Baroness in Buckskin (17 page)

“Richard!” Jane protested, half laughing as he started up the stairs. “Put me down at once!”

“I will put you down on your own bed, and not one moment before. Now, stop struggling before I lose my balance and fall, and then we will
both
be laid up lame—and
that
, I fear, would be rather difficult to explain to the neighbors.”

“Yes, Richard,” she said meekly, and allowed herself the luxury of resting her head on his shoulder.

It was rather ironic, she thought, that he could be so attuned to her physical condition as to be able to look into her eyes and know she was tired, and yet be wholly oblivious to the state of her heart. And a very good thing, too, she reminded herself sternly, or it would have been most uncomfortable for both of them, being obliged as they were to live beneath the same roof. Still, she wished he might be less considerate, less concerned for her comfort. For with every such demonstration, it only grew harder to face the prospect of giving him up.

Yes, I’m in love, I feel it now

And Caelia has undone me;

And yet I swear I can’t tell how

The pleasing plague stole on me.

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, The Je ne sçay quoi song

The day of the dancing-party dawned cloudy with a promise of rain in the air, but within the walls of Ramsay Hall, spirits were high in spite of the gloomy weather. Susannah had progressed in her lessons to the point where, instead of viewing the exercise with dread, she actually looked forward to the opportunity to put her newly acquired skills to the test. Peter expressed his intention of catching up on his work before the guests arrived, and so spent the morning shut up in his office, but the yoke of his labours was apparently light, for snatches of cheerful whistling could sometimes be heard issuing from this chamber. Richard, for his part, determined not only to send his carriage for the Aunts lest they be caught in the rain while making the trek from the Dower House on foot, but to go himself and offer the elderly ladies his escort. Jane, while still not up to dancing, was now able to walk short distances without the aid of her crutch, and could even mount the stairs by leaning heavily on the same banister that had once proved her undoing. All in all, she thought there was much to be said for a small, informal party. She suspected the mood would be quite different on the night of the formal betrothal ball a se’ennight hence; she knew her own sentiments on that occasion would be far from cheerful.

These suspicions were further bolstered by the appearance of Susannah in the music room. Of course, ballroom attire would be highly inappropriate for an impromptu party of this sort, but the girl was disturbingly appealing nonetheless in one of her new morning gowns, this one of green sprigged muslin that emphasized her trim, rounded figure and brought out the coppery highlights in her hair. Peter, rigged out in a double-breasted blue tailcoat that would not have shamed Old Bond Street, bowed deeply before her.

“I hope you will do me the honour of standing up with me for the waltz, Miss Ramsay,” he said.

“The honour will be all mine, sir,” she said, sinking into an exaggerated curtsy.

“Trying to steal a march on me, are you, Peter?”

Both young people turned toward the door and beheld Lord Ramsay, resplendent in a mulberry tailcoat of Bath superfine, framed in the aperture.

“As if I could, Richard!” Peter retorted, grinning. “Have you brought the Aunts, then? Aunt Charlotte, Aunt Amelia, how very fine you look! You put us all to shame.”

“How gallant of you to say so, Peter!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, blushing like a schoolgirl.

Aunt Charlotte, whose mind was of more practical a bent, merely shook her head. “If you think that, Peter, it only confirms what I had suspected: the lighting in this room is insufficient for a morning function, for it will not have full sun until the afternoon.”

“In that case, we shall have the candles lit,” promised Richard, and rang for a servant.

The answer to this summons came, however, not from the footman, but from Wilson, who paused in the doorway with Sir Matthew at his heels. “Sir Matthew Pitney,” he announced.

Sir Matthew made his bows, then charted a direct course for the place where Jane sat against the wall on a striped satin sofa. “My dear Miss Hawthorne, I hope I find you sufficiently improved to perform the waltz with me.”

“Alas, no, Sir Matthew. That is, I am improving, and can now walk a little without using a crutch, but I fear dancing is still beyond me. I am being very careful to follow Dr. Calloway’s instructions, in the hopes that I might be able to dance at our ball. I trust you received the invitation I sent?”

“I did indeed, and I share your hope that you will be able to dance by that time.” He leaned nearer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “In anticipation of that happy outcome, may I request that you honour me with the first waltz? I confess, I am deeply resentful of the accident that robbed me of the opportunity to hold you in my arms.”

Jane, recalling that in the aftermath of that accident she had been held far more literally in the arms of another, blushed crimson. “You must not speak so, Sir Matthew. As for my granting you the first waltz, I should hate to make such a promise and then be unable to keep it. If I were to agree to such a request, and then be obliged to sit against the wall—”

“In such a case, I should consider it a pleasure to sit with you,” promised her swain. “But I see that I have said too much, although your charming blushes en-courage me to hope.”

“Really, Sir Matthew, I don’t—”

Jane’s protests were interrupted by the arrival of the vicarage party, and although Aunt Charlotte might scowl her disapproval at the boisterousness of the giddy trio of girls who entered the drawing room in Mrs. Cummings’s wake, Jane would willingly have fallen on their necks in gratitude.

“I fear you have a great deal to answer for, Miss Hawthorne,” chided the vicar’s wife with a twinkle in her eye. “This morning at breakfast, I made the observation that it looked like rain and wondered aloud whether this party would be better postponed. I have never heard such a display of filial disobedience in all my life! Anyone listening would have supposed I had threatened to confine the girls to their rooms with only bread and water.”

“I am very glad you brought the girls in spite of your misgivings, for I am persuaded there is no need for concern,” Jane told her, rising gingerly from the sofa to greet them. “My gardener says the rain will not arrive until later tonight, and he is right about these things more often than not.”

“No, no, Miss Hawthorne, you need not get up,” objected Mrs. Cummings. “As to the weather, I daresay your gardener is quite correct. It has often been my observation that those who work closely with God’s creation seem to have an unusual instinct for such matters.”

“And if inclement weather should indeed threaten, I shall send you all home in my carriage,” promised Richard.

“I hope you will permit Mr. Ramsay to accompany us,” Miss Hunsford put in, smiling coyly at Peter. “I am quite terrified of thunder and lightning, you know, and there is something so comforting about a man’s presence.”

“Am I to understand then, Miss Hunsford, that you consider my cousin more suited to fill this rôle than I am?” inquired Richard with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed the heiress, all aflutter. “I meant no such thing, my lord. I only thought, well, a baron must have a hundred things to do more important than escorting a carriage full of females home through a thunderstorm.”

Richard nodded in understanding. “Whereas Mr. Ramsay has nothing more than the administration of a large estate to occupy his attention.”

“Just so!” agreed Miss Hunsford brightly, oblivious to irony.

“You hear that, Peter? In case of inclement weather, I shall depend on you.”

Peter nodded. “I shall almost hope for rain, then, so that I might have some way of filling the empty hours.”

“And now I think you are roasting me, Mr. Ramsay,” Miss Hunsford chided him playfully, rapping him on the arm with her folded fan.

“Indeed I am, Miss Hunsford,” he confessed. “I trust you will forgive me.”

“Only if you will stand up with me at Miss Ramsay’s ball next week.”

“Elizabeth!” cried Mrs. Cummings, scandalized. “I don’t know how things are done in the West Indies, but here it is for a gentleman to ask a lady to dance, not the other way ’round. If you don’t wish to give all the gentlemen a disgust of you, you would do well to remember it.”

“Oh dear!” Miss Hunsford turned large brown eyes on Peter. “Is it true, Mr. Ramsay?”

“In general, yes,” he confessed apologetically. “But I cannot regret your ignorance, if it means I am to have the honour of leading you onto the floor.”

The vicar’s wife gave a nod of approval. “Very prettily said, Mr. Ramsay. But I fear, Elizabeth, that you may not find London gentlemen so understanding.”

Thankfully for Miss Hunsford, she was spared a scold by the return of the butler, this time to announce the arrival of young Mr. Charles Langley, scion of a local landowner, who was down from Oxford on holiday, and who would make up the fourth and final gentleman of the set.

“Good morning, Mr. Langley,” Jane said, ex-tending her hand to him. “I am so glad you could join us.”

“Not at all,” the young man demurred, flushing. “What I mean is, do me good to get in a bit of practice before jogging up to London for a bit of Town-bronze, what?”

“Very true,” Jane agreed, smiling. “You will find the young ladies of the party in very similar circum-stances, so I hope you can all help one another. Aunt Amelia, we are all assembled now, so if you will take your place at the pianoforte, we will begin.”

The party paired off, with Richard leading Susannah into the set. Peter offered his arm to Miss Hunsford (who looked to Susannah’s eyes like the cat that ate the canary), while Sir Matthew reluctantly left Jane’s side to bow before Miss Cummings, leaving Miss Lydia and Mr. Langley to make up the fourth couple in the set.

Aunt Charlotte, for her part, seated herself next to Jane on the sofa, from which vantage point she might observe the dancers and offer criticism or, less often, praise.

“Mr. Langley, if you will stay with the beat, perhaps Miss Lydia will not feel the need to drag you about the floor,” she barked at the vicar’s younger daughter and her partner. “Susannah, do try to relax. His lordship will not bite you. Peter, Miss Hunsford, you make a very handsome couple, I must say.”

This observation could hardly be said to have helped Susannah relax. Instead, she tried to rise up on tiptoe in order to watch Peter and his partner over the shoulder of her betrothed, while at the same time not losing the beat of the music.

“What is the matter, Susannah?” asked Richard, frowning at these not entirely successful maneuvers.

“Nothing, only the—the sun is in my eyes.”

Richard’s own eyes widened a little at this assertion since, as Aunt Charlotte had noted, the morning sun had not yet penetrated the morning room windows.

After what seemed to Susannah an interminably long time, Aunt Amelia pounded out the final chords. The four couples separated, and all the dancers bowed or curtsied to their partners, then dispersed and began to re-form for the next set.

“If you will do me the honour, Miss Ramsay?”

Susannah was vaguely disappointed to see Mr. Langley bowing deeply before her. “Thank you, sir,” she said, summoning up a smile as she answered his bow with a curtsy.

She soon discovered why Miss Lydia Cummings had felt the need to drag her partner about the floor. Mr. Langley performed the steps apparently at random, the only evidence that he kept any sort of count at all discernable in the fact that he marked the first beat of every measure by treading squarely upon her toe. If the previous dance had been distressing for reasons she could not quite define, this one was quite literally painful. Susannah could not quite stifle her sigh of relief when it finally came to an end. She was wondering if she might plead fatigue and sit the next one out when Peter approached and took her arm.

“Do say you will rescue me from Miss Hunsford, Cousin Susannah,” he urged in hushed tones. “She has been dropping the most flagrant hints for the waltz, and I dare not rebuff her without appearing shockingly rude.”

“Oh, is the next dance to be a waltz, then?” Susannah remembered her disappointment at not being allowed to waltz with Peter during her lessons, but now that the opportunity had presented itself to her, she felt awkward and ill at ease. Still, if the only alternative was to sit beside Jane and Aunt Charlotte and watch as he attempted to fend off the predatory heiress . . . She gave a decisive nod, the pain in her toes forgotten. “Very well, Peter.”

“I stand forever in your debt,” Peter said gratefully, and took her in the hold she had practiced so often with Richard.

Her breath caught in her throat. It had never felt like this with Richard. Her betrothed was quite tall, and when he had held her thus, his close proximity had afforded her nothing more than an excellent view of his cravat. Peter, however, was rather shorter, and she had only to lift her chin slightly to look straight into his dark eyes. Furthermore, she could feel the heat emanating from his body, and the awareness made her face grow warm. She lowered her gaze under the guise of minding her steps.

“I should think you would want to encourage Miss Hunsford,” she observed somewhat breathlessly under the cover of the music. “Her dowry would allow you to purchase Fairacres.”

Peter addressed himself to the top of her downcast head. “I don’t think I could bring myself to marry a lady only for her dowry, even for Fairacres. Nor, for that matter, do I think she has the slightest interest in marriage to me. Depend upon it, I am nothing more than a convenient target upon which to practice her charms prior to her brilliant London debut.”

“In that case, I wish she would focus her attention on Richard,” she grumbled.

“Perhaps she assumes, like you, that my rather precarious position in Society renders me uniquely susceptible to the charms of well-dowered young ladies,” he suggested.