Learning to Waltz (26 page)

“I believe you are from Nuneaton?”

“I am,” he said, spooning some sort of sauce over his salmon. “Met Viscount Latimer on the hunting field a dozen years ago. What about you, Mrs. Moore? Why have I never met you before? Are you a Yorkshire friend of Mrs. Dusseau’s?”

That question had not gone very far. “No. I live here in Whately.” Deborah withdrew into her wineglass.
Another question, quickly…

“Lord Latimer visited friends at Nuneaton in December. Was that you, Mr. Sherill?”

“Why, yes, it was. Came with a friend of his named Haverfield. Nice fellow, rather quiet. Do you know him as well?”

Do not blush…
“A little. He stayed with the viscount for several weeks. He is Mrs. Dusseau’s brother.”

His eyes widened in polite surprise. “You don’t say! May I serve you some of this whatever-it-is? Veal, do you think?”

Deborah didn’t know either and was no wiser after tasting it. Aside from the wine, nothing seemed to have much flavor. And when he offered her a rabbit cooked in pastry with its head and ears sticking out, she recoiled. She refused everything else except a small dish of syllabub.

While she sipped her wine, Mr. Sherill covered a number of subjects. He found her unqualified to discuss London but discovered she knew Oxford and talked of that instead. He told her stories of his travels in Italy and Austria. One of these involved his visit to a fair, and Deborah added a few comments about her own recent experience. He paid her handsome compliments—she laughed at them but was grateful. He kept her mind from straying, her anxiety at bay.

Before the ladies left to refresh themselves for the dancing, he bespoke her hand for the supper dance, a particularly nice gesture. Not for a moment did she take his gallantry seriously. She suspected he saw in her an unthreatening companion, attractive enough to justify a little flirtation yet mature enough to see it for what it was.

As it happened, Mr. Sherill danced with her not once but twice, and he was not her only partner. She recalled the dance figures readily enough, did not trip over her own or anyone else’s feet, and did not tear the hem of her gown.

When Doctor Overley approached her as the musicians were striking up a waltz, she forced herself to stand her ground. “No, sir. I cannot.” She would have been happy to insult him just a trifle, but it was safer to let him think she didn’t know how. She would have rejected even Mr. Sherill, had he asked her. She would never waltz again. More than once her dreams had afforded her the painful delight of dancing again in Evan’s arms, and she would not sully them by letting another man put his hands on her.

She was happy to have danced at all and was neither surprised nor disappointed at the time she spent at the edge of the room.

She spoke with the squire and Lady Reston, with Miss Reston and Miss Caroline, thanking each of them, yet again, for their loan of the pony Julian had been riding.

She listened while poor Miss Chiggerford bemoaned her imminent removal to Leicester.

Miss Latimer took five minutes from her hostess duties to spend with her, and her fiancé, whose injured leg precluded dancing, was kind enough to sit with her for quite a few more.

She talked dutifully of rain and mud, found something to compliment in each woman’s attire, and exclaimed with the rest of the local folk over last night’s fire at the brewery. And Elizabeth appeared frequently at her side to perk up a flagging discussion or merely take her arm for a minute and smile her encouragement. The people she talked with responded readily enough, which gave her confidence that her blather seemed more natural to
them
than it felt to
her
.

The evening lasted for all eternity, but finally they were able to escape upstairs. Once changed into their nightdresses and dressing gowns, Elizabeth sent Francine away and they brushed each other’s hair while they discussed the evening.

With an impish smile, Elizabeth asked, “What did you think of Mr. Sherill?”

“I think you not only seated him beside me but warned him to prepare a great deal of one-sided conversation.”

Elizabeth laughed and clapped her hands. “I confess to the former charge. Knowing Mr. Sherill, I hardly supposed he would need a warning. He is what we call
a rattle
.”

Deborah brushed out one last little snarl, and Elizabeth stood up from the dressing table. Deborah touched her arm for a moment. “I don’t think I can possibly say how much I appreciate all your kindness, Elizabeth. These weeks have been…  I’m so tired I could sleep for a month. I don’t know why you came to Whately or—”

Elizabeth took hold of her chin and gave it a gentle shake. “Hush, you goose.” Then she pulled her into a hug. “You did beautifully, Deborah. Didn’t I say you would? And it will be easier each time.”

She pulled back and looked into Deborah’s face, ran a thumb from the bridge of her nose to her forehead. Deborah felt her face relax. “What occasion do you suppose your next ball will celebrate?”

Was it so unreasonable to want someplace warm? Warm and far from the curious, concerned, or censorious looks his family had directed toward him for the past week?

He’d intended an indefinite stay if Mama would just curtail her endless prattle about marriage. A couple of months, perhaps, until the Season was underway, and he would join the throng in London as he usually did. None of it sounded particularly appealing, but one had to be somewhere.

Home should have been a good choice. It was an Elizabethan manor house, made comfortable by modern improvements and dear by myriad memories of a happy childhood. The schoolroom, the attics, the big cupboard under the stair… here he had played with his siblings, learned his lessons, dreamed of adventure. Now the whole place seemed overrun with people. His brother and sister-in-law were visiting, and Alberta’s children, who had stayed with their grandparents while Alberta and Theo spent New Year’s in Whately. They had taken possession of these indoor haunts. And any time Evan braved the cold to get away from them all, his brother Raymond came nattering at his heels as he had when they were children.

Alberta arrived to reclaim her progeny, and his parents were thrilled to have so many of the family at home. Evan knew he should be enjoying the reunion as well. He liked all these people, with the possible exception of Raymond’s wife, Clarice, who thought everyone must be as interested in her “interesting condition” as she was. He suspected Raymond sought his company as much to forget impending fatherhood as for any other reason. It certainly wasn’t for Evan’s scintillating conversation because he couldn’t find any.

So far from a two-month stay in the bosom of his family, he hardly lasted a week.

He pointed Grady and the horses toward Cornwall. By the time they arrived, the snowdrops might already be pushing green nubs out of the soil, and the most precocious of the birds would soon be nesting.

Evan craved springtime—it was all he could think of except Deborah—and they breezed through Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Cheltenham to Stroud and Chipping Sudbury, where they were stalled for a day by driving, almost-freezing rain. That past, they set out for Bristol, only to be held up by a thrown horseshoe in the middle of nowhere. They plodded into some village—presumably it had a name, but it wasn’t advertising the fact, and one could see why. It was nearly dark by the time the smith was finished with Jory’s hoof. They were obliged to put up at the nameless little town’s nameless little inn.

“I reckon we’re living a charmed life if we come through this night without an inflammation of the lungs,” Grady complained.

Evan grunted. “We’ve slept in worse places. At least it’s stopped raining; it won’t matter if the roof leaks.”

“Lord yes. D’you remember that inn at King’s Landing where we’d’ve needed a dozen buckets to catch all the drips? Wasn’t room left for one bed, much less two.” He got no response. “Might be bedbugs, though.” That earned another grunt and a grimace.

They survived the night with nothing worse than a few fleabites and arrived in Bristol the following afternoon. There they stayed the weekend and inspected the impressive fossilary at the library on King Street.

Heading west along the north coast of Somerset, an appalling spell of weather trapped them at the Hood Arms near Watchet. The roar of the wind made it easy to imagine Mr. Coleridge sitting in some room nearby writing of the storm that carried his mariner all the way to the Antarctic. Evan despaired of ever being warm again. It was hardly reasonable, but he blamed it on Deborah.

He also despaired of regaining his equanimity, and
that
he could lay at Deborah’s door. Virgil insisted that
Time bears away all things, even our minds
—well, Evan was losing his mind right enough, yet his discontent remained firmly entrenched. It had been five weeks since he’d last seen Deborah, but he was still mired in remembrances, from the sheen of her hair to the decaying boots she wore, and every sweet inch in between.

Finally the weather began to improve. It was no help to Grady. If his master’s mood had improved as well, that would have been one thing. But the thaw meant mud, which slowed their progress, setting Mr. Haverfield’s nerves on a feather edge. At the end of each day’s drive, Grady spent an hour and more washing the horses and the phaeton, only to have them sullied again minutes after they hit the road the next morning.

It was a relief when they came to rest near Barnstaple at the home of an old friend from Mr. Haverfield’s university days. Mr. Allan Woodyard’s residence was just the informal sort of place where Grady enjoyed staying. Make that
Sir
Allan Woodyard, for he was now a baronet, though neither the man nor his staff set much store by it.

At Sir Allan’s, he was glad to spend less time in his master’s cheerless company. The love affairs of gentlemen were mighty uncomfortable for their manservants, as Grady could now attest. Since leaving Northridge, he had been treated to silence and irritation from his usually easygoing employer. And as far as he could tell, this widow of Mr. Haverfield’s was in no way worth all the trouble.

Evan’s own feelings about the visit were mixed. Woodyard was easy company, and like Latimer’s, his was a bachelor household, with not even an Amanda to disturb the careless habits of its owner. But Evan feared he’d be a rude guest, even for so undemanding a host. With humiliation, indignation, and bitterness all battling for the upper hand inside, merely being civil was sometimes a challenge.

He tried to warn Woodyard over their port on the evening of his arrival.

“Gammon,” Sir Allan replied. “You’ve already apologized for being late, which you cannot be since we never set a precise date. You don’t need to do the pretty. If you don’t want to talk, don’t talk. Tomorrow I thought we’d take out the pointer bitch I’ve been working with, see if we can find anything to shoot. And a couple of friends from the neighborhood are coming in to dinner and cards. Other than that, I’ve nothing planned for your entertainment. You want to walk all day by yourself, you’re welcome to it.” Though Evan did not take these words entirely to heart, they were good to hear.

They passed the evening contentedly enough, reminiscing about Rugby and Oxford, bringing each other up to date on their own lives and those of various mutual friends and acquaintances.

“So who is this bride of Latimer’s?”

“She’s Sudbury’s youngest sister.”

Woodyard sat up straight. “What? Not Blythe the Bitch?”

“No, no, though she’s to be married as well. Honora’s quite different. Pretty enough and fair. Latimer always did go for blondes. She missed her debut last season—some relative or other died—so you’d probably not know her. Rather too godly for me, which I’m sure redounds more to her credit than mine.”

“Ah, poor Latimer. She’s just a chit, I gather—will he be able to reform her, do you think?”

Evan shook his head. “I doubt it. By the time he realizes he wants to, it will be far too late. She may rule by vapors and hysterics, but rule she will.”

Woodyard himself disclaimed any interest in marriage. Evan was truthfully able to say, “I know exactly how you feel”—hadn’t he felt the same three months ago? He fancied that his friend looked at him rather searchingly, but there was no objection when he moved on to the safe topic of horseflesh.