She Walks in Beauty (15 page)

“You won’t step out of them now.”

“No, but—”

“It will have to do. Come. It’s time to leave.”

When we reached the Moffatt residence, it was already quite crowded.

I saw Lizzie over across the room and raised a hand to wave at her.

“Put your arm down! Do you want to seem taller than you already are?”

“But Lizzie—”

“You have no friend here this night but the De Vries heir. All of your attentions are to be focused on him. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see him?”

“Yes.” He was in the middle of the room standing with several other men. Though they seemed to be speaking to each other, none actually looked at the others. They were all concentrating on the pageantry of dresses that promenaded about them.

“Then you must pretend not to see him. Where is he?”

I had some trouble trying to explain where he was standing without actually looking at him, or toward him, or in any way indicating any sort of interest in him.

There was something about the set of his chin and the exactitude with which his dark hair had been pushed away from his forehead. He looked quite debonair. And more than a little intimidating. Though he had seemed the perfect gentleman at church, I could not help but remember he belonged to the family that had impugned the Carter name.

I tugged on Aunt’s forearm. “Does it have to be the De Vries heir? Couldn’t I marry someone else?”

“Of course. Why not? Why not condemn yourself to a life such as mine? Always at the fringes of society, never quite good enough to be included. Let there be no more talk about it. And let me see your dance card.”

I held out my wrist to which it was attached.

She withdrew a pencil from her reticule and proceeded to claim several of my dances. A quadrille and a waltz.

“But—”

She let it drop.

As we stood there, several of Aunt’s acquaintances passed by, men in tow, to beg an introduction. It was not long before all of my dances were filled. And none of them by Mr. De Vries.

“Hand me your card again.”

This time, I loosed it from my wrist. After I handed it to her, Aunt pulled a rubber from her reticule and erased the two dances that she had filled in earlier. “There.” She said it with quiet satisfaction as she secured it once more.

And then another of her acquaintances stopped in front of us. “Mrs. Stuart, I would like to introduce to you Mr. Culpepper. He is the son of Mr. Charles Culpepper.”

Aunt tipped her head in greeting as the gentleman bowed.

“This is my niece, Miss Carter. Unfortunately, her dance card has already been filled for the evening.”

The young man’s face registered neither disappointment nor relief. He simply bowed once more and they moved off together.

After they had taken their leave, Aunt grabbed me by the forearm. “Follow me. And do not stop for any reason.”

I stayed as close to her as I could without treading upon her skirts. And when she stopped, I realized we were standing before the De Vries heir. And his mother.

“Mrs. De Vries? I would like to introduce you to my niece, Miss Clara Carter. Dr. Carter’s daughter.”

“Oh. I had not thought she would debut until next year.”

“Why should her father keep such beauty to himself?”

I chanced a glance toward the heir and found him to be looking at me. My cheeks flushed, and I wished that I could fan them.

While Aunt and Mrs. De Vries continued to speak, Mr. De Vries maneuvered himself to stand near me. “Do you have any dances still available?”

I could not bring myself to look up into his eyes. Not when those available dances had been maintained through trickery. But I nodded.

“May I have one?”

I nodded again, offered him the hand to which the dance card was attached. And this time I dared to look up.

I caught a glimpse of profoundly blue eyes before he bowed, straightened, and left me with a parting word: “I will come to claim you later.” I watched him walk away, posture perfectly straight, suit pulled pleasingly taut across his shoulders, his hair combed back precisely from his forehead. He looked exactly the way an heir to a fabulous fortune ought to look.

Strains of “Je Veux Vivre” lilted through my head.
I want to live … in the dream.

Perhaps … incredibly … I already was.

As Aunt finished her conversation, I pulled up my dance card to see which one he had taken.

A waltz.

Once the dancing began, I handed my card to Aunt.

“Remember. Just close your eyes for the waltzes.”

My first partner was a Mr. Hamilton. He was shorter than I, though he had a mustache that more than made up for his deficiencies in other areas. When he took up my hand, it only came to his ear. But I did what Aunt had said and I closed my eyes. And by the time the dance was over and I opened them, I was surprised to find myself bound by the confines of the ballroom. I had been imagining myself in Juliet’s world, dancing through the gentle breezes of a Veronese night.

The next dance was a lancers, and I must say that I danced it admirably.

The dance after that one was a quadrille. And the one after that a schottische and soon the first intermission was upon us.

The first dance after the intermission was a waltz. I closed my eyes for it, just as before. The dance was nearly finished when my slipper came off. One moment it was on my foot and the next moment it was gone. I opened my eyes to discover where I had left it, but I nearly stumbled and so I closed them up tight again.

As soon as the dance ended, I cast wildly about the room to see if I could find it. But with all of the voluminous skirts and the mad crush of people, I feared it was lost to me forever. But just then, I saw a man throw up his hands and fall from view, disappearing into a sea of skirts.

Oh no! Perhaps … was it my slipper that had caused him to trip?

After a moment, he reappeared. He bowed to those around him, but then leaned away from that circle to look around the room.

Could it be that he had found … ?

But no. He had extricated himself from the group and I could see him quite plainly. There was no slipper in his hand.

But … but wait! He was patting his chest pocket as if there were something of importance in there. Something which stuck out quite a bit. His gaze came to rest upon … me.

He raised a brow.

I nodded.

He made his way through the crowd, stopping to speak to people on several occasions, and I despaired that he would make it to me before the next dance began. But finally he did. And it was then, as he passed from the shadows into the light, that I knew him for who he was. The thick brows, the unruly hair. The eyes that sparked with curiosity. He was the young man in the De Vries pew. The
other
young man. The younger son. “I believe I have something that belongs to you.”

“I do hope so.”

“I was watching you before … well . . .” He held out the slipper. “I’m surprised that you can dance with your eyes shut.”

I stifled a laugh, remembering only just in time that it was uncouth and that my mouth was too large and that I should hide it. “Then you have never seen me dance the waltz with my eyes open.”

A smile lifted the corner of his mouth and then spread across his face. “No. I can’t say that I ever have.” He bent as if he were adjusting the crease on his trouser and somehow managed to fit my slipper back on my foot at the same time. “Do I want to?”

“Do you want to … what?”

“See you dance? With your eyes open.”

“No. No, you don’t. I’m much too clumsy. I would rather know where I am going than follow some stranger around.”

He straightened. “I can’t say that I much blame you. It sounds perfectly sensible to me.” He bowed. “It has been a pleasure to see to your lost slipper. But, as my mother so often says, ‘The half is more than the whole.’”

I smiled beneath the hand I had placed in front of my mouth.

“Though I can’t think what she means by it or why she even says it.”

I laughed outright then. I couldn’t help myself.

Aunt came just as he had taken leave. “Wasn’t that a De Vries?”

“He helped me with my slipper. I had stepped from it while dancing. He found it and returned it to me.”

“Surely he did not help you put it on again?”

I nibbled on my lower lip. What was the correct answer? Was I to admit that I had needed his help? Or was I to … lie?

“Did he?”

“No. Of course not.”

For the rest of the evening, as I danced, I looked around the room, wishing I could find the young De Vries again. I wanted to properly thank him. But I never saw him.

The final set of dances began with a waltz, and the heir came to claim me just as he said he would. With a hand to my back, he swept me away from Aunt before she could counsel me. He was tall. Taller than I was. And he had the most peculiar eyes. A blue that was searing in its intensity.

Before I could forget to, before I could ruin the waltz, I closed my eyes and gave myself to the music. Though I anticipated a turn, or at the very least a reverse of direction, it never came. And by the end of the dance I found myself quite fatigued from dancing at the same pace, through the whole dance, in one direction. My head was spinning. But I had gotten through it, my first dance with Mr. De Vries, and I had not humiliated myself.

When he returned me to Aunt, I was loath to let go of his arm for fear that I would fall to the floor.

But he seemed not to notice. “Have you no other dances left for me?”

“I . . .” I took the card Aunt held out, wishing that I had one available.

He took it from me. “But this is perfect! How clever of you to keep one free. I’ll take it.” He bowed. “I will come for you then.”

Aunt beamed a smile at him as he left me in her care. “Well?”

“He said I had one dance left.”

“And so you did. I made certain of it. Well done.”

I looked at the card. As I read the dance, I felt the blood drain from my face. Already feeling quite dizzy, it only added to my vertigo. “But it’s called a waltz quadrille. I don’t know how to do it.”

Aunt looked at me, alarm evident in her eyes. “Let me see that.” She pulled the card from my grasp and took out her lorgnette to read it. “Waltz quadrille? What is it?”

I had no idea.

“We must find out. And quickly!” She looked about the ballroom with an air of desperation about her. Then she sighed. “The only thing to do is ask Lizzie Barnes—and hope that your years of friendship will preclude her from speaking about it to anyone.”

Lizzie? She was going to let me see Lizzie?

“We shall go this minute and ask her.”

Dispensing with Aunt’s advice about never going anywhere directly, we walked straight over to where Lizzie stood talking to her mother.

“Mrs. Barnes.” I dropped a slight curtsy.

Aunt nodded, then gestured slightly toward Lizzie.

The murmur of the crowds seemed to swell as I moved to my friend’s side. Threading an arm through her own, I whispered in her ear. “I’m to dance the waltz quadrille with the De Vries heir and I don’t know what it is.”

Her eyes widened.

“Can you tell me how to do it?”

“Of course. But . . .”

“Quickly!” The buzz of the crowds now seemed somehow to come from my own ears, and the colors of the women’s gowns around us had become too vivid by half. I discovered myself to be squinting against their glare.

Lizzie patted my hand but addressed herself to Aunt. “I do so wish I could spend more time with Clara. The only time I ever see her is at a ball or the opera. It seems a shame to go through an entire season together without ever actually having the chance to talk. It would be so lovely to be
assured
of having a few moments to speak. Now and then.”

I held my breath as I waited for Aunt’s reply.

It was long in coming, but finally she nodded.

Lizzie grinned. And then she took me by the arm and pulled me close.

I couldn’t hear the crowds anymore, but I couldn’t hear Lizzie either. I knew she was speaking, her lips were moving, but the words … I couldn’t hear them. “What?”

“Clara? Are you feeling well?” Finally! Though her speech had the sluggish quality of words spoken from a great distance, at least this time I could hear her.