Chapter 2
Two
“Iwish I might be certain. He is such a fine figure of a man, and I…” Arabella’s small hand fluttered dismissively about her rose-patterned gown. “If not for flounces and fichus, I fear I should have no bosom at all.”
Elizabeth leaned conspiratorially toward her friend. “I hear tell the fashion is shifting away from padding and petticoats, to a straighter line. Then you shall be all the rage and my poor rounded bosoms shall be desperately outmoded.”
“You outmoded? Never!” Annabella, Arabella’s sister, laughed. “Your style shall always be uniquely your own.”
Elizabeth cast a discreet glance over her shoulder as she pretended to adjust her mantelet.
There James was, standing about with those tiresome boors, Lounsbury and Ashton.
He looked bored, lounging against the wall like a dustman on his break.
Her lips twitched at this far-fetched comparison.
James was far too elegant, far too handsome to ever pass for a dustman.
She turned her attention back to Arabella Norcroft’s relentless speculation as to whether Thomas Stirling would ask her to dance.
Arabella might not be considered a classic beauty by the ton, Elizabeth thought, but she had beautiful brown eyes and a delightful smile, like a brownie up to mischief.
“…and when my mother and I passed him earlier, he smiled and nodded at me. I think he would have approached us, if he had not been engaged in conversation with another young gentleman.”
“You must dance with someone else. It will distract your mind while reminding Mr. Stirling that if he persists in shilly-shallying about, he risks losing your heart and hand to another.” Elizabeth offered her arm. “Come, let us survey the room for a man with a stout heart and a sound wit.”
Arabella’s eyes danced above the edge of her fan. “If it’s not too much trouble, might he be somewhat handsome as well?” Annabella smiled, and Elizabeth cast another quick glance across the ballroom at James Dinsmore: Handsome might be too much trouble, indeed.
Anne Dinsmore watched Elizabeth Harcrest drift across the ballroom arm in arm with that drab brown wren, Arabella Norcroft.
A wren, a fledgling fresh from the nest. Her ballroom floor was littered with similar young things, chirping and flapping about.
And the men, well, they were as pleased with the display as barnyard cats eyeing an easy banquet.
She resisted the urge to frown; it would only encourage wrinkles.
She had no desire to appear even a day older than her twenty-five years.
She willed her expression into a smile. These were her guests, unwitting players in a drama she had been scripting for months and would now direct to a final, dramatic conclusion.
Moreham had publicly scorned her. He would learn there was a price to pay for toying with a woman’s expectations, for forcing a woman to once again trawl the pool of men she knew were either too short or too fat, too venal, or too stupid to make a suitable husband.
Anne’s smile eased into a more natural curve as Arabella joined the dancing and Elizabeth Harcrest drifted toward James like a leaf drawn into a whirlpool.
She purposefully flicked open her scarlet and gold fan.
The sharp snap of the ivory ribs attracted the attention of the women gathered around her; the aging but influential Lady Morton and Mrs. Henderson, the daughter of a wool merchant who’d married above her station and used gossip as an entrance ticket to the inner circles of the ton.
“It is amusing, is it not,” Anne said with an idle wave of her fan, “how the Earl of Moreham’s sister throws herself at my brother James. ”
“He is most handsome,” Jane Henderson said responsively.
Anne smiled fondly in the direction of her brother. “And so tenderhearted. He has tried, in so many subtle and yet clearly unmistakable ways, to let Lady Elizabeth know he has no interest in her. And yet…” She allowed her words to trail off in a regretful sigh.
“She is a brash young thing.” Lady Morton arched the sparse remainders of her over-plucked eyebrows disapprovingly. She was wearing a hat that made it appear as if an exotic bird had taken roost upon her head.
“Youth will be headstrong,” Anne said gently.
“In my day,” Lady Morton sniffed, “young girls knew better. They didn’t roam about the dance floor unattended. They stayed close to their mamas.”
“Well, we all know how”—Anne paused as if searching for a polite description—“distracted Elizabeth’s mother can be.”
“Is Louisa even here tonight?” Lady Morton said.
Anne shook her head slightly, so as not to dislodge her carefully arranged ash-blonde hair. “Louisa is more comfortable amongst her flowers. Elizabeth is under her brother’s watchful eye this evening.”
“Moreham’s eye, indeed,” Lady Morton sniffed again. “The man only has eyes for his new French wife. What is her name? Armoire?”
“Alix,” Jane Henderson supplied helpfully.
“I don’t understand why those people can’t give their children decent English names.
But then, what can you expect from people who persist in speaking such an incomprehensible language?
” Lady Morton shook her head, the plumes in her hat like feathered flags signaling her disdain.
“And why can’t they stay in their own country? ”
“There are troubles with the new government,” Jane offered.
“How can you possibly refer to that common rabble as a government?” Lady Morton raised a hand laden with rings and patted the stiff curls of her outmoded coiffure.
“Those troubles, as you call them, would never have occurred if the French had stood their ground like proper Englishmen.” She turned suddenly toAnne.
“And speaking of standing one’s ground, I must say I have the greatest respect for how you’ve handled Moreham’s decision to marry that girl. ”
Anne resisted the urge to smack Lady Morton with her fan.
Her fingers tightened around the fan’s ivory handle.
“Moreham and I are old friends. I wish him nothing but happiness,” she said, with a smile as sweet as icing on a cake.
“And I cannot help but think how fortunate I am to have discovered his affections were engaged elsewhere before we plighted our troth.”
Jane Henderson shot a quick glance at Lady Morton.
It was well known among the ton that Lord Morton was more devoted to his mistress of twenty-eight years than to his wife of the past twenty-six.
The plumes on Lady Morton’s hat abruptly stilled as the poisonous words found their target. “Indeed,” she said stiffly.
“One must be so careful about entrusting one’s hand and one’s heart to a man,” Anne continued, her voice like a purr.
“That is why I have taken my time in choosing a husband. Better to end my days as a spinster than an unhappy wife.” With a snap of her fan, she turned her attention to the dance floor where Elizabeth Harcrest was engaged in conversation with James and his friends.
Pointing her fan in Elizabeth’s direction, she added, “Or worse still, a foolish girl with a desperate reputation.”
“Does your brother permit you to drink champagne?” James inquired as Elizabeth lifted a glass from the tray of a passing footman.
“He said I should avoid strong drink. But I must say”—she lifted her glass so that light from the chandelier flooded it, turning the trails of bubbles into a tiny galaxy of stars—“I cannot imagine how such a frothy drink could be considered strong.” Her tongue darted out, capturing a drop that quivered on the edge of the flute.
James knew he was not the only one watching the slim column of her throat as she swallowed.
“I’ll drink to that,” Lounsbury said.
Moreham should be keeping better watch on his little sister. Moreham’s sister, he reminded himself. Not his. James tossed back the last bit of his brandy and put the empty glass on the footman’s tray.
Ashton, who’d been watching Elizabeth like a border collie eyeing a ewe, edged closer. “I’d be most honored if you’d dance with me, Lady Elizabeth.”
“The lady has promised this dance to me,” James said, plucking Elizabeth’s glass from her fingers and handing it to Ashton.
“Amazing,” she remarked as he led her onto the floor. “How ever did I manage to promise a dance to a man who never even asked me?”
“Would you have preferred to dance with Ashton?”
Elizabeth glanced back over her shoulder; Ashton bobbed and smiled at her. “Is he a better dancer?” she asked, her voice speculative, her eyes brimming with laughter.
“Not even close.”
“You’re very sure of yourself, James Dinsmore.”
“Nearly as sure as you are reckless, Elizabeth Harcrest.”
“You’re beginning to sound like my brother.”
“He’s beginning to have my sympathies.”
“A rake with sympathies,” she said, smiling up at him as they took their places for the dance. “Isn’t that a dangerous thing?”
“You have na?ve ideas about men, Elizabeth.”
“Of course I have na?ve ideas. I’ve been imprisoned in the countryside for the past eighteen years.” She paused to observe the patterns danced by the first couple in the line. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am endeavoring to become educated.”
“Ashton and Lounsbury have certainly noticed.”
She cocked her head at him. “Have you?”
He thought of her lips, soft and wet against the glass. “No.”
“I don’t believe you.” She turned back to watch the dancers.
“Now who seems overly sure?” he murmured.
She smiled.
The first couple finished dancing and made their way to the end of the line.
With this one, James thought uncomfortably, my usual words of seduction seem somehow wrong, like cheating at checkers with a child.
Anne had asked him to flirt with Elizabeth, lead her on.
And he’d agreed. Ton affairs were tedious, overflowing with poor conversation and worse liquor.
Without flirtation and the occasional sexual escapade, a man might go mad from boredom.
James and Elizabeth moved forward and the second couple began the forms.
And Lord knew, there was already far too much madness in the Dinsmore line.
James cast his eyes to the ceiling, painted with a scene from a long-forgotten battle in which his ancestors had fought.
Two floors above, his father, dressed in bedsheets and wearing a silver flower bowl upon his head, paced and planned the progress of his imaginary troops.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the crimson and cream of his sister’s gown.
She’d made it from the silk of an old court gown of their mother’s and trimmed it with ribbons cut from a doublet she’d found in a trunk.
She’d spent the mornings, when most fashionable ladies were still abed, sewing by the light of the upstairs parlor window.
She said it was because she didn’t like to waste time, but he knew it was really the candles she did not want to waste.
“What are you thinking, James?”
Elizabeth’s voice intruded upon his thoughts. He glanced back at her, at the lush velvet mantelet that crossed over her full round breasts, wrapped around her slender waist, and tucked behind. She might be young and innocent, but Elizabeth Harcrest certainly wasn’t a child.
“I was thinking that amber velvet sets off the haunting colors of your eyes.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And that was why you were frowning?”
“No,” he replied smoothly. “I was frowning because this line is appallingly long and I fear this dance will never end.”
“And you wish to be rid of me?”
“No, I have no wish to be rid of you.” He gestured to the line. “But I would prefer to be shed of them.”
Her eyes danced with far more life than the couple moving ponderously around each other at the front of the line. “You could offer to show me the famed Dinsmore portrait gallery.”
“I could, but I would never resort to such an obvious cliché.”
“You might offer to fetch me some more champagne.”
“Lady Elizabeth, I am not a dog. I do not fetch.”
“Dear Lord Dinsmore, my throat is as parched as the Gobi Desert. I fear if I do not find refreshment I shall fall into a swoon.”
“We cannot have that, Lady Elizabeth.” He turned a smile upon her that had encouraged numerous ladies to unlace their corsets. “Just think of how it would further slow the progress of the dance. Good gracious, we might be forced to provide breakfast for all these people.”
“You’re incorrigible.” She laughed.
“Indeed, I am,” he said as he reached for her hand. “I am a man without heart, without scruples, and unlikely to change.” So don’t trust me for a moment.
“I don’t believe that,” she said, slipping her slender fingers into his.
“You should,” he said softly.
She shook her head.
“Would you believe, then, that I have a chilled bottle of champagne, tucked amongst the tomes of the library?”
“I would.” Embers of mischief glowed in her eyes. “Though I might wonder if it had been placed there solely for my pleasure.”
“It might have been…” He tucked her arm in his and drew her away from the dance.
“There you see,” she said triumphantly, “if you were completely heartless, you would have said, ‘Yes, of course, my darling Elizabeth, that wine is meant for your rosy lips, and yours alone.’”
Her lips did resemble the curved petals of a rose. “I would never be so trite.”
“And you should say that the sparkle of the wine is surpassed only by the sparkle of my eyes…”
“Good Lord, Elizabeth, you’ve either been reading far too much romantic poetry, or listening to far too many young men with limited imaginations.”
“The latter,” she said firmly, looking at him with eyes that did, indeed, surpass the sparkle of the finest wine.
He led her through the double doors of the ballroom into a crowded corridor. “Though many still consider you a young man, James Dinsmore, even at the ripe old age of twenty-seven.”
“It is not how many years you have, my dear,” he said as he guided her past the clusters of guests, “but how you have chosen to spend them.”
As they continued down the hall, the crowds thinned, until there were only a few clusters here and there engaged in conversation. James led Elizabeth down another hall, lit by a few flickering sconces. He paused at a paneled door of rich mahogany, his hand on the brass knob.
“Elizabeth?” He turned the knob and swung the door open. She entered, her skirts rustling against him. He stood for a moment, watching her as she explored the room, her fingers trailing against the spines of the shelved books.
And then he slid a ribbon from the bottom of his braided queue, draped it over the outside knob, and quietly closed the door.