by Mary Balogh
What a deliciously frightful young lady, he thought, feeling genuinely diverted for the first time in two or three eternities.
2
HE WAS FRANKLY TERRIFIED. AND SHE DESPISED HERSELF for feeling so, since rationally speaking she did not consider herself inferior to anyone. Lady Markley’s ballroom was stuffed full of the ton in all its jeweled splendor—all the ton and Cora Downes. The vast majority of those present were probably mere misters and misseses and misses, she reassured herself as she paused just inside the doorway with her three companions, surely the most conspicuous place of all to stand in any ballroom. She had to resist the urge to look down at herself to make sure she had remembered to put on her gown. The duchess would surely have thought before now of commenting on its absence if indeed she was clad in merely her shift.
Of course, there were undoubtedly several titled people present too. Cora felt a strange bonelessness in her knees—a most unfortunate part of the anatomy in which to feel it. Why be awed by titles? Jane had a title and was a very ordinary, pleasant young lady. And Papa always said that title and birth meant nothing but snobbery. It was wealth and property and the ability to acquire and manage both that really mattered. Cora herself was not really sure that even that was true, but it was a comforting thought to which to cling at the moment.
She tried to look about her at individual people to assure herself that really they were just people—each with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, so to speak. She saw jewels and fans and feathers and fobs and quizzing glasses wherever she looked. Formidable ladies and even more formidable gentlemen. Many of the latter looked sober and immaculate—and formidable—in black coats and knee breeches, a fast-growing fashion that both her father and Edgar applauded as did all the men of their middle-class world. In fact, they often had unkind things to say about men who did not follow it.
And then her eyes lit on a gentleman who was so much the antithesis of that fashion that he stood out in the crowd like the proverbial sore thumb. He wore a bright turquoise satin coat with turquoise-and-silver striped waistcoat and silver knee breeches. His linen was sparkling white. There were copious amounts of lace at his wrists and half covering his hands. The knot of his neckcloth was a superior work of art. Edgar would have declared with some contempt that the man’s valet must have sweated for several hours to create such perfection. The face above the startling clothes displayed a lazy kind of cynicism as if the man were bored with his very existence.
Cora thought immediately of a peacock, which was the first word Edgar would have used, she was sure. Remembering that only titters—and even those solely at appropriate moments—were allowed in her present surroundings, she clapped a hand to her mouth in order to thrust back the merriment that was in grave danger of bubbling out of her. Oh, if only Edgar were here to see—and to comment!
But Jane was here and Jane had a healthy sense of humor. Cora had half turned to share the glorious joke of the man’s foppish appearance when she froze and humor died an instantaneous death. The man was moving in her direction. And at his side was another gentleman, elegant and handsome in varying shades of dark green. The Duke of Bridgwater.
Their destination was instantly apparent to Cora. Heavenly days, she thought, her mind robbed of coherence. Oh, heavenly days.
She had had a problem with clumsiness as a girl. Not as a child. It had come upon her at about the age of twelve and had dogged her footsteps—almost literally—for several years after that. Edgar had started to call her a walking disaster and her father’s habitual expression when she was about had seemed to be one of resigned glumness, his eyes roiled ceiling- or skyward, as if he were sending up a fervent prayer, “Why me, Lord?”
Miss Graham, her governess, had always been kinder than either of the two men in her life. Miss Graham had always explained to her that she was growing into her body. Her brain had not quite got the message that she was no longer inside her dainty child’s body but instead was in this girl’s frame, which was developing in alarming ways—Cora’s words, not Miss Graham’s. Miss Graham had merely explained that the child in her was resisting the developing woman but that finally she would be comfortable with her femininity.
She was still waiting to grow comfortable, though she had outgrown the clumsiness. Almost.
On this occasion all she had to do was wait for the Duke of Bridgwater to come up and greet his mother and his sisters and her, Cora—and probably present the turquoise peacock to them. She did not even have to move. She did not know why she did so. Indeed, she did not even realize that she had moved until her cramped toes somehow did not advance with the rest of her and she stumbled—and shrieked—in surely the most embarrassing place possible in which to stumble and shriek.
Not that she ever chose to be clumsy.
She collided with a brick wall, which fortunately saved her from sprawling out flat on the floor and disgracing herself beyond measure. She righted herself, realized that the brick wall had been a gentleman’s chest—the turquoise gentleman’s chest—and disgraced herself after all.
She giggled.
It was not even honest-to-goodness laughter. It was unmistakably a giggle, occasioned by acute embarrassment. She wondered hopefully if she was exaggerating even ever-so slightly in believing that everyone was watching her. She did not think so.
“Oops!” she heard someone exclaim in her voice—how many times had Miss Graham told her that she must learn to wipe that word from her vocabulary? “I wonder if it is permitted to go back outside onto the staircase and try it all over again.”
And the same person who spoke giggled—again—at the sadly unwitty joke. And sounded for all the world like a silly twelve-year-old.
It was only then she realized that his grace was speaking—quietly and courteously and quite as if she had not just held up him and his mother and his sisters to public ridicule. He was, she realized, the perfectly well-bred gentleman. He terrified her and had done so ever since Elizabeth and Jane had first started talking about him in Bath with mutual adoration. He was so perfectly handsome and elegant and gentlemanly and—ducal. If he had had DUKE written in black ink across his forehead, he could not be more obviously who he was.
She also realized—too late—that he had presented his companion to her and that she had missed his name. She could only smile with facial muscles that suddenly felt unaccountably stiff as he called her Miss Downes and took her hand in his and bowed over it.
He was taller than she was, she thought irrelevantly—so many gentleman were not. He also did not—as so many gentlemen did—have a spot of thinning hair on the crown of his head. His brown hair was of a uniform thickness and was expertly cut so that even when it was windblown it would look just so, she guessed. She also guessed that he spent several hours of each week with his barber—and with a manicurist. She glanced at his perfect hands. It was rather sad that he was so far to the left of true masculinity. Was it sad? Perhaps it was not to him. Perhaps he enjoyed looking like a peacock.
She suffered from another affliction in addition to clumsiness—though she had not really suffered from that since girlhood. She suffered from the inability to be always present when it was essential that she be present. She had gone off now into her own distant world, thinking of trivialities like bald spots and peacocks, and as a consequence a few important details of the present moment had passed her by. Like the man’s name. And the identity of the person whom her grace was describing as a great heroine to whom they would all be indebted for the rest of their lives.
“Yes, indeed,” his grace said with a grave and elegant inclination of his head in Cora’s direction.
“Oh, dear,” she said, realizing they were talking about her. “All I did was leap into the river without pausing for thought. It was really quite unheroic. And I ruined a brand-new bonnet.”
The anonymous gentleman—who would not be anonymous if she had only remained present long enough to hear what his grace had named him—pursed his lips and fingered his qu
izzing glass. It was studded with jewels that looked suspiciously like sapphires, Cora noticed when she glanced down at it. She would wager they were real gems and not merely paste. She wondered if he had a glass to match each of his outfits—and giggled yet again.
“A bona fide heroine indeed,” the gentleman said in a voice that sounded as languid and bored as his face had appeared when she first looked into it. “One perhaps might find another lady willing to risk her life for a child, but I declare that nowhere would one find another willing to sacrifice her bonnet in the same cause.”
Cora stared at him, fascinated. Was he serious? He probably was, she decided.
“Ma’am.” He was bowing to the duchess. “With your permission, I would request the honor of leading Miss Downes in to the opening set.”
Cora brightened instantly. Her great fear, she knew, though she despised herself for feeling it, was of being an utter and total wallflower. But very close behind that fear—and really she did not believe her grace would allow that first one to become reality—was the terror of being asked to dance by a gentleman so very elegant and proper and aristocratic that she would freeze into a block of ice that just happened to have two left feet attached to its base. His grace of Bridgwater himself, for example. She had found herself praying fervently last night—literally praying, with palms pressed together and eyes tightly scrunched shut—that he would not for his mother’s sake feel obliged to lead her out. She would die.
The anonymous gentleman would not be threatening at all to dance with. Indeed, she would derive great amusement from the opportunity to observe him more closely for all of half an hour. But she almost absented herself too long again in these happy thoughts.
“Certainly, Lord Francis,” the duchess was saying, inclining her head graciously and setting her plumes to dancing again. “I am sure Cora would be delighted.”
Francis. The name suited him perfectly, being one of those that might belong to either a man or a woman—with a slight variation in the spelling, of course. But Lord Francis? He was an aristocrat, then? But quite an unthreatening one, she told herself before panic could well into her nostrils. He was making her a half bow and asking her for the honor of leading her in to the set.
“Thank you, Lord Francis,” she said, vaunting her new knowledge. She smiled dazzlingly at him. “It is a set of country dances? How wonderful! I LOVE the vigor of a country dance.”
She could almost hear Elizabeth’s voice as it had spoken just a few days ago, as soon as they knew they were to come to this ball. One must always assume an attitude of ennui at such functions, she had warned. One must never be thought to enthuse. Enthusiasm was something very far removed from true gentility. Her grace had nodded in agreement, though she had added with a smile that one need not go as far as to look downright bored. That might be somewhat insulting to both one’s hosts and one’s partners. Jane had added that one might smile and even look happy as long as one remained demure and did not bubble.
And she, Cora, had just said, I LOVE the vigor of a country dance with all the enthusiasm of her lack of gentility.
She thought she saw amusement for the merest moment in Lord Francis’s eyes. Ridicule, no doubt. No matter. She was not at all intent on impressing Lord Francis Whoever-He-Was. She really should have listened to his full name.
They were blue eyes, she thought, apropos of nothing. She had always favored blue eyes in men. She had secretly thought that perhaps one of the reasons—though only a very minor one—she had been unable to feel affection for any of the three men who had offered for her was that they had not one blue eye among the three of them. But if that was true, then she was setting about choosing a lifelong mate according to very trivial criteria.
It was perhaps a shame that the first truly blue eyes she had encountered in a gentleman belonged to a peacock. And an aristocratic peacock at that.
A turquoise satin arm with an elegant, lace-bedecked hand at the end of it—on one of the fingers of which was a large square sapphire ring—was poised before Cora and she realized that she was being invited to join a set without further delay. The duke was already talking with another gentleman, who had come along with the obvious intention of dancing with Jane.
Cora set her arm along the turquoise one and repressed the very silly urge to giggle yet again. She had never been a giggler. She had no wish to acquire the nasty habit at this advanced stage of her life.
She wished with all the power of her being that she had bought her slippers in a larger size. There was plenty of room for her feet in these particular ones but very little left over for her toes.
She smiled hard, trying not to look gauche.
I LOVE THE vigor of a country dance. The words rang in Lord Francis’s ears as he led Miss Cora Downes onto the floor. She was priceless. He felt marvelously diverted. And I ruined a brand-new bonnet. When she might have preened herself on her reputation as a heroine, someone who had risked her life in order to save that of a child, she had belittled herself with such an observation.
She was almost, though not quite, as tall as he, he noticed. And he prided himself on being considerably above the average in height. She was the possessor of truly glorious curves, which even the loose-fitting, high-waisted style of her fashionable gown could not hide. Of course, muslin was a notorious figure-hugger. She was looking all about her with her eager face and bold eyes, not even attempting to hide her interest and curiosity. She caught his eye and—grinned.
“I am so glad you asked me to dance,” she said. “I had positive horrors that no one would. And I suppose her grace could not actually coerce anyone into it. I daresay his grace asked you to ask me, which was remarkably kind of him, considering the fact that I am no relative of his and I am not sure he even approves of me. And it was kind of you too to say yes to him.”
Lord Francis supposed that most young ladies must experience such fears. But he had never before heard one candidly confess to them—in a voice slightly louder than was necessary to make herself heard above the hum of conversation and the sound of the orchestra tuning their instruments.
He thought of Samantha and the fact that she must never have felt the fear of being without a partner at a ball. She had always been besieged by admirers and suitors. Tiny, dainty, blond-haired, exquisitely lovely Samantha. Just a few weeks ago he had been dancing with her himself, her most devoted suitor, though she had chosen to believe after betrothing herself to Carew that he had never been serious about her. His heart performed a series of painful somersaults and landed in the soles of his shoes again.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I saw you and admired you as soon as you came into the ballroom, Miss Downes, and sought an introduction to you. Have you thought of that?”
She looked squarely at him and he could see that she was thinking about it. And then she laughed. It was not a giggle this time, he was happy to find. It was a laugh of unrestrained mirth, drawing to her the rather startled glances of the other couples who were forming their particular set.
“You saw me and admired me,” she said. “Oh, that is a good one.”
He was not at liberty to consider what the one was or what was good about it. The music had begun and Lady Markley’s daughter and her newly betrothed were leading off the first set.
It was indeed a lively country dance, which the ladies performed with grace and precision and Miss Cora Downes performed with—enthusiasm. She danced with energetic vigor just as if there were not a whole eveningful of sets yet to be danced, and with a bright smile on her face.
She danced, Lord Francis decided, as if she should have the ribbon of a maypole in her hand and sunshine on her face and in her loosened chestnut hair and all the fresh beauty of a village green surrounding her.
He watched her with considerable amusement and not a little appreciation—in her own way she was rather magnificent, he decided. And other gentlemen watched her too. There was something about her even apart from her height and her curves that would inevitably draw mal
e eyes. Something that was not quite vulgar—not at all vulgar, in fact. But something very different from what one expected to find in a fashionable ballroom in London. Some—well, some raw femininity.
Her grace of Bridgwater might well have problems marrying the girl off, Lord Francis thought. Not just because of her origins—indeed, if it was true that the father was almost indecently wealthy, there would be any number of impecunious gentlemen, and even a few moderately pecunious ones, who would be only too delighted to overlook the fact that he had made his fortune in trade. No, it was the woman’s looks and manner that would discourage serious suitors. Any red-blooded male would immediately dream of setting a mattress at Miss Cora Downes’s back, whereas precious few of them would indulge in any corresponding dream of leading her to the altar first.
It was unfortunate.
He rather suspected that before the Season was over—unless the considerable awe in which both Bridgwater and his mother were held by the ton acted as a restraining force—Miss Cora Downes would be offered more than one carte blanche.
She was breathless and flushed and bright-eyed when the set was over. Her bosom was heaving as she tried to replace the missing air in her lungs.
“Oh, that was wonderful,” she said. “Far more fun than any of the assemblies in Bath. There the dancers are mostly elderly, you know, and so the music is slower. Thank you so very much, Lord Francis. You are very kind.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking her arm on his sleeve and leading her back toward the duchess. “It was my honor and my pleasure, Miss Downes.”
“May I ask you something?” she said, looking sideways into his eyes. Her own were a dark gray, he saw. He had at first thought them to be black. “What is your name? I was woolgathering when his grace presented you to me—or perhaps I was still flustered over the fact that I had tripped over my own feet and would have disgraced myself utterly instead of only partially if you had not stepped smartly forward and grabbed me. I am always woolgathering when something important is being said. It drives my papa insane. It drove my governess to despair.”
