The Horsemaster's Daughter (64 page)

Nodding, he angled his body so that she was shielded from the crowd. Raising a discreet finger to his own face, he indicated two more places. Abigail brushed quickly, until he nodded in approval. “You show a great deal of promise,” he remarked.

“So,” she said, bobbing an awkward curtsy. “Goodbye.” This man, she realized, had managed to reduce her to a blithering idiot in mere moments. She had to get away from him before the gossips got wind of it. Stuffing the handkerchief into her sash, she walked away. She was still struggling to compose her nerves when she found herself face-to-face with the only object she liked looking at more than the stars.

Lieutenant Boyd Butler III.

The first time she had seen him, he’d been a lad with skinny limbs poking out of short pants, clammy hands gripping her as they suffered together through dancing lessons. And even then, she’d thought him marvelous and gallant. Then he had gone away to school and they’d lost touch. Now he was back, transformed by the years and by the naval academy into a glorious man. This was her first time to see him socially, and her senses shrilled at the prospect.

“Miss Cabot.” The vice president’s son bowed from the waist. “I confess, you startled me.”

“Good evening, Lieutenant Butler.” She cut a glance over her shoulder to see if the stranger had followed her, but mercifully, he had melted into the crowd.

Because it was expected, she offered her right hand to Boyd Butler. Too late, she remembered that she had soiled her gloves on the concrete railing outside. She couldn’t decide whether to snatch her hand away or to brazen it out, and while she dithered, he took her fingers and raised the back of her hand to his lips, focusing only briefly on the black streaks that marred her white gloves.

Their fathers found Abigail and Lieutenant Butler in this position as they strolled past, making a turn around the periphery of the room.

“I say,” the elder Mr. Butler exclaimed. “Can this be our progeny, making friends with one another?”

“We’re already acquainted, sir,” the lieutenant pointed out. “Miss Cabot was kind enough to renew our friendship when I happened to be on duty at the Naval Observatory.”

Abigail’s long-held admiration of him soared, for the truth was, she’d been refused access to the observatory, and she was so determined to gain entry that night that she’d threatened to report the incident to the president himself. Boyd had stepped in, seeing no harm in letting a woman use the observatory. How kind of him to avoid pointing out how belligerent she’d been that night.

“In fact,” Lieutenant Butler continued, “I was about to ask Miss Cabot for a dance.”

A dance. Dear heaven. She cast a desperate look at her father. His perfectly groomed side-whiskers framed a face wrought of ambition and determination. Deep in his fiercely intelligent eyes glowed a promise, but a promise withheld. It was not that her father didn’t love her; he simply wasn’t the sort of man to give out his affection with blind abandon like the sun on a cloudless day. He expected something in return, something as simple as it was impossible.

But she would try. Holding on to the promise she saw in her father’s eyes, she tried to behave in the charming, ladylike fashion that seemed to come so naturally to other young women. Turning slightly toward Boyd Butler III, she smiled up at him. He was quite a distance away—not due to any particularly prodigious height, but due to her small stature. Abigail viewed her shortness as one of far too many personal failings.

Still, her father and the vice president were watching. “I daresay, I have never met a kinder soul than I did that night at the observatory,” she declared.

Her father favored her with a tight, controlled smile. “Mr. Butler, your son is to be commended, then. For it takes a special tolerance to abide my daughter’s unusual enthusiasm for stargazing.”

A sting of defensiveness touched her spine. She kept watching the lieutenant. Oh, if he would defend her right this instant, she would love him forever.

He grinned broadly at her father. “Sir, I find a lady’s interest in science little different from her interest in embroidery. Both are equally baffling to me.”

As the three men laughed, Abigail tried to decide whether or not Lieutenant Butler had put up enough of a defense on her behalf. He was so incredibly good-looking that she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, as politely as possible, he’d managed to contradict her father without offending the senator. Genius. The man was a genius.

“Miss Cabot, may I have the honor of this dance?” asked Lieutenant Butler.

She felt like a rabbit aware of a wolf nearby and safety far away. On the outside, she stood frozen, incapable of movement. On the inside, her heart beat so fast that her chest hurt. Her father stood watching, waiting. The promise in those eyes moved slowly, like moonset at midnight, soon to disappear altogether. She couldn’t let his esteem slip away. She mustn’t. She’d already disgraced herself once this evening in the matter of the bride’s bouquet. If she refused to dance with the son of the vice president, she would never endure her father’s disappointment.

The prospect burned her with the heat of mortal fear. She felt herself turn to her partner with the wooden, jerky movements of a marionette. “It would be my pleasure, Lieutenant Butler,” she said.

Her reply had the desired reaction all the way around. Boyd the younger smiled and offered his hand. Boyd the elder nodded his head in approval. And her father’s eyes filled with pride and affection, warming her through to her soul.

Now all that remained was to get through the dance without another mishap.

Concealing anxiety behind a smile, she put her hand in Lieutenant Butler’s and accompanied him to the dance floor to await the next set. Please be something slow, she prayed. A stately couples dance—even she could navigate that.

The strains of a violin’s high whine poured like liquid silver through the room. Lieutenant Butler executed a perfect formal bow and Abigail answered with a brief curtsy. Then he cupped one hand at her waist while the other cradled her palm. His unfailing precision and courtesy gave her confidence as the first beats of the dance sounded.

The rhythm was mercifully slow. Her knees went weak with relief, but she steeled herself against sagging. The dance steps were familiar to her, for she often lay awake at night and pictured herself dancing, always with flawless grace. Reality was a different thing altogether. As they moved off to begin their orbit of the dance floor, she clutched his upper arm in a death grip and scowled in concentration. Lieutenant Butler could not know it, but to Abigail it was a journey fraught with peril. He mustn’t guess she was mere inches from collapsing like a broken doll.

But oh, Lord. Oh moons of Venus. He was talking to her, asking her something. “…quite an alliance, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said quickly. “Quite an alliance.”

“I can’t say it surprises me.” Lieutenant Butler seemed totally unaware of his impact on the female wedding guests. Each time he passed, painted silken fans appeared like umbrellas in a rainstorm, fluttering in front of pretty faces that blushed at the very sight of him. With his every dark hair plastered in place with Macassar oil and every seam of his uniform ironed to knife-blade crispness, he was the American dream personified.

She found herself studying his wonderful mouth, shadowed by a perfectly waxed mustache. If she were to kiss that mouth, what would happen to the mustache? Would the wax break? Would it be crushed by her ardor?

Flushing with her brazen thoughts, Abigail took pride in the fact that he had chosen her. She was not nearly as pretty as the Parks girls of Albemarle County, not nearly as witty as the visiting New York heiresses, not nearly as graceful as the bride’s Baltimore cousins.

But she was smarter than all of them.

Not that this was any great virtue.

“Why are you not surprised?” she asked, concentrating on the simple dance steps. She was still not sure what he was talking about, but he hadn’t noticed that yet.

“Because my father is the presiding officer of the Senate and yours is chairman of the railroad committee. Between the two of them, they essentially control the entire Congress.”

She nodded, frowning as she narrowly missed swirling into a passing couple. She recognized Mrs. Fortenay, now put together and gliding regally across the floor. To Abigail’s consternation, she recognized Mrs. Fortenay’s partner, too. He was the same one she had encountered on the veranda.

Unbidden, a thrill of illicit heat curled through Abigail, and she caught her breath.

“Does that trouble you?” asked Lieutenant Butler.

“Of course not,” she hastened to say. “Our legislature could be in no better hands than our fathers’, wouldn’t you agree?”

The stranger caught her staring at him over Lieutenant Butler’s shoulder. He winked.
Winked.

A shiver passed over her. At first she thought she had imagined it, but the broad, teasing wink had been unmistakable. So had her alarming physical reaction to him.

“Who is that man?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “The insolent one we just passed.”

Butler turned slightly and looked beyond her. “Oh. Him.”

“I take it you know him.” When they rotated again, the motion nearly threw her off balance, but she got a better look. He was remarkably tall, well over six feet. His suit fit with tailored perfection. He wore his light-colored hair too long, and unlike most fashionable gentleman did not sport a thickly waxed mustache or side-whiskers.

“I know of him,” Lieutenant Butler corrected. “James Calhoun. He’s a freshman congressman from Virginia. Has a reputation for being wild and ruthless.”

“James Calhoun.” She tasted the staid, almost conventional name, but in her mind she could hear the president’s sister crying out, “Oh, Jamie, Jamie…” He definitely looked more like a Jamie than a James.

“He went to university in Europe, I’m told. I understand it was over the protests of his parents, who believe every proper Virginia gentleman should attend Old Dominion.”

Abigail tried to imagine parents being disappointed in a son educated on the Continent. “And who are they?” she asked. “The Calhouns.”

“His father, Charles Calhoun, raises racehorses, and I’ve heard the son has an eye for buying Arab stock, and has traveled to dangerous places in order to acquire horses.” Butler chuckled. “And now he’s become a congressman.” The lieutenant’s smile disappeared, eclipsed by a shadow of discontent.

“What is the matter?” she asked, dragging her foot. He no doubt found her a tedious and inept partner.

“I am reminded of my own duties,” he explained. “Sometimes I feel that the eyes of the world are on me.”

She thought he handled public attention exceedingly well, but said nothing. It was no secret that his father’s party was grooming Lieutenant Butler for a stellar political career. Perhaps even the presidency one day.

“I do understand that I’m needed,” he assured her without vanity. “I understand the need for leadership, but it’s a heavy burden. Sometimes even I have a need for…” His voice trailed off.

“For what, Lieutenant Butler?” Oh please, she thought. Whatever he yearns for, let me be the one to give it to him.

“Never mind. You will think me entirely daft.”

“No, I won’t. Please tell me.”

His gaze shifted to the floor. “Every so often I wish there could be nothing but romance and poetry in my life.”

Abigail nearly lost her balance, and only by gritting her teeth through the pain did she manage to keep from falling. Why did the female partner always have to dance backward? she wondered. It wasn’t fair, and for someone like her, it was downright hazardous.

“That is a noble human need,” she told him. Oh Boyd, Boyd, her heart sang. I’ll give you romance and poetry. Every minute of every day. Never mind that she hadn’t the least idea how to achieve that, but for his sake, she would find a way.

“You are easy to talk to, Miss Cabot,” he said. “I feel such comfort in your presence. The pressures of my station lighten when you are around.”

If Abigail were not hopelessly earthbound, she would have soared at that moment. Without the steady anchor of her dancing partner, she would have floated halfway to heaven by now.

Here was her chance. This was the moment to tell him what had been in her heart since they were gawky adolescents. Taking a deep breath, she teetered on the precipice, then plunged over the edge. “Lieutenant Butler, I daresay I feel the same.”

“Sweet mercy,” he said suddenly, staring at something over her shoulder. He nearly let go of her. Only by tightening her own grasp could Abigail stay anchored to him.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, terrified that she’d offended him with her bold declaration.

“Who is that creature?” He asked the question without looking at her; indeed, he seemed to have forgotten her existence. “She’s a goddess.”

Abigail craned her neck, following his gaze. The earth seemed to stop spinning, and her clumsy feet were planted firmly on the ground of reality. Lieutenant Butler, and every other male in the East Room—the bridegroom included—stared gape-mouthed at the arched entranceway. Abigail did not have to wonder whose arrival had created such a stir. This had happened dozens of times before.

When every male eye turned, when every male head emptied of all thought save one, it could only mean one thing.

Her sister, Helena, had arrived.

Like Venus on the half shell, borne to the shore on the foamy crest of a wave, she glided into the East Room and stood beneath the doorway from the entrance and cross halls. As always, she eschewed the fussy fashions of the day in favor of a flowing, apple-green sheath of a gown that accentuated the virtues of her perfect figure. A glorious swirl of copper-colored waves crowned her head and framed a face so beautiful that the sight of it drew attention from even the most jaded of men.

Abigail glanced up at her partner, who had all but forgotten her, and who clearly hadn’t heard her heartfelt declaration. She tried to let her hopes deflate slowly. For five minutes, she had felt genuinely happy dancing in Lieutenant Butler’s arms. She’d dared to hope he was attracted to her, and perhaps he had been for those few moments.