Love's Fortune (21 page)

24

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

J
ANE
A
USTEN

The stone lions at the entrance to the Mellon mansion seemed to carry a subtle warning. Openmouthed, they looked ravenous, ready to devour those who failed the test of decorum, the gauntlet of etiquette waiting inside. Stepping carefully from the coach, Wren nearly slipped on the ice-slicked walk. If not for James’s steady hand, the evening might have ended before it began. Behind her, Mim clutched the short train of her polonaise skirts till they cleared the wide stone steps.

Inside the brilliantly lit foyer, beeswax and blossoms stormed Wren’s senses. Proud white lilies adorned countless crystal vases, and twin chandeliers shimmered with candles in the ballroom just beyond. Mim soon disappeared with their wraps, and Wren felt a sudden wrench. Thankfully James remained at her side, his extended arm the resting place for her gloved hand.

“Just follow my lead, Wren . . . and remember to breathe.”

At his use of her name, she wanted to smile up at him, thank him for taking such care of her, reassure him she was fine. Only she wasn’t fine. She was trembling like the candle flames all around them, barely aware of the butler announcing them as they came to stand on the threshold of the glittering ballroom.

At the pressure of James’s fingers, she gave a small curtsey, then rose to face a tall, bejeweled woman beside a florid-faced bear of a man in full evening dress. Raising a monocle, Mr. Mellon surveyed them as his wife spoke.

“Why, Mr. Sackett! You’ve come off the river . . . and you’re escorting a lovely young woman whose name I don’t know.”

James smiled and turned toward Wren. “Allow me the pleasure of introducing Miss Rowena Ballantyne, Pittsburgh’s best-kept secret.”

“So Silas has another enchanting granddaughter? I had no idea . . .” The rest of Mrs. Mellon’s reply was lost in the stiff yet effusive embrace she gave him. “You remember our daughter Alice.” With a flutter of her fan, she directed their attention to a young woman to their left, her dark gaze firmly planted on Wren.

In a gesture Wren could only describe as gallant, James took Alice Mellon’s hand and kissed the back of her gloved fingers. Something akin to envy slid through her at the smug pleasure in Alice’s expression and her polite, “So good of you both to come.”

With a nod James moved Wren farther into the ballroom. “Well done, Miss Ballantyne. We’ve just navigated the first set of rapids.”

“Well done indeed, Mr. Sackett,” she whispered when well out of earshot, “but according to the rules of polite society
and genteel behavior, it is exceedingly improper to embrace anyone upon greeting, even a baby.”

He sobered, his eyes never leaving the ballroom floor. “Athena Mellon is the arbiter of the rules, Wren. She doesn’t abide by them. She simply exists to make sure you do.”

“She seems very taken with you.”

“I’ve shuttled her up and down the Mississippi enough times. But remember, much of what you see here is artifice—all for show.”

“Then I can never let my guard down.”

“Never.”

The beautifully appointed room was huge, the crowd more so. Costly gowns. Ropes of pearls. Jewels of every color. Stiff white shirtfronts and snug-fitting coats. Even a tiara or two.

An embarrassment of riches.

“Can we find a quiet corner?” Her gentle question brought his green gaze back to her, still wary. Did he suspect she still had a slight fever? “Just so I can catch my breath?”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, but I do,” she murmured, silencing the query in his eyes.

He looked away, his handsome features resuming stoic lines. With the slightest pressure of his hand on her back, he moved her into a semi-secluded alcove adjoining the ballroom. “You’re not still ill, are you?”

Her heart caught at the tender question.
More heartsick
, she couldn’t say.
I’m just wishing you didn’t
look so fine, every little detail turning my head.
“I’m feeling a bit . . .
skitterie
.”

“
Skitterie.
A Scots word.” Reaching out, he buttoned the pearl clasp of her glove, the brush of his fingers causing her bare wrist to tingle. “Remember what I told you . . . at River Hill.”

Remember? Trouble was she couldn’t forget. It played in her head and heart like a haunting lament.

Falling in love
with you would be easy. You are a very beautiful
woman, and a very charming one.

Bringing the tussie-mussie closer, she breathed in the fragrance of the roses as if they could replace his virile scent. She was beginning to understand why Izannah cared for him. She knew full well why he cared for Izannah. And while she didn’t covet what was between them, she dared to hope she’d find the same kind of love in time.

“The sooner we begin, the sooner it ends,” he told her.

She faced the ballroom again, leaning on his extended arm. The musicians were readying their instruments, a trio of violinists among them. Beneath the tight confines of her damp bodice, the little wren was hidden but failed to bring comfort, poking her skin like a wayward corset wire.

More people flooded in, each announced by the butler, their names and faces a sorry jumble in her weary mind. They resembled little more than the wax figures Mama had told her about in a London museum. Is that how she appeared to them? Stiff? Polished perfection?

James’s low voice pulled her to the present. “Do you remember what’s to come?”

Did she? The opening waltz was struck, and she tried to relax in its gentle rhythm, the warm familiarity of his arms. James held her so carefully—like she was glass and might shatter—with a cool, gentlemanly ease she found all too pleasing. Young men ringed the room, poised to pencil in their initials on the empty dance card dangling from her wrist.

When the waltz’s final notes faded, she found herself surrounded by a polite hustle of dance partners. Surprised, she stepped back, bumping into James as he stood slightly be
hind her. When she looked up again, she met eyes that were a familiar, searching brown.

The first initials on her dance card were MC.

An awkward shyness gripped her as James looked on and Malachi Cameron bent over her outstretched hand. “Miss Ballantyne.”

His voice was more rumble, deeper than she remembered that day along the road. She wanted to smile, respond in kind, but the next set began, a brisk quadrille, snatching the words away as he led her out.

When they slowed to a walk, his expression turned entreating. “Before we go another step, I need to ask your forgiveness.”

She looked at him in question and then they separated, the intricate turns stalling conversation. But he resumed his plea at the next joining of their gloved hands.

“I need to beg your pardon for that day you rode home in my carriage, when you were taken round to the servants’ quarters.” His rugged features were swarthy. “I’ll lay the blame at my driver’s door. I did think your dress and your fiddle too fine.”

Was he embarrassed, this important railroad man? “I only remember you were kind enough to give me a ride.”

“I had no idea you were a Ballantyne.”

She smiled to ease him. “Sometimes I forget I am.”

He led her off the parquet floor to the refreshment table, but there was barely time enough to take a sip of punch. Her gaze roamed the burgeoning room. James was lost in the crowd, though Mr. Cameron was all too close.

The orchestra struck a reel, and she glanced at her dance card, eyes widening. He’d penciled in his initials so large he’d claimed the next set. “If you lay track like you claim dances, Mr. Cameron, you’ll soon cross the continent.”

He chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I plan on it, yes.” His hand was warm upon her waist, his movements this time more sure, as if he was rusty and simply in need of a turn or two about the room. “Lovely flowers, by the way.” He was looking at the tussie-mussie Mim had fastened to her bodice, nestled in the daring décolleté of her gown. “Do you have an admirer already, Miss Ballantyne?”

She lowered her eyes. Did she? “I don’t know who sent them, truth be told.”

“Nor do I . . . but I envy the man who did.”

Flushing, she realized she’d just given him reason to pursue her in earnest by revealing the competition. Though Malachi Cameron was minding his manners in this heated, lavish ballroom, she sensed he had more disdain for it than admiration. His hesitancy when he returned her to James’s side suggested he was none too pleased with that either.

A second partner claimed her, and she left the two men behind, anticipating the midnight hour and the ordeal to come. Winded, smile frozen in place, she had little appetite, though if James was her supper partner she might get through the elaborate meal.

If Alice Mellon would stop boring a hole in her with her black stare.

As the clock struck twelve, the butler announced supper and opened double doors onto a space nearly as large as the ballroom. Awed, Wren took in the profusion of silver and plate upon a dining table that seemed without end. Footsore from hours of dancing, she watched the assemblage file in, the Mellons foremost, biting her cheek against a sigh of relief as James led her to her place.

Four seats down sat Alice Mellon and her escort, an attorney for the Ballantynes, so James told her. Wren had lost track of Malachi Cameron. There were a number of charming young women to choose from. Just who had he partnered with for supper?

She took a discreet look about but failed to find him, gaze halting on the elaborate centerpiece instead. Six ice swans graced the length of the table, the flicker of candlelight calling out all their melting elegance. She was cast back to the twin swans gliding in River Hill’s garden on a late summer’s eve far removed from this one.

Gloves in her lap, she turned her attention to the small menu situated between her and James. Breast of Partridge. Fillet of Beef. Timbale of Shortbread. Fruits. Glacés. Assorted cakes.

But first the dreaded oysters.

Set before them by white-gloved waiters, the detested offering was nested in a bed of greenery on monogrammed china. Squeamish, she watched James pick up the proper utensil without a moment’s hesitation. Fingering her own fork, she prayed as she took a bite, distracted by the ripple of astonishment rounding the immense table.

James leaned in, voice low. “You may well find this dish to your liking after all, Miss Ballantyne.”

Befuddled, she sat back, blinking at a second detested oyster bearing a lustrous black pearl.

“Magnificent!” One guest held hers up to the light. “Our ingenious hostess is full of surprises. Mrs. Mellon has indeed outdone herself!”

Taken aback by such gushing, Wren’s gaze swept round the table. Was
every
woman present the proud owner of a pearl? If so, when strung together, the gems would make a necklace
of extraordinary length. Mrs. Mellon seemed not to mind all the fuss. She displayed the largest pearl of all at table’s end.

As the murmuring died down, the oyster plates were whisked away. The unparalleled moment passed. A swarm of strange dishes and wines were set in front of her, and Wren willed her nerves to settle.