Courtship and Curses (31 page)

“Perfect.” Norris Underwood finished for her as he came up. He bared his teeth in something passing for a smile as he nodded to Sophie and Parthenope and continued, “I was not aware you were such great friends.”

“Of
course
we’re great friends,” Kitty said. “Why, it was Lady Sophie and Lady Parthenope who introduced me to all the lovely people I know now, like Lady Jane and Lady Georgiana and their brothers.… Oh, let me tell you quickly, before she comes—Aunt didn’t say no when I told her that Lord John had asked if I would give him a waltz tonight! I don’t know that I can do it very well, but he promised he would hold me very tightly and not let me fall if I got dizzy. Wasn’t that perfectly kind of him?”

Parthenope did not trouble to conceal her grin. “Most gallant,” she agreed. “And I am sure your aunt will let you waltz—in fact, I shall speak to her myself about it. It’s much better to learn at a private party, I expect she’ll agree.”

Mr. Underwood shot her a venomous look, then turned back to Kitty. “In that case, then I must claim one too.”

“Yes, if you like,” Kitty agreed carelessly. “Oh, look! There’s Jane and Georgy! I must just go see which dress Jane chose—she wasn’t sure if it would be the lilac or the blue. Excuse me.…” She fluttered away from them.

“So,” Mr. Underwood said, staring after her, “I suspected as much, but now I know whom to thank for setting the foxes on the chicken.” There was a peculiarly unpleasant note in his voice.

“Really, you’re becoming quite ridiculous. If we’d thought you’d held her in the least bit of esteem, we would have been happy to stand by,” Parthenope said, sounding bored.

“There are plenty of other cits’ daughters with comfortable fortunes. Go find yourself one who knows exactly what kind of a husband she’d be getting, not one who might fancy herself in love,” Sophie added.

“How do you know she wasn’t in love?” he demanded, drawing himself up.

Parthenope snorted, but Sophie shook her head. “If she loved you, she’d never have fallen to the foxes, as you put it. She’d be here with you right now, looking forward to her first waltz. I am glad she escaped with her heart intact.”

“Indeed,” he sneered. “I was not aware you knew anything about hearts, Lady Sophie.”

Next to her Parthenope moved sharply, and Sophie knew she was a bare second from slapping him across the face. She reached out to take Parthenope’s arm—Norris Underwood was not worth the days of gossip smacking him would lead to—and said, not looking at him, “My heart has nothing to do with this. I merely think Kitty deserves to keep hers.”

“Or is yours just made of wood? Isn’t that what you witches—”

“Good evening,” someone said quietly. Mrs. Barker had appeared at his elbow. She nodded to Sophie and Parthenope. “You are both very handsome tonight, as Kitty said you would be. Has she already been to make her duties to you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sophie inclined her head toward the ballroom doors. “She vanished with Jane and Georgiana Lennox in that direction. I expect you’ll find her safe with them.”

“I’m sure I will find her quite safe.” Mrs. Barker’s voice remained blandly polite, but Sophie understood her double meaning clearly. “Mr. Underwood, won’t you give me your arm so that I may see for myself?”

He had no choice but to do so, and pointedly did not look at Sophie and Parthenope as Mrs. Barker gave them a last smile and turned to the ballroom.

The comte arrived then, and Sophie was glad to turn from the unpleasantness of Norris Underwood to the pleasure of greeting him. Aunt Molly would not let him go into the ballroom, but looked mutinous as she peered down the stairs. “Don’t you think everyone’s arrived by now? Do I really have to stand here any longer?”

“Yes,” Parthenope whispered to Sophie. “Otherwise she’ll start pacing back and forth in front of the potted ferns muttering to herself and making the musicians nervous. She’s afraid someone will jostle them once the dancing starts—the ferns, that is, not the musicians.”

Sophie smiled, as Parthenope seemed to expect it, but a loud laugh drifting up from the front door caught her attention. Only one person in Brussels possessed such a distinctive guffaw. She had a moment to wonder if it had anything to do with his equally distinctive nose … and then the Duke of Wellington was on the top stair, elegant in evening clothes and smiling jovially, trailed by several of his dashing young aides-de-camp in their bright uniforms.

“Lady Mary! Madame Carswell!” He bowed over their hands with practiced grace. Though not particularly tall, he had a presence that made him seem larger. “Delighted to be here! You will set a high bar for entertainments in Brussels tonight, I expect! Good evening, Lansell.” He shook Papa’s hand. “You know Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon and Captain Hill and Lieutenant Cathcart, don’t you? Ah.” His eyes lit on Sophie and he moved toward her. “Lady Sophie, I hear from George Lennox that you’re tying his brother March around your finger. A smile from you is bringing him down, when years on the Peninsula couldn’t. Maybe I need you and your friend the Hardcastle girl on my staff, eh?”

Next to her Parthenope made a small sound. Sophie hoped she wouldn’t swoon. “I’m sure we would set you all to rights very quickly, sir, given half a chance,” she replied demurely.

He laughed. “So you would! I’d better let my boys know the danger they’re in. Ah, there you are, Lady Parthenope. What do you say? Report to me at headquarters tomorrow at eight sharp, so we may give you your orders.” Chuckling, he wandered into the ballroom, and Sophie watched the inevitable wave of movement toward him that always occurred as soon as he entered a crowded room.

Parthenope grabbed Sophie’s arm. “Did you hear that? We should show up in our riding habits tomorrow morning and tell him we’re reporting for duty. Maybe he’ll invite us for breakfast.”

“I don’t know about you, but I intend to sleep until noon if we get through this evening without incident,” Sophie muttered back. And suddenly wished she could go find a quiet place to hide from the cheerful bustle and just be alone. But a quiet space would have to wait. “I think I ought to go watch the duke in the ballroom, don’t you?” she said to Parthenope.

“One of us should,” Parthenope agreed. “You go. And sit down for a few minutes. You’re no good to us if you exhaust yourself before the ball has barely started. If anyone asks, I’ll tell ’em you needed to use the necessary.”

“You’ll do no such thing, or I’ll send Hester out here to make a mess on your shoulder.”

“Of course I won’t, goose-cap.” Parthenope looked at her with concern. “Are you sure your shoes aren’t hurting you?”

“They’re fine. I’m just—”

“Worried,” Parthenope finished for her. “Don’t be. It will be all right. Go watch Hester and the duke and make sure they both behave.”

All seemed as it ought to in the ballroom—two of the musicians playing softly, little groups of guests (and the one large group centered on the Duke of Wellington) chatting amicably. Sophie edged her way around the room to where Hester sat on his perch. “Seen anything, Hester?” she murmured to him.

He looked at her with his head cocked to one side, then turned to scratch and smooth the feathers on top of his wing.

“I’ll take that as a no, shall I?”

“Good evening, Your Grace,” he said, swiveling back to scan the room. “How are you this evening, Your Grace?”

“The duke’s over there, silly bird. I’m Soph—oh, all right. Watch him, then.” She sat down in a chair next to him with a sigh of relief. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn her new slippers tonight, but they went so well with her dress, and Parthenope had been so excited about giving them to her, not to mention Amélie—

No. She would not think about Amélie right now, so she scanned the room instead … and saw Lord March approaching her chair, smiling.

“I believe the dancing will be starting shortly, so I thought I’d find my favorite nondancing partner to open the ball with,” he said lightly, sitting down beside her.

“Turnip,” Hester said.

“Hester,” Sophie said warningly. Dratted bird! “Don’t mind him,” she said to Lord March. “He might have said something much worse.”

“Has Lady Parthenope tried to train him out of saying them?” March examined Hester with interest.

“Heavens, no! She taught him most of them.”

He laughed. Though it had been more than a year since he’d come back from serving with Wellington in Spain, he still seemed tanned from the Iberian sun, and his teeth flashed white in his handsome brown face. “Lady Parthenope is quite a character. My sisters are not sure whether to adore her or be terrified of her.”

“They’re wise women.”

“But you seemed to have tamed the lion—or lioness, as it were.”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s just that the lioness took a violent liking to me.”

“I don’t blame her.” His blue eyes were warm as he looked at her. “I have too.”

Sophie smiled and looked down at her lap. The Richmonds were all charming—they must have inherited their charm from their ancestor King Charles II, who had been almost too charming, it was said. But Lord March had the Richmond charm in extra measure. All his sisters doted on him, which wasn’t surprising. But his brothers did as well, which was less common, and Wellington was said to love him like a son. He would eventually become Duke of Richmond on his father’s death, and though the family was not wealthy, they held several estates in England and Ireland. He was, by most counts, a splendid catch, and she liked him very much.

But that was all. She couldn’t see him as anything but a friend—perhaps a dear one—but not anything more. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to look at any young man with anything but a sisterly eye … except for one. And he was lost to her.

“Ah, there they go. Your aunt’s injury seems much better since your arrival,” March said.

Sophie looked up. The sets to open the dancing were forming. On the other side of the room, Papa had taken the Duchess of Richmond, as the female guest of highest rank, as his partner to lead his set. Directly in front of where Sophie sat, Amélie had done the same with the Duke of Wellington. Just behind them were Aunt Molly and the comte.

“Oh dear, Aunt has left off her sling. I hope she won’t strain her arm,” she said.

“I’m sure her partner will take care that she isn’t hurt,” March said soothingly. “And I’m here with my nondancing partner,” he added with a grin. “Where’s your friend the lioness? Isn’t she dancing?”

The musicians had finished tuning, and the lead violinist looked inquiringly at Papa. He nodded, and they played the opening measures of the dance.

“I don’t know.” Sophie scanned the edges of the room. That was odd—where had Parthenope got herself off to? They had agreed that she’d dance the first dance, for appearance’s sake, then join Sophie in guard duty. “Perhaps I should go find her.”

March rose at once and offered her his arm. “Please allow me—I should like to try my hand at lion hunting. Or lioness hunting, rather.”

The opening measure ended, and the dancers began to move, bowing and curtsying, then beginning the figures. Sophie tried to ignore them as she let Lord March help her up—it was still difficult to judge how to move with these new slippers. This was the moment of a ball that always hurt the most—the first dance of the evening, when everyone was fresh and eager and smiling, able to do what she longed to do again, but never would.

But before she and March had taken a few steps, the line of dancers nearest to them had suddenly faltered, and the dancers at the head of the line stopped entirely.

“Why—where did the duke go?” someone—Aunt Molly, it sounded like—said in bewilderment.

*   *   *

A shock of fear froze Sophie in place for a few seconds. Even though she and Parthenope had been afraid something would occur, the reality of its actually happening was overwhelming.

“What is it?” Lord March asked, looking down at her.

“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded almost ridiculously calm in her own ears. She let go of his arm and turned back.

The entire line of dancers had now stopped, looking befuddled. “The duke—he just vanished!” someone else was saying loudly above the murmurs of confusion.

“The duke!” The name moved down the line like an ominous breeze. Now the other set of dancers had paused and looked toward the first set in confusion.

Sophie pushed her way through the milling crowd. At its center was a small clearing. Amélie stood there alone, looking stunned.

“Nonsense,” a man said, from farther back. “People don’t just disappear.”

“But he did!” a woman cried in response. “I saw him—and then he wasn’t there!”

A few people were looking about them, as if the duke had suddenly taken it into his head to play a game of hide-and-seek. Everyone had stopped dancing now, and the musicians had ceased playing and had risen in their seats to peer over the ferns to see what the matter was. One or two ladies here and there started to cry.

“See here—you were dancing with him. What happened?” A man stepped out of the crowd and pointed at Amélie.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then finally said, “I do not know,” in a very small voice.

“He just—wasn’t there all of a sudden.” Aunt Molly stepped forward, her vague blue eyes wide. “We were right behind them, weren’t we, Auguste?”

The comte was just as pale and shocked looking as she. “It is so.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that—and he was gone. Madame, surely you must have seen,” he said to Amélie.

Sophie turned away. She didn’t need to hear anything more, and she didn’t want to see Amélie’s face. What had she done to the duke? And why had she chosen to do something so public and obvious as to make him disappear in front of an entire roomful of guests?

What should she do? Should she confront Amélie right now, in front of everyone? What would Amélie do if she accused her of sorcery against the Duke of Wellington—and would anyone believe her?

“Sophie!” A hand caught her arm. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Parthenope! Sophie turned. “What do you mean? I’ve been look—”

Parthenope looked flustered and excited, but it was the person standing just behind her who stopped Sophie’s words, and her breath. Peregrine Woodbridge stood there, looking at her steadily. “Please excuse me—I didn’t intend to crash your party tonight,” he said.