What would she say tonight, he wondered, if he were to tell her that he was seriously considering returning to Yorkshire to ask for the hand of a little waif of a girl who did not even possess a pair of shoes? She would think he had taken leave of his senses. He smiled again. He had taken leave of his senses. He was going to do it!
Mainwaring was one of the first to arrive at the ball. It seemed only right that he be early when he knew that the entertainment was unofficially in his honor. He walked about in the sparsely populated ballroom, bowing to distant acquaintances, talking with others. Really he was becoming quite adept at participating in light social chitchat, he thought. He was held up for quite a time by one dowager whose granddaughter was newly arrived in town. The girl was with her, a tall, thin girl who hid her fright behind a facade of boredom. But Mainwaring knew from her eyes that she felt self-conscious almost to the point of panic. He had experienced the feeling too recently himself to have forgotten. He signed the girl's card for two sets and made an effort to draw her into conversation, while the dowager looked on with satisfaction.
The trouble with such situations, he found, was that it was difficult to know when and how one might excuse oneself and move away. Why did such behavior come perfectly naturally to such people as Robert Denning? He was almost relieved to see the Earl and Countess of Claymore enter the ballroom. He had forgotten that Elizabeth had invited them. He had not felt particularly comfortable with the knowledge; he still had a suspicion that he might have behaved a little less than honorably toward their daughter. He had promised to take Lady Melissa riding one morning. He should have found the time to keep the appointment before leaving for Scotland.
However, under the circumstances he was quite relieved to make his excuses to his present companions and to cross the room to greet his neighbors.
Mainwaring felt quite relieved a few minutes later, the greetings over with. As with his meeting with Elizabeth a few weeks before, it had turned out that the actual encounter was not nearly as bad as it had been in imagination. The earl was all affability and Tie countess was civil despite the fact that she seemed to have decided to act the part of the dignified and aloof grand lady. The eldest daughter had favored him with a gracious nod of the head, and Lady Melissa had curtsied stiffly, her face unsmiling. Clearly she was indicating disapproval. But at least the proprieties had been observed and the next meeting would hold no embarrassment at all. He turned to ask Lady Melissa if he might claim a set with her later in the evening.
"Where is Helen?" the earl asked. "Never tell me the child has taken herself off alone already."
"A maid is sewing up the hem of her gown, Papa," Emily explained. "Someone trod on it on the staircase, it seems."
The earl sighed. "Such a thing could happen only to Helen," he said. "The dancing has not even begun yet."
"It was a minor matter, Papa," said Emily. "Here she comes now."
William Mainwaring turned to watch with interest the approach of the elusive youngest daughter. He saw a small girl, much shorter than her sisters and lacking their straight-backed poise. She swung her shoulders as she moved, and strode along rather than walked, although her movements did not lack grace. She wore a pink gown, lace over silk, high-waisted, perfectly fashionable. Yet neither the gown nor the color suited her. Her tawny hair had been piled and curled into a style that might have been becoming if numerous rebellious wisps had not insisted on forming a sort of halo around her head. She had a rather full, almost round face, pretty perhaps had her jaw not been clenched quite so tightly and had not the heightened color of her cheeks outdone the shade of her gown.
"It seems absurd that you have not met our youngest daughter, Mr. Mainwaring," the countess said in her grand manner. "May I present Helen to you?"
Mainwaring smiled with something more than mere politeness. So this was the skeleton in the closet. The girl was so very different from her very proper mother and sisters. He held out his hand for hers and prepared to bow over it. And it was only at that moment-he could never afterward imagine how he could have looked at her for what must have been almost a whole minute without realizing-that he knew her.
For one moment he was caught in a feeling of unreality-almost the feeling one would get if one walked out of a room only to find that one was walking into it. The girl who was raising that clenched jaw and staring with such controlled fixity into his eyes was Nell! She raised her hand and placed it in his.
"I am pleased to meet you, sir," she said. The sound came through her teeth. It was her voice indeed, yet different. The accent was more clipped. She curtsied, a stiff, ungraceful gesture.
William Mainwaring had missed his cue by perhaps only a couple of seconds. No one seemed to have noticed. He bowed over her hand, which still lay in his. "It is my pleasure, ma'am," he said.
Robert and Elizabeth were entering the ballroom to begin the dancing. It was time to excuse himself in order to claim his first partner. He bowed to the family as a whole and turned away.
The Marquess of Hetherington took his wife's arm and linked it through his. He led her in the direction of the adjoining room, where the refreshments were set out.
"Come and have some lemonade," he said. "I do not much care if you are thirsty or not, my love. My only objection to balls-and unfortunately it is a major one – is that one rarely so much as sets eyes upon the person with whom one would wish to spend the whole evening. I have not spoken with you since the opening set, and that was a country dance."
She laughed. "I seem to remember that you used to go and sulk in the library when such a thing happened," she said.
"Ah, but one cannot be so rag-mannered, my love, when one is the host," he said. "One must smile and smile and pretend that the desire to dance with one's own wife is the furthest thought from one's mind."
"Robert!" she said, glancing through her dance booklet as he took a glass of lemonade from a footman. "You have reserved the second dance after supper with me, and it is a waltz too. You have a mere two hours or so to wait."
He pulled a face and then waggled his eyebrows at her. "My main consolation must be that after all these people have left, I shall have you alone for the rest of the night," he said.
She tapped him on the arm with her fan. "That is at least four hours in the future," she said. "We will just have to be patient, Robert."
"We?"
"We," she repeated, smiling conspiratorially at him. Then her expression sobered. "Robert," she said, "the next set will be starting soon and I promised myself that this time I would see that that dreadful little Wade girl was partnered. I am not sure, but I could almost swear that she has not danced even once. For the last two sets she has been sitting among the chaperons, her chin in her hand."
"I had noticed," Robert said. "In fact, I asked for the last set myself. Do you know what she said? She said her feet were sore from wearing new slippers. She has not been on her feet long enough to develop even the smallest blister."
"Oh dear, I must go and see what I can do," Elizabeth said, depositing her half-empty glass on a tray and walking determinedly back toward the ballroom. "What on earth can be wrong with the girl?"
William Mainwaring reached Helen a few paces ahead of his friends. The set that was forming was the first for which he had not previously solicited the hand of some other lady. He bowed formally before Helen, who was still sitting, one leg crossed over the other, foot swinging, one elbow resting on her knee, her chin in her hand.