“I’m not really—Nobody quite—” She turned to Gwyneth; her face was bright now, with relief and delight. “I am so happy!” she breathed, clutching Gwyneth’s hands, which Gwyneth had fortunately just emptied of her last bite of cherry tart. “I can’t wait to see him.”
“I can’t, either,” Pandora sighed. “Why didn’t he come tonight? He must miss us.”
“I’m sure he does,” Daria said quickly. “He is resting this evening. That’s what Judd Cauley told me, when I saw him at the stationer’s shop. Mr. Trent was delighted with the news, of course.”
“As we are, as well,” Aunt Phoebe said, pouring Daria tea. She glanced at the door, missing something else.
Under the table, Dulcie asked through a mouthful of crumbs, “Tantie, where’s the bird?”
“Raven!” Aunt Phoebe exclaimed. “Yes. Where is your brother this evening? We miss him as well.”
Crispin opened his mouth, closed it again under Gwyneth’s narrow-eyed stare. Daria took a precipitous gulp of hot tea, which rendered her speechless a moment.
“He—ah—rode over to Aislinn House. To ask after Lady Eglantyne, of course, make sure her condition has not worsened.”
“Of course,” Aunt Phoebe said smoothly. “Very proper.”
“Yes.”
They both gave little, darting glances at Gwyneth, who, unable to work up a sufficiently mortified expression, reached for a cherry tart instead and handed it to Dulcie.
“Oh, don’t encourage her!” Aunt Phoebe cried, instantly diverted. “Dulcie, come out from under that table before you turn into an uncivilized hooligan.”
“Are there civilized hooligans?” Pandora asked sweetly.
“Yes,” Gwyneth said. “Both of you twins. Go away, as I know you’re longing to do, and let us talk.”
“Raven promised he would stop here on his way home,” Daria told Gwyneth earnestly and unconvincingly. “Oh, Gwyneth, all Miss Beryl’s guests are coming, and most of those from Sealey Head whom we invited. Sproule Manor will scarcely hold such a crush! We will be forced to dance on the cliff.”
“Did you find some musicians of delicacy and refinement?”
“No,” Daria said complacently, choosing the plumpest macaroon. “But they’re young and energetic, and they’ll play the moon down. Now, tell me what you will wear.”
Gwyneth wore thin pale green muslin over a shift of white silk so embroidered and beribboned it reminded her of the sitting room in Judd’s inn. Her father brought out the carriage for the half-mile journey to Sproule Manor. The moon, while far from full, was at least congenial, smiling upon them as they rattled up the coast road. Half of Sealey Head seemed to be walking along it, everyone dressed in their best, waving cheerfully at the intermittent carriages. Gwyneth heard the vigorous, spirited fiddling even over the tide before they reached the manor.
Every window blazed; lamplight splashed upon the cliff, revealing the dancers that Daria had envisioned. Along one side of the grassy knoll, great fires blazed; a pig, a couple of lambs, a side of beef turned nakedly on their spits above the flames. The smells of brine, smoke, and meat mingled enticingly in the wind. Gwyneth wondered what Miranda Beryl’s elegant guests would think of that eyeful of country ways.
Inside, the house smelled of a hundred beeswax candles in chandeliers, candelabras, sconces, and sticks. Fires raged in the hearths at either end of the hall, for the doors were wide open to the wind, cooling the crowd within. Boots pounded among dancing slippers on the oak floors; the city folk, glasses of wine or punch in their hands, watched from the sidelines. Their gowns, Gwyneth noted with envy, were of simple, subtle lines, whose fabrics dazzled the eye with hues over which light shifted like water, changing teal to blue, and rose to crimson, and glinting through lovely, nameless colors along the way.
Rooms on both sides of the hall were open to reveal groaning boards within, already surrounded by unabashed townspeople, who knew that the Sproules, above all, liked their guests to make the most of their bounty, and who seldom got such a feast as this anywhere else.
Aunt Phoebe and Toland Blair were hailed by Dr. Grantham almost immediately. Gwyneth listened to news, or lack of it, about Lady Eglantyne, then wandered off for a glimpse of the guest of honor. She found Daria first, who pulled her across the floor at the edge of the dancers, then into the crowd.
“Look at her!”
Miss Beryl wore purple, the wine-dark shade visible just under the surface of the sea where the great kelp fronds grew closest to the light. Against it, her skin turned a flawless cream; her pale hair, wrapped around miniature purple irises the color of her gown, looked like a garden after a snowfall.
She extended an arm languidly; Raven, flushing with pleasure, took her empty glass and worked his way toward the bottles and jugs and punch bowls on a table just outside the door.
“Oh,” Daria groaned. “I do wish she would go back home. She is spoiling everything.”
“Never mind,” Gwyneth said.
“But I do mind. I mind for you! And for myself—I so want you as a sister. If he proposes to her tonight, I will smack him with a beer jug.”
Gwyneth laughed. “You will always have me for a sister. We don’t need Raven for that.”
Daria glowered a moment longer at the lovely Miss Beryl, then sighed, her face easing.
“Well, she would never have him, anyway. Look at all those admirers around her. Mr. Moren has scarcely left her side all evening. She’d hate Sealey Head. And Raven, estimable as he is, lacks a certain—oh—dashing quality most pleasing to women with nothing better to do than fall in and out of love.”
“Indeed.”
“Eminently worthy, though,” Daria assured her, “on a practical, daily basis.” She grew abruptly silent; Gwyneth felt fingers, tense and chilly, close around her wrist. “Is that—Just coming in—”
“Yes,” Gwyneth said, taller and able to see over more heads. She smiled at the sight of the fair head beside the dark. “I believe it is Mr. Dow. With Mr. Cauley.”
Daria tugged her so quickly into the crush again that she left a trail of splashed punch and apologies before she entirely caught her balance.
Ridley Dow saw them as they squeezed through a final tangle of elbows and backs, into the quieter realms along the wall. He looked pale, Gwyneth thought, and shadowy beneath his lenses. He didn’t move to meet them; he hovered near the protection of the stones but greeted them warmly as they reached him.
“Miss Blair, how are you? Miss Sproule, what a delightful gathering. How kind of you to think of it.”
“Mr. Dow, how are you? Where have you been?” Daria asked precipitously. “We heard you had an accident!”
“A minor one. I’m much better now.”
“But you look far too pale, even in this light, doesn’t he, Gwyneth? What happened? Nobody will tell us.”
Ridley Dow shrugged slightly, then seemed to wish he hadn’t. “It was foolish enough. A sort of hunting mishap.”
“Did you fall off your horse?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Where have you been? Poor Judd Cauley thought you had abandoned him. I do hope you are well enough to dance, Mr. Dow. But where were you? And why didn’t you tell poor Mr. Cauley where you had gone?”
“Where,” Gwyneth said, diverting Daria’s solicitous intensity from the patient Mr. Dow, “is Mr. Cauley? I thought you came in together.”
“He went to fetch some ale for us,” Mr. Dow answered. “There’s quite a mob around the bottles.”
“Ever the innkeeper,” Daria said fondly. “But, Mr. Dow, you haven’t told us where—”
“You ladies both look lovely tonight,” he interrupted. “You look like spring itself, Miss Blair. And Miss Sproule, how well that purple brings out the green in your eyes.”