A Collar and Tie (Ganymede Quartet Book 4) (24 page)

“What are we supposed to do now?” Freddie complained. He had
a flask, and Henry looked at it hopefully, but Freddie was sharing it with just
Wendell and their slaves.

An older colored gentleman with elegant bearing and an air
of authority, wearing a sash across his chest that proclaimed him FLOOR MANAGER,
strode into the middle of the crowd of boys and clapped his hands. “Attention!
Attention, please, escorts! I am Mr. Fields, and I will be guiding you through
the events of this evening. While the young ladies are occupied, you gentlemen
are invited to partake of refreshments in the clubroom. This way, please!”

Boys and their slaves obediently filed into the gentlemen’s
clubroom where they were offered punch and cookies.

“I thought they’d give us champagne at least,” Gordon
complained, sneering at his punch cup. “This is just juice.”

The room was packed, a bit stifling. Stephen Reinhardt from
Henry’s quadrille set saw him and waved, then came through the crowd to shake
his hand. Henry was not unhappy to see him, but they had little to say to one
another beyond greetings. Some friend of Stephen’s, whose name Henry didn’t
catch, sidled up and offered around a flask, and Henry was grateful for the
sip.

Over the course of the hour, Henry met a great many boys who
were friends or neighbors of his own friends, or who were in their quadrille
sets, or who were simply gregarious, and he (and sometimes Martin, as well) was
offered flasks with various liquors, from which he took judicious sips that
weren’t enough to do more than briefly warm his chest.

Mr. Fields returned and clapped his hands for their
attention.

“Gentlemen! Escorts! We’ll be joining the young ladies in
the refreshment room in just a moment, and I am reminding you that this is a
formal
occasion, and you are young
gentlemen
.” He paused and looked around the
room, at all the potentially-unruly characters, and in a very stern voice said,
“You will all remember your manners,” with a finality that none cared to
challenge.

The refreshment room had bowls of the same punch they’d been
served in the clubroom, which was disappointing, but most of the boys were
excited to be reunited with their girls. As they milled about, the girls
started arriving on their fathers’ arms.

Martin tugged on Henry’s sleeve. “Sir? I see Miss DeWitt and
her parents.” He nodded in their direction.

“Oh, thank you. I suppose we should join them.” He let
Martin lead the way to the DeWitts’ sides.

“Mr. Blackwell!” Abigail saw them approaching and raised her
hand in an enthusiastic wave. “I’m so glad to see
you
!” She gave him a
winsome smile, showing her dimple. “My poor hand is practically crushed flat!
All those brutish bachelors!” She then offered her gloved hand for Henry to
examine, and Henry didn’t know what to do but take it.

Mr. DeWitt gave Henry a smile and said, “Mr. Blackwell,” in a
jovial tone. He put his arm around Abigail’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze;
judging by her expression, Abigail did not appreciate this handling, either.

“Dad! You’re messing up my ribbons!”

Mr. DeWitt seemed to find this amusing. “Now, now, pumpkin,
your ribbons are fine.”

Mrs. DeWitt sighed and said, “Really, Abbie, there’s no need
to be so dramatic.”

Abigail made an infuriated growl and glared at her parents.
She announced, “I’m going with Mr. Blackwell to get some punch!” and took
Henry’s arm, pulling him toward the refreshment tables. Martin and Helena
hurried behind them.

“Oh, they’re the worst!” Abigail said. “My father’s so
embarrassing and my mother’s a mean old cat.” She turned to Henry, her grip
tightening on his arm. “I’ll bet your parents aren’t half as bad, Mr.
Blackwell.”

“Uh…” Henry did think his parents were kind of awful, but
most parents were kind of awful, weren’t they? Besides, he wasn’t in the habit
of complaining about them, not even to Louis.

He was trying to formulate a reply when her attention was
diverted.

“Oh, look, there’s my brother!” Albert stood near the
punchbowl with Cecile Langford on his arm, and Abigail steered Henry in their
direction.

Martin was sent for punch, and Henry stood sipping his glass
with Abigail on his arm. They stayed put and let people circulate past, and
Abigail talked to a great number of girls she knew from her school and seemed
extremely pleased to introduce him to them.

“They’re all quite jealous I’ve got such a handsome escort,”
Abigail said with gleeful satisfaction, watching a girl Henry had
thought
was her friend walk away with her own escort. Henry was beginning to think he
didn’t understand girls’ relationships at all; he did not think he could ever
take such pleasure in Louis or Charles or anyone else being jealous of
him
.
In fact, he found Louis’ jealousies when it came to Abigail herself quite
unpleasant to contend with.

There was a single loud, brisk clap that carried over the
hubbub of the crowded room, and then Mr. Field’s voice rang out. “Fathers!
Gentlemen! Fathers and debutantes, please come line up for presentation!”

Abigail was not delighted by the summons. “Oh, drat!”
Abigail sighed and handed her punch cup to Helena. “I must say, Mr. Blackwell,
I’m not looking forward to this.”

Henry was surprised; she was certainly not the type to
suffer from stage fright. “The presentation will be easy,” Henry assured her.
“You just walk across a stage.”

“With everyone looking! A bunch of old bachelors deciding
whether or not they’d like to marry me!” She gave a little shudder. “You’re
lucky you’re a boy, Mr. Blackwell. You get to
decide
. No one decides for
you.”

This was not, of course, strictly true, but Henry didn’t
think it prudent at this juncture to discuss his dilemmas with her. Her fingers
were digging into his arm and he patted her hand until her grip relaxed.
“There’s no reason to think that your ‘old bachelor’ won’t be handsome or
charming and kind. Your father doesn’t seem like the type to discount your
opinion entirely.”

“You’ve only just met him,” Abigail said. “He’s quite
impossible.” She shook her head. “I told him to take a good look at you, Mr.
Blackwell, and to find me that sort of husband, but he just laughed.”

Henry, somewhat mortified, felt his cheeks grow hot. “B-but
think, Miss DeWitt,” he managed. “In a few years, I’ll be one of those ‘old
bachelors’ some girl is afraid of being stuck with. There have to be some
acceptable ones in the crowd, don’t you think?”

“Hmph. I don’t know. I can’t imagine a girl being unhappy at
the prospect of marrying you, Mr. Blackwell.”

“You don’t know me very well,” Henry pointed out. “I have my
bad points.” He rather thought being a little repulsed by the idea of sex with
a woman was a negative trait in a husband. Ideally, he’d eventually be married
to a girl who was uninterested in men, but of course there was no way to
ascertain that with any surety before the wedding night.

Abigail was delivered to her father, and then Henry and the
rest of the escorts were rounded up by a Mr. Washburn, a pale, sour-faced man
who also wore a FLOOR MANAGER sash. There were additional floor managers who
herded the slaves away; they would be allowed to watch the presentation from
the back of the ballroom.

Mr. Washburn led them down a utilitarian corridor behind the
ballroom’s stage and lined them up in alphabetical order by girl’s last name.
Henry craned his neck but could not see Louis, who was all the way up front
escorting Miss Angstrom.

There was a gentleman with a stentorian voice announcing the
girls as their fathers led them out on stage, and with each name another escort
climbed the stairs to the stage and met the girl to lead her down to the
ballroom floor. Henry found he was a little excited. He was not nervous; no one
but Martin would be watching
him
.

Henry got to the front of the line, at the base of the
backstage stair. The announcer called out, “Miss Abigail Dennison DeWitt,” and
Mr. Washburn motioned for Henry to climb up. Abigail was center stage, nearly
prostrate in a deep curtsey, her white-gloved arms outspread like elegant
wings, purple roses in her hand.

As she started to unfold upright, Mr. Washburn hoarsely
whispered, “Now!” and gave Henry a little push. He walked out on stage, took
Abigail’s hand, and helped her to stand.

The announcer called out, “Miss DeWitt is escorted by Mr.
Henry Eustace Blackwell,” and Henry winced inwardly at the use of his middle
name.

Henry held out his arm and Abigail took it, beaming up at
him, and he led her to the stairs at stage right and guided her down to the
ballroom floor, whereupon a floor manager hustled them out into the corridor to
stand with all the other debutantes and their escorts.

Abigail squeezed his arm. “I’m glad that’s over with!”

“I don’t think it was so bad,” Henry told her.

“I hope I made a pretty picture.”

Henry recognized she was fishing for a compliment, and
decided he could give her one. “I couldn’t see from the front, of course, but
you looked very graceful.”

“Oh, thank you for saying so, Mr. Blackwell!” Another
squeeze.

Helena came to take Abigail’s bouquet; all the female slaves
were doing this for their mistresses, as the girls would not want to bother
with them during the quadrille or any of the dancing to follow.

After the last girl was presented, there was a giddy air in
the corridor. Mr. Gill and the rest of the dancing school family were all
present, moving through the crowd and exhorting the young people to line up in
their quadrille sets with the help of Mr. Washburn and Mr. Fields. Henry and
Abigail were the first couple to re-enter the ballroom, close on Mr. Gill’s
heels.

Henry had not really had a chance to look at the ballroom
when he’d escorted Abigail offstage, and it was a breathtaking room. An
enormous glittering chandelier like a captive star hung at the center of a
soaring ceiling, and the crystals spangled light into every corner of the vast
space. The walls were an ethereal blue decorated with gilt-framed mirrors, and
the parquet floors shone smooth as glass. It was a fairytale room, fit for an
enchanted castle.

There were a surprising number of people crammed into the
room, all well back from the dance floor. These were debutantes’ parents and
the dreaded bachelors in the front ranks; Henry could not see deep enough into
the room to pick out the plainly-garbed slaves. He was not nervous about the
dance, but only hoped that Martin could see his performance.

Mr. Gill led them well across the floor, close to the
observers, and came to a stop with a click of his heels. “Here, if you please,
Mr. Blackwell.” With a wave of his hand, he arranged the rest of the couples in
the set and moved on to the next grouping.

At last, the music began and Henry relaxed, confident that
he knew exactly what to do, as did Abigail, as did everyone else in his set.
They’d do it perfectly, of that he had no doubt. He glanced around as they
completed the first waltz figure. The picture it made—the boys in black, the
girls in frothy white dresses—was extremely elegant, and Henry was glad to be a
part of it.

After the waltz came the polka, another waltz figure, the
mazurka, and the final waltz figure with its circling reminiscent of a maypole
dance on some village green. It was charming, and they’d done it beautifully.
Henry felt proud and exhilarated. He wanted to know Martin’s opinion, wanted to
hear that he’d done well.

As the music drew to a close, Henry gave Abigail a little
extra twirl and she laughed, delighted. The onlookers applauded and the dancers
also applauded one another. The young people went to find their slaves, who
would have their dance cards. Abigail took Henry’s arm, stopping him in his
tracks.

“You’ll dance with me again, won’t you? I know I’m supposed
to dance with the bachelors, but surely I can have a
little
fun.”

“Of course,” Henry told her. It hadn’t been a bad time, not
bad at all. He felt confident that she knew there could be nothing between them
and simply wanted his company here and now. They went together to find Helena.

Helena and Martin stood with a dark-haired slave and his
titian-haired partner. Helena got a guilty look on her face when she saw
Abigail, and Abigail frowned at the dark-haired slave.

“Go find your master, Max,” she said. “Helena’s busy.” The
boy slunk off with the redhead, darting a lovelorn glance back at Helena.

“Sorry, Miss,” Helena said sheepishly. “Here, Miss, I’ve got
your dance card for you.” This was a little booklet with silver covers and an
attached pencil listing all the dances to be played for the evening. Martin had
one, too, so he could keep track of the girls Henry had promised to dance with.

Henry said, “Let me,” and looked at the list. “How about
here?” He pointed and Abigail looked. “Second waltz after supper. You’ll be
sick of bachelors by then, don’t you think?” Abigail laughed and Helena
penciled him in. “Do you want something to drink? We could get punch.”

“Yes, let’s do.” She took his arm again and they headed for
the refreshment room, followed by their slaves.

Albert intercepted them halfway to the door. “I have to ask
you a favor, Abbie.”

“What is it?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you.”

With a put-upon expression, Abigail let her brother whisper
to her. She frowned at whatever he’d said.

“Please do it, Abbie,” Albert pleaded. “I’ll owe you.”

“Yes,” she said darkly, “you certainly will.”

Henry thought it better not to ask. They made it to the
refreshments and Martin was sent for punch. Friends approached, both Abigail’s
and his own, and Abigail’s parents found them, congratulating them on a fine
job. Mr. DeWitt put his arm around Abigail and gave her shoulders a squeeze.