temperature?”
“Somebody must. The negligence with which most hostesses approach ventilation borders on the criminal.”
She danced with him, smiled, and when the music ended she curtsied easily.
Between dances, she stood with Eleanor near the tall windows, accepting glasses of lemonade from passing footmen.
Frederick stood with Lord Ashton discussing, from the animated movement of his hands, either horses or architecture.
Oliver had been absorbed into a circle of gentlemen near the fireplace where Sebastian Hawthorne was holding court with a story that produced eruptions of laughter at regular intervals.
Oliver had not approached her.
She danced the cotillion with Frederick. His hand was warm through her glove. “Lord Ashton has mentioned a garden party that they are planning,” he mentioned.
“Oh, is he?”
“It promises to be a delightful gathering,” he said, guiding her through the turn. “Lord Ashton has excellent grounds. The shooting is very fine.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“I believe he is hoping to assemble a small group. Select company. Those whose presence would genuinely enhance the occasion.” He met her eyes as they came together in the figure. “I understand an invitation may be forthcoming.”
Her pulse quickened. A house party. Frederick, mentioning her name in connection with an invitation. This was progress. This was precisely what the arrangement with Oliver had been designed to achieve.
“How kind of Lord Ashton,” she said.
Frederick smiled. “I rather suspect his wife is behind it. Lady Ashton has taken quite a liking to you. She told me last Thursday that you were the most sensible young lady she had met all Season.”
“Sensible.” She kept her voice light. “What a thrilling compliment.”
“I meant it as high praise. Sensibility is an undervalued quality.”
The dance separated them. When they came back together, his hand found hers with an assurance that felt deliberate. He was looking at her differently tonight.
The quadrille came next. Frederick again. He spoke about his family’s estate in Kent, the improvements he planned, the gardens his mother had designed before her death. His voice carried a warmth she had not heard from him before.
“I should very much like to show you the gardens at Langley Park,” he said during a pause in the figures. “My mother planted a rose walk that is at its finest in August.”
“I would like that,” she said.
The quadrille ended. Frederick bowed over her hand, his lips brushing her knuckles a fraction longer than custom required. Louisa curtsied. She returned to Eleanor beside the windows.
“Well?” Eleanor’s fan moved with urgent precision.
“He mentioned a house party. Lord Ashton’s estate in Wiltshire. He said an invitation may be forthcoming.”
“And?”
“He mentioned his family’s rose garden in Kent. He said he would like to show it to me.”
Eleanor’s fan stopped moving. “Louisa. That is very nearly a declaration.”
“It is not a declaration. It is a rose garden.”
“It is a rose garden belonging to an unmarried gentleman’s deceased mother, offered to an unmarried lady over the course of their second dance at Lady Acker’s ball. That is a declaration wrapped in petals.”
Louisa pressed her lips together. The orchestra was tuning for the next set. Around them, partners were being collected, hands offered, positions assumed. The candles in the chandelier burned with a steady, golden insistence.
“There are two dances remaining,” Eleanor said. “The Scotch reel and the final waltz. Both unclaimed.”
“I know.”
“Oliver has not danced once this evening.”
Louisa had noticed. She had noticed. He had remained near the fireplace for most of the evening, talking with Sebastian, accepting drinks from the footmen, laughing at observations she was too far away to hear.
He had not approached any young lady. He had not asked for any card.
He had crossed the room twice: once to speak with Lady Acker, once to greet Lord Dalton.
Both times he had passed within a few feet of where Louisa stood, close enough that she caught the scent of cedar on his coat.
Both times, he had not stopped.