| |
Naturally, Beatrice chose the new copper gown for the Earl of Clarendon’s ball. It seemed her most impressive one, and this was their grandest event yet — a ball in Piccadilly, just west of Devonshire House, with a sit-down dinner. Not that Amity’s ball hadn’t been wonderful, but their sister’s had been a new event, whereas Clarendon’s was long-standing and, thus, prestigious, not to mention fully covered by all the daily papers the following morning.
“I feel all tingly,” Charlotte said as they entered Clarendon House, turned in their coats and received numbered claim tickets. “Look, they’ve even given us pencils.”
Beatrice slid the white ribbon holding her card onto her wrist and put the pencil and ticket in her reticule. Then she surveyed the earl’s marvelous entrance hall — quite cavernous, expectedly ornate and gilded — with its grand staircase leading up to the public rooms. Beautifully dressed guests were streaming up, diverging at the landing halfway, going both to the left and the right up to the next level.
“Look,” Charlotte said, craning her head as she gawked at the ceiling that truly seemed to stretch heavenward.
Beatrice, while not wanting to appear like a green country girl when she was a Londoner born and bred, couldn’t help looking up as well. Mr. Carson promptly bumped into the back of her, nearly sending her flying. Luckily, Charlotte reached out and grabbed her arm saving her from a clumsy disgrace. They both turned on him.
“What on earth?” Beatrice hissed.
Since collecting them from their home, he’d been beyond affable, telling them how pleased he was to be joining them once again. Smiling at her — his crooked grin making her heart clench — he apologized.
“Sorry, I gave them my hat and thought you ladies were on the move, but you stopped before I noticed.”
“I nearly made a spectacle of myself,” she snapped, “and I haven’t even made it into the ballroom yet.”
He winced, then said, “Remember Farrah’s, as your mother said. Does that help? Like a soothing balm?”
She rolled her eyes, but lost her flash of temper at his excellent recollection. Besides, Charlotte’s quick grab had saved her enduring a scene of ignominy. Otherwise, Beatrice would undoubtedly be head-over-heels with a tear in her new gown, or worse, her petticoats on display.
“Let’s go upstairs, shall we?” she asked civilly. She’d been thrilled when Mr. Carson insisted he would pick them up, and when her mother said she had no interest in going — “only to be the old mare among the wide-eyed fillies” — Beatrice had accepted his offer.
“They gave me a pencil,” she heard him exclaim behind them as they mounted the stairs.
“Left or right?” Charlotte asked as they reached the landing.
Beatrice didn’t think there was a correct answer, nor that it mattered, but Mr. Carson said, “Right, of course.”
“Why do you say ‘of course’?” Charlotte asked, even as she cooperated and went up the right side.
“Because if you’re right-handed, as most of us are, then you will want to grip the rail with your right hand.”
“Very practical,” Beatrice said, and they proceeded to climb the next staircase that put them at the front of the house again. Taking a left, they strolled along the gallery able to look down on all those still entering or up at the domed ceiling with a much closer view than they’d had previously.
“Why, I can see little moons and stars painted on the ceiling. Isn’t that clever?”
“For goodness sake, Charlotte, don’t dawdle,” Beatrice teased, “or Mr. Carson will run you down.”
The ballroom was much like Amity’s except far larger, and across the hall, a secondary reception room was open with doors at either end.
“I think we can dance from one room directly into the next,” Charlotte said with awe, her voice dropped to a low tone.
“Why are you whispering?” Beatrice asked.
“Because it’s so opulent, so very grand. It seems like we’re going to spend the evening at St. Paul’s.”
They entered the ballroom, and floor managers greeted them immediately. Despite there being no crush of people as at Sandrall Hall, even so, this ball would be better staffed than any public one.
When Mr. Carson asked one of the managers where the earl was, expecting him to be wandering about greeting his guests, the man gave a shallow bow.
“I have been informed his lordship will attend some part of this evening.” Then he turned heel and walked away to see to another guest.
“I don’t understand,” Mr. Carson said . “It’s the earl’s ball, but he may or may not be here?”
Beatrice was as in the dark as he was. However, Charlotte, as usual, knew more about high society from reading the gossip rags.
“It’s more a Clarendon House ball than it is this particular earl’s event. He is continuing a tradition started by his father, but apart from him providing the venue and grounds and lending it his name, the ball is run by others, and the price we paid for admission will cover the cost of the musicians and the food. Look around you,” Charlotte said, and they did so, taking in the expansive room with an impressive line of chandeliers down its center and twelve curtained floor-to-ceiling windows along the length. A group of musicians nearly the size of an orchestra was set up at one end, and the ballroom still seemed spacious.
“One couldn’t expect the Earl of Clarendon to host in the way Amity and the duke did for their more intimate affair,” Charlotte concluded.
Beatrice stared at her sister. “You know so much more than I give you credit for, dear one.”
Charlotte grinned, and it reminded Beatrice of a cat who’d eaten the canary. Her little sister might be insufferable for the rest of the evening. Right away, Charlotte said, “Let’s get a table on the opposite side, away from the doors, so we can see more.” And she strode across the parquet as if she owned the place.
“There shall be no living with her now,” Beatrice mused.
Mr. Carson escorted them to a table and wrote his name on each of their cards before dashing off to secure his place with others.
“It is more fun when he’s with us,” Charlotte said, reading Beatrice’s mind a little too closely.
“He’s hardly with us, in any case,” she protested. And then she could think no more of her American friend as the introductions and the new faces began to make the rounds.
Within twenty minutes, Beatrice’s card was nearly full.
“Miss Rare-Foure,” an unfamiliar gentleman greeted her. She glanced around for a floor manager, but none was to be seen. “Please, don’t be alarmed. I apologize for my forwardness, but I missed dancing with you at the Duke of Pelham’s ball, and I didn’t want that to happen again.”
She didn’t recall seeing him at Amity and Henry’s. He was a few years older than Mr. Carson, finer features, dancing brown eyes, and thick brown hair. She’d been extremely nervous at her first ball, and could scarcely remember the faces of those with whom she had actually danced.
“I am the Viscount Melton,” he continued, bowing low to her and to Charlotte, but he addressed his next question only to Beatrice. “May I have the honor of a dance?”
“Yes,” she said, holding out her wrist to him.
Raising the card, he examined it, then scrawled his name.
“I am most relieved to see you still had space, Miss Rare-Foure. I look forward to our dance.”
With that, he disappeared into the growing throng.
“I guess he was chiefly interested in you,” Charlotte mused.
“Why do you say that?” Beatrice asked.
“Because he didn’t put his name on my card.”
“Oh!” Beatrice was surprised. It was the first time, when she and Charlotte were standing together, that a gentleman hadn’t wanted to dance with each of them.
“Do you fancy him?” her sister asked.
Lord Melton couldn’t hold a candle to Mr. Carson. Beatrice dismissed that first thought. That was like saying Lord Melton couldn’t hold a candle to Zeus, Caesar, or some ancient Pharaoh. What was the point in comparing a man who was within reach to one who was an impossibility?
“His appearance was pleasing, don’t you think?” Beatrice returned carefully.
Charlotte agreed. “A good head of hair.”
When the dancing began, Lord Melton claimed her for the fifth dance. They had very little time to speak, but after the dance, he said he hoped she might be agreeable to allowing him to call on her at her home.
So shocked by her first real arrangement with a man, and a viscount at that, Beatrice was silent for a moment.
“I’ve rendered the toffee heiress speechless,” he said, and she startled. How on earth had he heard the silly story? But he cocked his head, and she liked the spark of humor in his eyes. “I hope not from disdain.”
“No, of course not.” Did he really think her an heiress? If so, she should apprise him of the mistake at once. However, she didn’t think he could possibly be serious.
“You are welcome to call on me, my lord. However, I am not often at home.”
“Not during the common visiting hours?” He frowned slightly, perhaps unable to imagine what she could be doing.
She assumed he meant between eleven and three o’clock, as in every novel of manners she’d read in which the nobility’s calling hours had been mentioned.
“No, especially not then. It would be best if you send me a note, and I shall reply as to my availability.”
“I see.”
Did he? He seemed disappointed, and she reconsidered.
“Or you may catch me at home until half past ten.”
His expression brightened. “Very well then. I hope to see you at that frightfully early hour some day this week.” Bowing over her hand, he strode away.
Before she could spend another instant thinking how a gentleman was going to call upon her at home, her next dance partner appeared, and dance number six began.
When Mr. Carson came to claim her an hour later, she had lost all track of time and been so distracted with new faces, she had entirely forgotten which dance he’d claimed.
“But this is directly before dinner,” Beatrice protested, as he took her onto the floor for the start of a lancier.
“I know. I thought we would enjoy our roast beef far more without having to struggle though niceties and questions.”
She felt the same way but couldn’t help protesting. “Don’t you wish to get to know some young lady better? Isn’t that the point?”
He shrugged. “Right now, I’m content to dance and dine with you unless you prefer another dinner companion.”
Absolutely, she did not. “I cannot believe we are to dine on roast beef instead of dry crackers!”
He laughed but didn’t miss a step.
***
GREER HAD INTENTIONALLY put his name on Beatrice’s card directly before the intermission. Even if they couldn’t have a friendship outside of the ballroom, he could enjoy her company in the relative haven of a dining room over pottage and oysters.
Why not at least appreciate that? After all, he would have a lifetime of dining with whichever lady became Mrs. Carson, but she would probably not allow him to continue his association with Miss Rare-Foure.
Besides, Beatrice was easily the most desirable female in the place, and as they descended the great staircase to the downstairs dining room and the reception room, which had also been laid out for dining, he felt like the luckiest man at Clarendon House.
“There isn’t another gown in the stunning copper color of yours.”
She glanced up at him, her cheeks growing rosy and the blue of her eyes deepening. “I do believe it suits me.”
She sounded so modest, he didn’t think she had any idea of her beauty. Even if she were draped in a Rare Confectionery white bag, she would be fairer than any other woman at the ball. That evening, he’d found it hard to consider any of his partners as a potential wife when they all paled next to his vanilla-scented toffee-maker.
“I’m famished,” she said suddenly, as the aromas of the supper awaiting them drifted up the staircase.
“I thought your sister — the duchess, I mean, not Miss Charlotte — said you had to eat ahead of time and then hardly eat at a ball in order to seem ladylike. Or was it birdlike?”
“Same thing, I believe,” she quipped. “However, my understanding was I shouldn’t eat too heavily so as not to feel ill for the remainder of the dancing.”
“That, too,” he agreed.
She shrugged delightfully. “Perhaps if you were not my dining companion, Mr. Carson, I would make an effort to seem like a bird, happy with the slightest morsel off my plate. However, since it is you, I shall eat the roast when they offer it, as well as Yorkshire pudding if we are so lucky.”
“I take it you won’t play the lady for me.” He found that immensely gratifying. The last thing he wanted was a false veneer between them.
She turned and looked up at him, not missing a step as he guided her into the dining room and found them two seats. The thoughts behind her eyes were a mystery.
Yet when he drew out a chair for her, she said, “Naturally, I won’t pretend anything around you. You already know I’m no lady.”
A couple passing behind her heard the words and exchanged a glance. A part of Greer wanted to laugh. The woman was dripping in jewels and obviously scandalized that possible riff-raff were among her kind. Another part of him wanted to punch the gentleman for daring to look over Beatrice’s shoulder and down her décolletage.
Not realizing how her mildest words could cause a scandal, she craned her head around. “I wonder where Charlotte has got to. I hope she is with someone nice.”
“We could ask her to warn us with her charming whistle if she is ever in distress.”
“Good Lord, no! She must never be encouraged with that awful habit. It would ruin her.”
Glancing at him, she realized he was speaking in jest.
“I wish I could pinch your shoulder,” she said, “for teasing me.”
I wish I could kiss you, he thought, and took time arranging his gloves in his lap so he didn’t have to look at her lovely face and fall further under her spell.
***
BY THE BALL’S END AT two in the morning, Greer recalled three high points, dancing with Beatrice, dining with her, and dancing with Lady Emily St. George, whom he’d been pleased to find among the mostly unfamiliar faces when he’d first arrived. Their dance came in the middle of the second set, and she seemed happy to see him, too.
She was graceful on the dance floor, murmured her responses, asked him a few polite questions, and didn’t make him feel as if she were trying to find out how much was in his bank account. Also, she smelled nice. Not in the same way as Beatrice — more floral — but he liked it.
He knew they could continue like this all Season, having very little chance to get to know one another better unless he made a bold move.
“May I call on you at your home?”
He hoped he’d asked properly, thinking he ought to have worked in the words honor and favor as the British seemed often to do.
Lady Emily’s cheeks went slightly pink. “Normally, one waits until one is off the dance floor,” she said, although not unkindly.
He was about to ask why, when her steps in the quadrille took her away from him.
So that was why. One didn’t like to be left hanging while one’s partner twirled with another man.
When she returned to him, she still didn’t answer, and he knew she would keep him waiting until the dance’s end. As he escorted her back to her chaperone, in the brief space between where they’d danced and her table, she halted her steps.
“You may call on me,” she said succinctly, looking up at him with her soft brown eyes.
“Thank you,” he said stiffly, feeling a little unnerved. “Should I ... that is, may I suggest a day and time, or...?” he trailed off, wishing he’d asked the duke for a little more guidance now that he’d come to the point when he wanted to start calling on ladies.
“You may ask someone else where my father’s residence is,” she told him. “And normally, good manners would dictate you come by with your personal card at visiting hours, hoping I am in, or send a nicely written request.”
He knew his eyes were probably wide, and Greer made an effort to relax as if he knew all the civilities she mentioned.
“Of course,” he said. “However, since we are here, speaking to one another,” he trailed off.
Lady Emily smiled. “Since we are, indeed, here, then I will tell you that I am seeing visitors at eleven o’clock tomorrow. And now, I must return to my table so my next partner can claim his dance.”
Soon, it was time to take the Rare-Foure sisters home to Baker Street for some much-needed rest. They were probably the only females at the ball who had to worry about getting up in a few hours. As for his part, he was looking forward to the following day when he would call upon Lady Emily St. George and perhaps begin the pursuit of a wife in earnest.