‘I fancy I was swept away, for it seems to have been love at first sight.’
‘Will you be serious, sir! Love at first sight? Tush. You are old enough to be her father.’
‘If I were, I’d have been an infernally forward thirteen-year-old brat. Come, it ain’t critical, Caroline—’
‘I will not have a conversation with you! What are you about, standing there doing nothing? If anything happens to Annabelle, if Cumberland is even taking her at this moment back to his house, then God forgive you, sir, for I shan’t.’
‘No, no, it ain’t like that, dear lady. They’re in Lord Chesterfield’s notable conservatory. It’s true Miss Emma Winthrop detached me from Annabelle, but my eyes didn’t forsake her. The conservatory, as you no doubt know, is beyond the ballroom. The west doors open on to it. I ventured a look earlier, with Annabelle, who sighed at its magnificence. I fancy she may now be firing an arrow on Mr Wingrove’s behalf and acquainting Cumberland with Lord Chesterfield’s potted greenery.’ The captain smiled. ‘I doubt, certainly, if Cumberland is bedding her among the potted ferns.’
‘That remark is not amusing, but in very poor taste, sir,’ said Caroline, and stepped out of the alcove to glance down the length of the ballroom to the west doors. Captain Burnside joined her. ‘You saw them?’ she enquired.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘Despite having the devil of a time holding Miss Winthrop in check, I managed not to lose sight of them. Cumberland don’t make an insignificant figure, even at a crowded ball. Ah, re-enter the royal gentleman, with angelic Annabelle in tow. Do you see?’
The doors had opened. Annabelle and Cumberland had appeared. Caroline sighed with relief, her bosom subsiding, a diamond necklace gently settling.
‘You should not let me judge you so hastily,’ she said, ‘although my fault only comes about from never knowing precisely what you’re about.’
‘In your concern for your sister, you have no fault,’ said the captain.
Cumberland and Annabelle approached, she with her hand on his arm, he escorting her in his majestic fashion, caring little for what people made of his relationship with her. Caroline feared everyone was whispering that Cumberland soon or late would have Miss Annabelle Howard, the pretty American girl, in his bed. The duke brought her to Caroline, his smile faintly derisive, as if he knew their disappearance had caused concern and dismay.
‘Your delicious sister did excel in the dance, my dear Caroline,’ he said, ‘and so I return her to you unharmed and cooled. The conservatory has a moist air and ain’t as hot as the ballroom. Annabelle,’ he said, ‘ye have my compliments for favouring me.’ He brought her hand to his lips. He then took Caroline’s hand and pressed it, murmuring, ‘I only regret I’ve won no favours from ye.’
‘I am sure, sir, that you have won enough elsewhere,’ retorted Caroline.
Cumberland laughed and looked at the captain, and at his uniform. ‘I wish ye joy in the rose of your choice, Burnside,’ he said, and departed.
Mr Wingrove arrived in some haste, expressing anxiety that something might be amiss.
‘Nothing is amiss, Mr Wingrove,’ said Caroline, and they all had to withdraw a few steps at that moment as the orchestra, refreshed after a short break, invited participation in a cotillion. Young ladies in high spirits advanced with their partners, for the cotillion entailed the execution of an infinite variety of spins and pirouettes at this stage of its development, and none could deny its infectious excitements.
Mr Wingrove, not having partnered Annabelle so far and not wishing to be thought reluctant to dance with her, smilingly requested the honour. Annabelle would rather have danced the joyous cotillion with Captain Burnside, who had captured his own place in her warm affections. But she could not refuse Mr Wingrove, and in smiling confidence he led her forward.
Caroline glanced at her hireling. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the gathering dancers moving into place. She began to feel dismay. Was he going to deny her the opportunity to enjoy the lively cotillion? Was she to remain outside it, looking as if not a single gentleman of her acquaintance had cared to take her up?
Captain Burnside, catching her glance, said, ‘Ah, Lady Caroline.’
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Ah, I ain’t sure if you’ll allow me the privilege of—’
‘Captain Burnside, please don’t be absurd. How can you not be sure?’
‘Well, I ain’t, dear lady, but all the same—’
‘I shall strike you, sir, unless you offer to advance with me.’
He smiled at her refreshing American candour, and said, ‘I assure you, it will be a delight to advance with Your Gracious Ladyship.’
Her hand placed itself on his arm, and they were just in time to join the assembled array. The orchestra struck the liveliest chords imaginable, and the cotillion began. Within seconds, Caroline found herself carried away by the music, the intricate steps, and the sure hand of the captain. Quite soon, she was vivaciously engrossed. The glittering ballroom, with its crystal chandeliers, its mirrors casting brilliant reflections, became a scene of whirling exuberance and gaiety. Shimmering gowns, flashing jewels and military uniforms became a kaleidoscope of vivid moving colours. Captain Burnside showed himself an adept guiding partner, and there was, for Caroline, a sense of giddy delight in the dance itself, and a feeling of wonder that her participation was totally joyful. Eyes sparkling, lips slightly parted, ecstatic breath escaping, hand in the firm clasp of the captain’s, she danced, spun and pirouetted, as did all the ladies.
Full-skirted gowns and petticoats flew and swirled, affording delicious glimpses of the finest and most delicate white lace. Caroline displayed gossamer lace and pink ribbon so frothily delicious that Captain Burnside declared her dazzling.
‘I did not catch that,’ she said breathlessly, and spun about. Her gown swirled. She did not miss a little smile of masculine appreciation. ‘I trust, sir, I am not disappointing you.’
‘It’s no disappointment, dear lady, to know limbs are fashionably to the fore in the cotillion, and long may they be so.’
She caught all those words, and laughter hung on her lips. Mr Wingrove would have assured her his eyes were elsewhere. Not so Captain Burnside. Oh, how rapturous it was to dance like a girl again, to put aside her reserve and cast away all the painful memories of a disastrous marriage and all the inhibitions of widowhood. How simply lovely it was to turn and turn again, the guiding hand making her feel she was lighter than air, and leading her swimmingly into every intricate movement. The music took hold of her, and its infectious gaiety induced heady abandon to the dance; amid the revolving kaleidoscope of swirling colour she was a figure of flying white silk and delicate lace. She wished the dance would go on and on, and indeed it seemed to, only for its end to come with such apparent suddenness that she was sure she had been cheated.
Gentlemen were bowing to their partners. Captain Burnside was bowing to her. ‘By my life,’ he said in admiration, ‘beg to inform you, Lady Caroline, that that was perfection.’
‘Oh, I haven’t danced like that since the early days of my marriage,’ said Caroline breathlessly, her face flushed, her bosom quick in its rise and fall. ‘I must surely thank you for making it perfection.’
‘I meant,’ he said, ‘that the perfection was you. I was merely dancing attendance, as it were: doing my awkward best not to spoil the picture. It ain’t my intention to trespass beyond the boundaries of our relationship, but permit me to say your perfection made the picture dazzling. Are you aware, dear lady, that you’re a very beautiful woman?’
Such personal compliments were well beyond the boundary of what was permitted, but how could she rebuff him? She had not moved since the end of the dance, nor had he. People leaving the floor brushed by them as she looked up at him, into the warmth of his smiling eyes. Perplexingly, uncertainty took hold of her, and she experienced the oddest sensation of vulnerability.
Faintly she said, ‘Thank you, Captain B
urnside.’ He offered her his arm and escorted her back to her chair. She seated herself, her knees suddenly weak, a little pulse fluttering in her throat, and she fluttered her fan to cool herself and to cover her confusion.
They were joined by Annabelle and Mr Wingrove, Annabelle declaring herself madly in love with the cotillion as danced in London, and generously, and truthfully, announcing that Mr Wingrove had been an accomplished partner. Robert and Cecilia Humphreys put in an appearance, and both expressed admiration for the gowns of the American sisters. Robert said how young and lovely Caroline looked. Cecilia said it was all of satisfying to see her looking so happy.
‘Oh, the cotillion is responsible,’ said Caroline, ‘it’s the most gay and infectious of dances.’
‘One’s partner can also be a help,’ smiled Annabelle, who had not missed her sister’s joyful commitment to her partnership with the captain.
‘I vow it’s most important to ensure a lady’s enjoyment of dancing,’ said Mr Wingrove in his equable way, ‘and to that end I willingly dedicate myself.’
‘I ain’t sure myself that I don’t take two left feet into a dance with me,’ said the captain, which brought laughter from Annabelle and Cecilia, but which Caroline thought completely untrue. He was far more natural and free-moving than Mr Wingrove, who was all of correct in his style, and accordingly a little unexciting and conventional. No, no, I must not think like this, she told herself; I should not be critical of such a kind friend when comparing him with a man of Captain Burnside’s background. I simply must not. Heavens, Annabelle is falling in love with him, her smile for him is very affectionate, and she parted from Cumberland without a single sigh. But how I dislike the thought of her in love with my scoundrel of a hireling. It can lead to nothing, nothing.
‘Supper is being called,’ observed Mr Wingrove.
‘Shall we sup with you?’ asked Cecilia, and Mr Wingrove gallantly gave her his arm and took her in. Robert escorted Caroline, and Captain Burnside looked after Annabelle. They joined a procession of guests to the banqueting hall, where a superb buffet was laid out. Doors were open to enable guests to take their chosen food into the garden and consume it at tables placed on the terrace, on the lawn or in candlelit alcoves. Wine of each guest’s choice was poured by liveried footmen.
Supper at an alcove table for six was most enjoyable, and the conversation was extremely sociable. Cecilia, always entertaining, with a fund of gossip interesting but unmalicious, dropped names with a laugh, Cumberland’s among them. Cumberland, she said, was rumoured to be in ardent pursuit of a new love, but no one was sure which lady it was who would provide a conquest.
‘I see,’ murmured Captain Burnside, ‘depending on how one regards Cumberland, no one yet knows who will be the fortunate lady and who the unfortunate.’
‘There are two ladies involved?’ said Mr Wingrove, relishing his slice of game pie. ‘Then I should say both are unfortunate in catching his eye in the first place. Who are they, Mrs Humphreys?’
Cecilia, who knew they were Caroline and Annabelle, said, ‘Oh, one should not name names that relate only to a rumour.’
‘Well, Cumberland ain’t such a bad fellow,’ said Robert cheerfully.
‘I count him a little short on manners,’ said Mr Wingrove, and changed the subject by remarking, not for the first time, that the King’s unfortunate illness almost certainly related to his mental decline. Demurely, Annabelle offered again the American opinion that the King had gone off his head at the shock of losing his colonies. Caroline thought that rather tactless, but Mr Wingrove took it in good part and began a dissertation on the pros and cons. Since this seemed to bring an air of boredom to Annabelle, Captain Burnside took her up in a conversation of their own. Cecilia, after a while, broke in sweetly on them to ask him exactly how long he had known Caroline, at which Caroline came out of a reverie to glance quickly at the captain. He was smiling unconcernedly.
‘How long have I known Her American Ladyship?’ he said. ‘All my life, I fancy, if you could say my life began seven years ago, when I first met her. That was the effect she had on me, for she was fresh from the Americas, d’you see, and came to my eyes like the first magnolia blossom of spring. Smitten but overlooked, I languished.’
Annabelle laughed.
Caroline said, ‘Quite untrue.’
‘He was not smitten?’ enquired Annabelle.
‘He did not languish,’ said Caroline, ‘for his interests fully occupied him. He always had his eye on some poor innocent or other.’
‘It’s true I didn’t carry a languishing look on my person,’ said the captain, ‘for it ain’t the thing a gentleman should do. But I do recollect contemplating suicide when I heard she had promised herself to Lord Percival. Suicide seemed the only sure way to consoling oblivion.’
Caroline’s laugh was involuntary. ‘Either you made a deplorable hash of it,’ she said, ‘or you had second thoughts. Or it truly never entered your head at all.’
‘I plead guilty to second thoughts,’ smiled Captain Burnside. ‘But there it is: my life seemed to begin with Caroline’s arrival in England seven years ago, Mrs Humphreys, although I’m now recovered from my heartbreak.’
‘We are all relieved, I dare say,’ said Mr Wingrove equably.
‘Captain Burnside, did you and I meet in those days?’ asked Cecilia. ‘I cannot myself clearly recall, but I suppose we must have.’
‘I am sure you did,’ said Caroline, and could not resist the temptation to add, ‘He was in and out of every London house, leaving a trail of sighing innocents behind him, and was often at Great Wivenden, where he was much given to the pursuit of Clarence’s prettiest maidservants.’
‘So was Clarence himself,’ said Robert, then coughed at his tactlessness.
‘You were at the wedding, Captain Burnside?’ smiled Cecilia.
‘Alas, no,’ he said. ‘Caroline pressed me, but how could I have endured seeing her bind herself to another man? I buried myself in regimental headquarters for days.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Cecilia. ‘Were you also a close friend of Clarence’s?’
‘An acquaintance,’ said the captain, lying easily.
Cecilia pressed further questions with an air of smiling innocence, and since he answered all of them with casual ambiguity, and since Caroline made no further comments, she felt herself on sure ground in inferring they were not old friends but new. But if so, why should they want to pretend otherwise?
On the return to the ballroom, Cecilia said aside to Caroline, ‘Come, darling, do tell me exactly why that exciting man is staying with you.’
‘Captain Burnside?’ said Caroline. ‘Exciting?’
‘I vow him so. Come, is he your guest because the two of you have an amorous understanding?’
‘Cecilia, how absurd. Myself and Captain Burnside?’ Caroline could think of nothing more impossible. ‘We have no understanding of that kind at all. I am charitably accommodating him while he finds himself a suitable apartment, for his regiment is expecting to be in England for some time.’
‘Ah,’ murmured Cecilia, ‘perhaps he favours Annabelle, for he’s dancing close attendance on her, and giving her sweet cause to blush at times.’
‘Really?’ said Caroline, cool towards Cecilia for once.
They entered the ballroom, and the festive nature of the occasion was born again. Caroline and Annabelle had both occasionally stood up with gentlemen of their acquaintance during the first half, and there were promises to keep with other gentlemen during the second half. It was apparent to any observer that the American sisters, particularly Caroline, had acquired many admirers. But Annabelle had promised the first post-supper dance to Captain Burnside, and they joined many other ladies and gentlemen in the pavane. This was the stateliest of dances, and something of a courtly procession that was the customary opening to the second half of a ball.
Annabelle, wholly given to the joys of the night, invested her stately glide with unsuppressed animation. Captain Bur
nside smiled as she improvised steps of her own.
‘You’re a sweet girl,’ he said, ‘if dangerously excitable.’
‘Charles, I protest. I am of all things sensible, or I should not have broken my engagement to a man I did not love.’
‘Well, it’s a pleasure to see you in such enjoyment.’
‘Oh, I declare London balls wholly blissful,’ said Annabelle.
‘But d’you not find London a little stifling after the lush openness of the Carolinas?’ he asked.
‘Oh, the Carolinas offer everything to gentlemen,’ she said, ‘but it’s London that offers everything to ladies.’
‘Not everything that is offered should be accepted.’
‘I’m not so simple that I’m unaware of that,’ said Annabelle, executing a graceful dip and then floating forward on his arm. ‘I have resisted the Duke of Cumberland. Oh, and there is more than London: there is Caroline’s estate at Great Wivenden. It is sweetly and softly beautiful there, and one does not droop in overbearing heat.’
‘Cumberland now, what did he say to you?’
Annabelle glided and curtseyed to him. He bowed and took her by the hand, and they stepped on in the colourful promenade.
‘Oh, he declared himself incurably attached to me, but said nothing of how that would advantage me. Truly, he is a mesmerizing man and an exciting prince, but I don’t wish to be merely his fancy. There were other people in the conservatory, and they at once left when Cumberland arrived with me. I trembled, Charles.’
‘Very wise,’ said the captain.
Annabelle dipped and gurgled. ‘Charles, you are surely the most amusing man. How can it be wise to tremble?’
‘Why, it showed Cumberland you would scream if he attempted to loosen your bodice and avail himself of that which you would naturally wish to deny him.’
Amid the stateliness, Annabelle blushed fiery red. ‘Charles! Oh, I declare! You are a shameless embarrassment!’
‘Sweet girl, never lack to tremble or to show parted lips ready to scream, for Cumberland’s devilishly short on niceties, and only a loud scream or two will pull him up.’
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