As they finished breakfast the next morning, Daphne turned to Jasper. “I think it’s time. I’ve been thinking about it since Aubrey came down, and I’ve decided it is.”
Aubrey looked between the two of them, wondering what this could possibly be about.
“If you’re sure.”
“Your staff has been endlessly willing to let me practice my teaching, but I need to use that practice. And with Aubrey here, you’ll notice my absence less.”
“Very well, then. Bettie, please send for Willem.”
“What is this?” Aubrey asked as he lifted his cup to drink the last of his tea.
“Daphne plans to teach dance to the local girls as I told you when last I came to London. Perhaps someday she’ll open a dance school there as well.”
The look of pride Jasper bestowed on his wife was something to be seen, but Aubrey worried of the consequences.
“Won’t your secret be threatened if you go teaching others your arrangements?”
Daphne laughed, waving a hand for patience as she got it out of her system. “I’m not teaching performance dance, Aubrey. I’m not the fool you think me. No, I’ll teach them the proper steps, and maybe a little grace. Wait a season or two and you may find the ballroom floor transformed.”
“Now that would be a sight.”
“You called for me, mistress?”
Annoyance swept Daphne’s face, though Aubrey suspected the address not the interruption as its cause. From what Jasper had told him, this young man had been raised practically alongside Daphne from an early age, only taking on a servant’s place once her father brought the two girls to London. With Willem’s involvement in Daphne’s schemes, Aubrey suspected the formality something no less recent than her wedding.
“Yes, I did. I need you to go down to the village and speak to the landholders. Ask them if their daughters would be interested in formal dance training. Whether a season in London or country dances, a little grace can go quite far.”
“Very well.”
He turned to go without further comment, but Jasper caught his arm. “Could you go to the Ferrier household? If I recall correctly, he has some four daughters for my lady’s purposes, but I would ask you to carry another request as well. Ask when it would be a good time for me to bring Aubrey down to see that new yearling put through his paces.”
“Very well, my lord.”
Daphne sighed as he left the room. “He’s grown so formal.”
Jasper gave her a look that spoke of previous discussions. “You asked if it would pain him. He said no. He is only trying to find his proper station in the household.”
She shoved her plate away. “And I’d thought he’d have found it by now.”
Aubrey heard the layers of meaning in the words though he lacked the context to comprehend them.
Jasper caught her hand. “It’s not so easy to redirect a heart, especially when there’s not one to give it to. Give him time, and perhaps your friendship will renew. But perhaps not. If it pains you, I can have him return to your father’s household. Lord Scarborough was sad to lose him.”
Daphne pulled free with a quick jerk, only to restore the touch a moment later. “I would not send him away just because his discomfort vexes me. If he feels the need, I expect him to come forward. I just miss our friendship.”
Aubrey shook his head, thinking on the complexity of life. Clearly Willem had more than friendly feelings toward Daphne, and had for some time from the sound of it. He might bemoan his lonely state, but how much worse must it be to watch the bliss the woman he loved had found with another. Station had little to do with the heart.
Jasper rose from the table, putting an end to the discussion of Willem and his fate. “So, Aubrey, what’s it to be on this bright day? Care to come with me on a tour of my holdings? There are some fences in need of consideration, or so my men tell me.”
“I’d be happy to.” Learning the extent of the land and getting his bearings could only serve him well should Aubrey choose to escape this company for a ride. Besides, he suspected Jasper would give them the chance for something more exhilarating than a simple amble. The confines of London offered little for those in need of a run without bringing censure down on their heads.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’t need a hand with that bucket?” Sarah asked Barbara.
Though the metal bit into her palms, Barbara kept going, head down so she could have warning of potential splashes. “I milked it. I’ll bring it in.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Sarah shake her head as she too carried a bucket, though a much lighter one.
“If you’d stopped when told, it wouldn’t be so heavy.”
“And would you have expected me to,” Barbara teased as she slowed her step so the thick milk wouldn’t spill over and be wasted.
Sarah stopped all together, putting her bucket down in the yard as she started to laugh. With as much effort as she put into the merriment, even her more reasonable level would have been threatened.
“Excuse me, young misses.”
They turned toward the unfamiliar voice to see a good-looking young man dressed much the same as they were, though his clothing showed none of the wear on the cast-offs her cousins had lent Barbara.
Her mother would have been horrified for Barbara to be mistaken for a commoner. She’d worked far too hard raising her daughter as a lady despite her own background. But in that moment, the mistake seemed delightful.
Barbara offered a quick curtsy.
A heartbeat later, Sarah followed the gesture without giving Barbara away.
The young man, though, had eyes for Sarah alone for all he tried to include both of them in his greeting.
Barbara didn’t blame him.
With Sarah lost to laughter when he first came upon them, she’d have shone with good humor. Even now, a blush lingered on her cheeks and her eyes glittered in the morning light.
“You have a message?” Barbara prompted when it seemed the two of them would do nothing but stare. She’d have to remind Sarah of proper comportment when they were once again alone, as ironic as that might be considering the roles were all too often reversed.
The young man blinked as though returning to awareness all of a sudden. “Yes, of course. I’m Willem Anderson from the Pendleton Manor. My mistress sent me here to speak to the mistress of this house, and I’m to meet with the master as well.”
Barbara tensed at the name, but had no cause to deny him. “The mistress is Charlotte, I suppose. She’s off in the milking barn. I don’t know where my—the master is, but we can find him for you.”
If he’d caught her slip, he made no mention of it. His gaze had turned upon Sarah once again.
Barbara glanced around the yard.
Cook stood within earshot, and one of the stable hands bathed a horse nearby. As chaperones they would have to do.
“Why don’t you wait here with Sarah as I go fetch Charlotte?”
Sarah flushed a deep crimson. “I could not.”
With a quick nod to the others in the yard, Barbara pointed at the buckets they’d been carrying. “I can’t very well carry my milk pail back the way it came, not with any speed. Someone must watch over them. Surely you don’t expect Willem to take on the task. Or perhaps he’d be willing to carry mine the rest of the way so you can get him a glass of water. It must have been a long walk from the manor.”
“Not as long as all that,” Willem assured her, “But a drink wouldn’t go amiss. I’d be happy to lend Miss Sarah a hand.”
Barbara sent her friend a wink as she turned toward the barn. “Just make sure you don’t spill any,” she called over her shoulder only to hear Sarah’s warning of the same.
“She overfilled the bucket so take care. You wouldn’t want milk to sour on your trousers.”
Barbara went after Charlotte with measured steps, wanting to give the two of them a chance to talk. No harm could come of it when they’d be here such a short time, and why shouldn’t Sarah have some fun. After all, she had not been the one to get them cast out of London, nor had she suffered to learn the object of her affections had the manners of an oaf.
“PERHAPS SHE’S PLANNING TO hold grand balls and wants us all to make a good showing,” Jane said later that night, hands smoothing her skirt after sitting down to the meal.
“She could bring gentlemen from London and it would be just like coming out.” Marian got a dreamy look on her face.
“Or perhaps she’s just seeking a diversion, and nothing will ever come of it,” Barbara said, her mind on the discovery of who lived in the manor. Remembering just whom they had invited down from London, she hoped that when he finally availed himself of their request, she’d be long gone from here.
“Really, Cousin Barbara.”
Marian’s censure shook Barbara from her dwelling on Aubrey long enough to be embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but don’t you find it the least bit odd for the lady of the manor to be offering to teach any comer the polite dances?”
“Are we so far beneath you, then?” Georgiana lashed out.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Girls, I haven’t even decided if any of you will be allowed to go,” Charlotte said, her voice sharp. “Can we at least have a meal in peace?”
That drew the attention off Barbara but without bringing the hoped for peace as Jane jumped on her older sister with, “Why should you be the one to decide. You had a season proper in London before Mother died. Who are you to deny us the shadow of that when it comes calling?”
“Perhaps Lady Whitfeld will send for one of us to return with Barbara and have a season of our own,” Marian said, her good humor restored quickly as it always did.
“Perhaps you should spend less time dreaming and more on your chores. A season, in London or elsewhere, is not the glamorous round of balls and events you might think it. It’s confusing and complicated, and can haunt you for a lifetime.”
Charlotte pressed both hands to her lips as though to catch the words that had already escaped, her normal calm shattered. A deep sorrow showed in her eyes before she closed them and drew a shaky breath as she struggled for control.
“Girls, you will listen to your sister in this,” their father broke in from where he examined the paper come down from London on the stage. “Be happy with your lot in life. Looking for something beyond you means only grief in the end.”
What followed Charlotte’s outburst and his words could only be termed a somber meal.
Barbara did not know what had happened during Charlotte’s season to produce such an aversion, but she couldn’t very well plead that hers had been all lightness and joy, though she’d brought her banishment upon herself.
Still, what harm could there be in letting the girls dream a bit. Or in learning proper dance. Her studies in art and dance had held more joy than those in comportment for all poetry and politics held her attention the most. If her mother wouldn’t have fainted dead away at the thought, she’d have sought out some bluestockings to further her understanding.
Barbara vowed to speak to Charlotte on this topic alone.
Without the complaints and dreams of her sisters battering her ears, surely she’d see no harm in the training. Not that Barbara planned to set foot in the manor herself, but once she’d returned to London, it would provide a lovely diversion in a life that centered around chores.
And should her mother decide to bring one of the cousins out as she had Charlotte when Barbara had been too young to care, at least they’d have a chance at making a good showing. Perhaps that had been at the root of Charlotte’s disappointment. If she’d stood out too much as a country girl, the London gentlemen might just have thought her too simple to take on a life in society.
Happy in the decision, Barbara snagged her uncle’s paper once he’d finished with it and set it aside to peruse later in her room. She had chores for now, helping the others clear the table and set the kitchen to rights for the early baking.