Learning to Waltz (12 page)

Stuck in the house with Blythe? He could think of few worse fates. “True, my lady.”

She slanted a look at him, up and down, beneath long black lashes.
Calculating.
He could imagine the questions she asked herself, summing him up. Was he handsome enough? Would he get fat? What tailor did he use? Would he be more susceptible to her beauty, her wit, or her title? Would he be a jealous husband or let her do as she pleased?

She turned to gaze at the Manor for a moment. “Houses do offer a few interesting possibilities, of course. There must be plenty of rooms to hide away in, and no doubt Miss Latimer has planned some dancing.”

“There’s to be a ball in the village.”

“Oh dear. I much prefer an intimate gathering, don’t you, Mr. Haverfield?”

“It all depends.” Lord. He’d be dodging her at meals, on the hunting field, each evening in the parlor.

The next two weeks began to sound interminable.

Evan stopped a safe distance from the pond’s edge.

Laughing, she let go of his arm. “You men are all the same. You think women are delicate little flowers to be protected from every little thing.” She eyed the ice extending a couple of feet out into the lake and took two more steps. He opened his mouth to warn her. Before he could do so, one dainty foot slipped on the wet grass.

She emitted a shriek and a cackle of laughter, quite at odds with her speaking voice. He caught one flailing arm and pulled her to safety against his side. He could feel her heart beating frantically.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

“Yes indeed. How exciting this is.” She fluttered her eyelashes again.

Evan disengaged her gloved hands from his coat and settled one of them, very properly, on his arm, “It’s time to head back to the house.”

She wrinkled up her perfect nose. “Why, Mr. Haverfield.” She hooked the fingers of her other hand into talons and ran them down his chest. “Are you afraid I’ll dig into you with my claws?”

He’d been thinking of talons and a sharp, hooked beak, but claws came close enough to make him laugh. “No. I’m afraid of missing breakfast.”

Finally she permitted him to lead her back to the house, hanging heavily on him. Not for a minute did he believe in her renewed fatigue, but her shivers were no doubt sincere. If she were Deborah, or any other woman in the world but Blythe, he would have draped his greatcoat around her shoulders.

Once back at the Manor, Evan eyed the profusion of breakfast dishes before him with surprise. But then, he had dined with Sudbury before and figured it was the right decision. “It’s a veritable banquet,” he murmured, finding himself next to Amanda at the sideboard. “I trust you did not lose your cook?”

Amanda chuckled. “She muttered some nasty things under her breath, but no, she did not quit. I don’t know what she’ll find to serve for dinner, though—most of it’s here.”

Lady Blythe picked like a bird at her baked turbot and ate—Evan counted—exactly two stalks of asparagus. She was too busy, apparently, keeping the company’s attention centered on herself. She regaled them with bright gossip about Lord This and Lady That and tried her best to start an argument about the recent disturbances in Spa Fields.

The earl put away a healthy serving of ham in addition to the fish and apparently thought the dish of stewed mushrooms was his own individual portion. He washed it all down with copious quantities of the Manor’s own ale, which he proclaimed to be bang-up.

“But then,” Blythe confided to Evan in a stage whisper, “Lowell’s taste is so often
bung
-up.”

Evan gave a noncommittal grunt. He thought Lady Honora blushed faintly. Everyone else contrived to look as though they hadn’t heard. Having neatly insulted her hosts as well as her brother, Blythe beamed upon them all and turned the conversation to the hunt. And while her sister adjourned to her bedchamber to rest, she led the remainder of the party to the stables to supervise the installation of the horses they had brought. Eight carriage horses plus seven hacks and hunters. Even doubled up in the stalls, they took up a great deal of room.

Whatever measures of economy the earl’s family might be forced to employ in other areas, their horses were apparently immune. Predictably, Evan supposed, Lady Blythe’s mounts were showy and high-strung, treating the grooms to an array of tricks before finally settling down. The earl’s were massive, noble beasts that looked bred to carry armored men to war. Honora’s mare, on the other hand, was pretty and placid. She started munching on her hay even before her rump made it through the door.

Compliments were passed on all sides. Blythe managed to find a little disparaging something to say about each animal, however, save Evan’s.

Does she actually think she might touch my heart through my horses?

Deborah slogged her way through the not-quite-frozen muck of the high street, wishing she were riding again in Mr. Haverfield’s phaeton. While her destination was disagreeable, her errand there was very agreeable indeed. She was on her way to discharge her debt to Doctor Overley.

It would have been intensely gratifying to arrive like a lady in a carriage, directing her footman—Evan’s man, Grady, in this fantasy—to deliver her payment into the doctor’s own hands so he would have to come to the door himself. Instead, she would appear on his doorstep with cloak and gown a foot deep in mire, looking like a farm wench. At least she needn’t fear being asked inside in such a state.

Despite her appearance, she lifted her chin in the air and insisted on handing the packet to him personally. His butler disappeared with her card, and as the doctor approached, he rubbed his hands, his cheeks fat with his greedy smile. She would not have been surprised to see him drooling.

“Why, Mrs. Moore. What a delectable Yuletide surprise…” He trailed off as his eyes traveled down her body to the filth around her ankles.

“I’ve come to pay my bill, sir.”

His brows rose and his nostrils flared. “Indeed.” He took the packet by one corner between finger and thumb as though it were some noxious thing. Then he counted the squire’s money right there in the doorway, grumbling as he thumbed through the last few banknotes.

“If you would mark the bill as paid, please?”

Deborah caught the words “inconvenient” and “hussy” as he grumbled his way into one of the rooms that opened off the hall. He emerged again a moment later and handed the paper back to her. Squinting at it, she thought it might say
Paid
. The date, at least, was legible.

What a relief to be rid of
that
debt, at least. Grinning, she wished the man a happy holiday, though she hoped he would spend it by himself, sad and lonely. Her own Christmas might not be very festive, but at least she had Julian to share it with. She would sleep well tonight.

Another winter, a lifetime ago. Snow rested between the cobbles in Oxford’s Broad Street, out of reach of the frenetic feet and wheels of Christmastime traffic. Shop servants and household staff bustled about their errands; peddlers hustled their chestnuts, trinkets, and baked goods. University folk and the gentry, at a more leisurely pace, pursued their rounds of visiting and shopping for holiday finery.

She hurried to meet Hartley, a familiar face emerging occasionally from the background: Mr. Blackwell, for one, bidding her a good evening from the doorway of his lending library—surely it was on the wrong side of the street? Sprigs of holly or mistletoe adorned every entry, fastened to knockers, knobs, or stair railings. Light spilled from windows into the quickening dusk: single candles, then double candelabra, then chandeliers, and finally a whole roomful of light flooding the hall where they were to meet—odd, she didn’t remember that it had windows.

She paused to observe the festivities. It was merry indeed, students already rollicking and flirting outrageously with the serving maids, platters half-cleared of their delicacies, inebriated young men performing drunken country dances partnered by each other or by serving-maids pressed into service, or by one of several indecently-clad women who graced the company with generous glimpses of ankles, knees, and other various parts of their anatomies. Either she was quite late or Hartley had mistaken the time. And it was not at all the kind of party she had expected. She could see Hartley, head-to-head with a redhead, and Stuart and Forester and others of Hartley’s friends. The other wives she knew were conspicuously absent.

Stuart turned and saw her, peering in the window like the little match girl, and nudged the others, and they all looked her way laughing. Incongruously, her father was there too, laughing at her, his nose bloodied by a fight; and Sir James, and Doctor Overley, and then another man who turned out to be Evan Haverfield, all laughing, heads-thrown-back laughing, doubled-over laughing, rolling-on-the-floor laughing.

She stumbled away from the window into a sudden blinding blizzard, tears frozen on her cheeks, lost on the Devon moors, nowhere to go, no one to trust, a world of white solitude punctuated by a flock of ravens gathered in one frostbitten tree, laughing at her.

Deborah awoke early Christmas morning, her eyes dry and gritty as though she’d slept with her eyes open. The dream hung there, muddled and stifling; so wrong, yet so real. The greenery, the carols, the tables laden with delicacies—Christmas in Oxford had seemed strange and magical to a girl who’d hardly known there was such a thing. At home in Lydford, it had meant no more than a bit of decoration in the public rooms—it would not do to be thought un-Christian.

When she looked out her window, she found the snow was quite real. It was only an inch or so, not enough to keep anyone from church. The grasses stuck their brown tips right through the white coverlet, making it look like bad tatting that some novice needlewoman had lain on the ground overnight. Children whooped and girls squawked as little bits of the stuff fell from the trees onto their best bonnets.

Deborah escaped that fate, though there was nothing best about her own bonnet. But she arrived at the church later than she’d hoped and had to sit farther forward than she liked. A smile at the old farmer in the third pew from the back earned her the aisle seat, at least. She was anxious to get home to Julian after the service.

The church was little warmer than outdoors, but the greenery made it welcoming. The congregation had fairly settled in and Mr. Hepplewhite was ascending to the pulpit when a commotion at the entry caused all heads to skew around on their shoulders. A large party walked in, dressed in finery seldom seen in Whately. Surely not strangers? No, there was Miss Latimer, and the viscount, and—Deborah swiveled quickly to face front. Mr. Haverfield gave no sign that he saw her as he filed with the others to the family pews near the altar.

And why should he? On his arm was one of the most beautiful women Deborah had ever seen. Draped in silk and fur, she laughed up into his face as they passed by. The group arrayed themselves in their seats across the aisle from the squire’s household, still somewhat diminished from illness.

The service commenced with friendly greetings from the vicar to the rich and the poor, the high and the lowly, the proud and the meek. Mr. Hepplewhite was too gentle a soul to single out any in his audience for criticism, but he frowned once or twice at the continuing giggles from the mischievous face beside Evan. The vicar happily endured the fidgets of children and fussing of infants—they knew no better—but it was clear that he disapproved of such inattention on the part of an adult, however lovely.

Deborah was detained for a few minutes by the farmer when the service was over, long enough for Isabella Reston to catch her and relay her family’s pleasure at Julian’s recovery. As a result, she was just hurrying out through the lychgate when the viscount and his guests emerged from the carved double doors of the church.

She heard her name called but pretended she did not. When it was repeated, much closer, of course she had to turn and acknowledge Mr. Haverfield’s greeting. Public conversation with him was the last thing she wanted. She would gladly have vanished had such a thing been possible.
Surely I’m not jealous?
No, for she had no hopes or expectations where he was concerned. It was humiliation, she decided, at the reminder of how unworthy she was to have any such hopes or expectations.