The Vintage Girl (25 page)

“No, hang on, he hasn’t—we’re not—”

She grabbed me by the shoulders, the mad light of zeal in her eye. “Tonight, the Nicholson sisters
do it for themselves
!”

“No, no, no.” I shook my head emphatically. I actually preferred Alice buttoned-up and in control. “Robert has a girlfriend. You know, Catriona—um, the girl he was dancing with?”

“So? You were
born
to live in a castle. Think of the space you’d have for your collections!”

I wavered, caught up in Alice’s glee, then forced myself to get a grip. It wasn’t up to me to decide what Robert’s fairy-tale ending was. This wasn’t a fairy tale anyway, it was his life. And I didn’t pinch other people’s boyfriends.

“
Don’t
say anything.”

“So you
do
fancy him.”

“Don’t say anything.”

Inside the ballroom, the music stepped up a gear into big-finish mode.

“So, what’s the next one after this?” Alice asked.

“The Duke of Perth,” I said. All eight reels were printed on my brain in letters of fire. “It’s the one where you just keep your arm out and everyone turns you round. Sheila says, if in doubt, put both hands on your hips and let everyone else do the hard work.”

“Who’m I dancing with for that?” Alice adjusted her eye patch in the mirror.

I checked the card. “Douglas. He’s pretty fierce in the turns, but quite exciting once you get—hang on, what do you mean, who are you dancing with?”

“I’m letting you off. Consider yourself excused.” She gave me a generous beam. “I won’t put you through another seven rounds of that.”

My mouth opened.

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “Just accept before I change my mind.” She held out her hand for the dance card.

“But what if I
want
to dance?” I heard myself say.

Alice exploded in raucous laughter, then nudged me. “You’re funny! Come on, let me see who you’ve landed me with.”

I clapped the card to my chest. I had a dance with Robert lined up, a whole eight minutes of being his partner. Everyone else was booked for all eight dances; if she took my place, I really would be sitting out the whole thing like some moldy spinster, and after the dizzying revelation in the ballroom, that suddenly felt unbearable.

“No, I don’t mind,” I said.

“Well, I don’t mind either.”

“It’s fine—why don’t you spend some time with Fraser, now you’re here?”

Alice gritted her teeth and—seriously!—began to pry the card out of my hands. “Evie, I appreciate you stepping in to save my bacon and everything, but I didn’t hitch a lift with Northumbria’s scariest gamekeeper just to watch my—”

We were actually struggling in a polite, evening-dressed fashion when I felt a masculine presence looming over us. Well, I smelled aftershave.

“What’s going on here?”

Alice and I sprang apart. Robert and Fraser were standing behind us. Fraser was carrying two glasses of champagne and Robert was carrying Catriona’s evening clutch. He didn’t look thrilled about it, although I noted it was a particularly expensive Lulu Guinness number, a pair of red lips that I had down as a future collectible.

“Evie was just filling me in on my dancing duties,” said Alice. She held out a menacing hand. “Weren’t you?”

What else could I do? I handed over the card.

“You’ll be relieved about that, are you?” joked Fraser. “Did you two draw straws to see who had to dance?”

Robert’s expression wasn’t so amused. “You’re not going to be joining in, Evie?”

I pressed my tongue against my front teeth to stop myself saying anything stupid. “Doesn’t look like it,” I managed.

He glanced at Fraser, his sardonic eyebrows raised. “We can’t have that. Fraser, get your dance card out, let’s see if we can’t make room for Evie.”

“No, honestly,” I said, but Robert was trying to get Catriona’s bag open, unsuccessfully. “Do you need a hand? The clasp is inside. Here.”

I showed him, and our hands touched. A shiver rippled through me as the bag sprang open, revealing Catriona’s pared-down essentials. I handed it back before I could look further than the breath mints.

“Thanks.” Robert poked about, then pulled something out: a dance card complete with teeny-tiny pencil. “There! She’s carrying a couple of spares, in case of emergencies. Right, let’s have a look. Who’ve I got for Hamilton House?”

That was the flirty one. I swallowed.

Fraser looked at me, clearly conflicted about what the polite response was. “Evie, you don’t have to,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to. I know you’re not a huge fan of the old dance-floor gymnastics.”

Robert’s head jerked up. Alice also stared at me. I could virtually feel Wyndham McAndrew’s eyes boring into the back of my head.

It wasn’t just that I wanted to dance, it was that Robert wanted to dance with me. To dance with
them
, actually. It wasn’t about being one person, making a fool of myself while everyone else watched and sniggered. It was about being one part of a team, breathing and moving to the same rhythm.

“I
would
like to,” I said.

I don’t think Robert realized what a monumental turning point this was in my life. “Fine,” he said briskly. “So, how about Hamilton House? I’m supposed to be dancing with my mother, but she won’t mind sitting it out. She gets all flustered about the flirting thing. Some of those old goats take it a bit too far.”

He was scribbling on the card, then glanced up at me with a wicked glint in his eye. “Watch out for Tam Dalton. He’s already met five wives at these balls. He needs an English girl to make up the full Six Nations.”

“I can give you a Reel of the Fifty-first,” offered Fraser. “Kirstie did block-bookings so her card would be full before Innes Stout got to her over dinner. She prefers to stay down in the disco in the kitchens for as long as she can get away with it. Ah, there’s Dougie—now, I know he’ll definitely want to have a dance with you, just to make up for the other night …”

“ ‘The other night’?” Alice cut me a scandalized glance as Fraser handed her the drinks and strode off to find Dougie in the crowds of thirsty dancers now thronging round the drinks table.

“Dougie swept Evie off her feet,” Robert explained. “And she fell quite hard for him.”

“Not like that,” I said.

“Head over heels,” he went on.

“Stop it.”

“Quite a crash.
Crush
, rather.”

“
Stop
it!”

I pretended to glare at him, even though I was cheering inside that he
wanted
to make private jokes with me, and the air between us sizzled. Had I been wearing a corset, I would have swooned then and there. Luckily, Catriona’s dress was, as advertised, stretchy.

Alice’s head swung back and forth. “What did I miss? Or don’t I want to know?”

“You missed an interesting week.” Robert gave me a private smile and handed over the fresh dance card. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” I said, and tucked it straight into my evening bag without looking. I didn’t want him to see me studying his handwriting or any of the very uncool things I might do.

“Drink?” said Alice, offering me one of the glasses. “Since you’re throwing caution to the winds tonight?”

“Thanks,” I said, not even looking at Robert’s face, and took it.

I’d crossed the line between real life and fantasy now. Maybe if I drank enough champagne now, I’d actually end up back in 1902.

Fraser was as good as his word and returned with a willing volunteer for the next dance, as well as promises of partners for the rest of my card.

It helped my delusions of Jane Austen that the willing volunteer was a handsome captain from the Border Regiment called Strachan; he was in full dress uniform, and though he didn’t say much, when he did he had a proper porridge-and-cabers Scottish accent that gave me a mild flutter.

Cocooned between the Grahams and the McAndrews and their guests, I started out the Duke of Perth nervously; but as Sheila had said, as long as I kept my arm outstretched, there was always someone there to take it. The formality of the opening set reel had evaporated in the warmth, and now the ballroom was crammed with people. No one wanted to sit out a reel when they could be skirling wildly round the floor. There was so little space to maneuver that I was just spun from partner to partner as the music swirled us round like a fairground ride. It was rougher than I remembered—quite violent toward the end—but I never once thought I’d fall with so many hands to catch me.

As Strachan and I worked our way down the lines, setting and turning, setting and turning, the faces became unfamiliar but the smiles were the same, and the hands were warm and guided me even when I went a bit wrong. White ties, kilts, regimental buttons, hunting jackets, bow ties—I could have been right back at any one of Violet’s balls, or even earlier. I’d never felt so uncomplicatedly happy as when, right at the end of the Duke of Perth, I suddenly knew what I was doing, and my hands were reaching out to the next partner.

And then it was over, with a final crash of fiddles and drums. Breathless and pink with effort, I let Strachan kiss my cheek in thanks, and then impulsively kissed him back. I’d never actually done that before. I’d imagined it plenty of times, never actually done it.

“Hey, Evie, let me know if you find yourself at a loose end for the last reel,” he said with a wink. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Thanks, but … I should … get some air,” I gasped, fanning my face. How was everyone else so cool? I felt like I’d just done a spin class.

I made my way out to the main hall, scanning the crowd for Alice, or Robert. The crush at the champagne bar was seven or eight deep, and all the alcoves were filled with couples flirting or groups of girls gossiping. Sheila and Ingrid had opened up the grand drawing room, and cliques had gathered round the deep sofas and chaise longues, in echoes of the bare-shouldered ladies and black-jacketed men in the old portraits above.

Part of me wanted to sit and people-watch, to imprint as many details of tonight as I could in my memory; but the champagne had gone to my head, and I really needed some fresh air.

Outside the main door, the stone steps were outlined with tiny Chinese lanterns leading down to the drive and, to the left, to the discreet Portaloos that Janet had spent so much of the afternoon disguising that they now looked like a runaway wedding marquee. The gardeners had swept all the snow from the terrace and sanded the drive, but the lawns and flowerbeds were still frosted with a thick layer of white.

Dotted along the terrace were patio heaters, glowing orange in the dark night, for those needing a refreshing lungful of icy Borders air. I stepped down toward the nearest, hugging my feathery shrug around my bare arms.

I wasn’t feeling the cold. Something else was wrapped around me, keeping me warm from the inside out. I couldn’t pinpoint it—I just felt …
happy
. Maybe all those weirdo dance teachers had been right about endorphins and “feeling part of a group.” Maybe it was just this house.

Maybe it was meeting a man who made me want to throw caution to the winds instead of sitting at home imagining conversations and scenes I could refine until they were perfect, right down to the period and background music. But still a man I couldn’t have.

I leaned my hands against the mossy stone of the terrace wall and let the euphoria mingle with melancholy that this life would soon wear off, along with the champagne and the ballgown.

“Cold? Need my jacket?”

I spun round and there he was, outlined with a faint yellow glow from the windows. Robert’s hair was ruffled, and he’d loosened his white bow tie. Now, this was
almost
like one of my favorite daydreams, but I didn’t have a clue what he was going to say. My stomach knotted with delicious tension.

“No, I’m fine. Just … having a breather.”

“Bit different from our practices.” Robert leaned next to me, his shoulder close enough to mine for me to feel the heat clinging to his tailcoat.

“A bit.” I showed him the inside of my right arm, red and raw from spinning at high speed against wool jackets.

“Ouch!” He touched it with a delicate fingertip, and the contact didn’t seem odd. Each time I was alone with him, we seemed to have skipped ahead a few invisible steps. “You’ll need to get something on that, it’ll bruise.”

“No, I’m proud of it. War wounds. And not my fault, for once.”

He grinned and leaned against me, a
Get you
nudge. “You’re doing really well. You know, someone asked me where the English girl was who couldn’t dance. And I said, ‘You were standing three down from her in the Duke of Perth, and your husband seemed to be enjoying himself when she reached him.’ ”

“Joke?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, thanks.”

We leaned together, watching the moon rising over the hills, turning the snow bluey-white. I wasn’t sure whether we could be seen from inside; the heater and the wall partially hid us from view. It certainly felt as if there were only us in the whole world.

“Is it what you expected?” he asked. “Your very first ball?”

“Yes!” I said. “And no. I mean, it’s a lot rougher. You can tell it was once an excuse for a good grapple with the opposite sex without getting a slap. And you get to review the whole room, don’t you? I think I danced with everyone by the end of that last one. And …” I paused.

“And?”

“And I felt as if the
room
came to life. Didn’t you? I could feel the floor underneath my feet, flexing as we danced on it.”

“It’s a sprung floor,” said Robert. “Shipped up from London specially. I found the invoices. Good job Violet ordered it while Papa was paying the bills.”

There was a luxurious pause between us, filled with echoes of glances and conversations from the last week. I’d told him to look in Violet’s boxes, and he had. And he’d seen what I’d seen—a love story worth unpacking.

“Worth it, though,” I said.

“Mmm,” he replied. “Although I’ll reserve final judgment for Hamilton House.”

“Why’s that?”

He angled his head to look at me. “Because that’s the one we’re dancing together. Isn’t it?”

I shivered at the direct way his eyes fixed on mine, and at once he was shrugging off his tailcoat. “No, really,” I started, but he draped it over my shoulders.

This was exactly the way I’d imagined it. I bit my lip, not wanting to say the wrong thing. I’d rather be silent than get it wrong and spend the rest of my life thinking of what I should have said.

“I’m really glad you came,” said Robert, leaping into the silence as if he was suddenly aware we wouldn’t be alone again.

“Are you?” I said. My lips were very dry, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his mouth. I hoped I didn’t have
Kiss me
written obviously across my face.

“I am,” he said. “Otherwise I’d probably never have found out that my great-grandmother was a master criminal, and that somewhere round here there’s a family of highly skilled cabinetmakers I should be turning into a cottage industry. I think that’s a good thing.” He paused. “It’s certainly more interesting than what I thought I knew before.”

“And are you … going to stay?”

“If I can get the right team together.” He carried on looking at me, with a slightly woozy look in his brown eyes. “It’s a big project to take on.”

Did he mean Catriona? Or literally some management team?

I blinked, then kept my eyes closed, trying to get my thoughts in order. The champagne was jumbling everything up. That intimate glimmer in his eyes—was that flirting, or just the reflection of the lanterns? Did we have a real connection, or was this his final fling, a last flirt in the moonlight with a girl who’d be leaving in the morning?

“Have you spoken to Catriona?” I asked without opening my eyes. I didn’t want to see his face. I tried to measure my words carefully, not saying too much. I wanted to keep this gorgeous night of pure romance as a perfect memory; but something in me, some tiny destructive force, couldn’t help asking the question I didn’t actually want him to answer.

“About?”

“About the perfect reel.” Had he proposed or not? She hadn’t got that manicure for nothing; that was a
Look at my ring!
manicure. “Not one misstep, unless you count my sister cutting in. Is there some separate tradition that comes into force for midreel partner changes?”

“Good point. Do you think I should?”

So he hadn’t yet. I struggled with myself, trying to do the right thing rather than the dramatic, selfish thing.

“I thought you didn’t like people telling you what to do?”

Robert said nothing, and I opened my eyes. His dark eyes were still fixed on my face, only now they were burning with a sort of impatience, as if he was only just containing himself.

“Evie,” he said quietly, and reached for my cheek with his hand.

Inside I melted, but managed to stay rooted to the spot as his fingers curved around my jaw, as his other arm slipped round my waist. He pulled me into him, and I could feel the warmth of his body through the fine cotton of his dress shirt, and the heat of his breath close to my face.

Slowly, without taking his eyes off mine, Robert tilted his head, and I found myself leaning forward to meet him—again, kind of off-message. He kissed me, tender at first, our lips brushing dryly against each other’s, then more urgently; just as it was about to flare into something passionate, he pulled back, leaning his forehead against mine.

I let out a shuddery gasp. Fireworks were going off inside me, hot and cold and shivery. I’d never had a kiss quite like that, and it had barely started.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Robert whispered. “I was going to kiss your cheek. Sorry. I couldn’t help it …”

I took another breath. I’d be gone tomorrow. He’d be engaged by Monday. I was at a
ball
. This wasn’t real, any of it.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, and threw caution properly to the winds. I slipped one arm round his neck, tangling my fingers in his thick brown hair, and pulled him close to me, kissing him as if it were the last kiss I’d ever have, wanting to remember every last smell, taste, touch of him.

Robert tightened his hold on me, and we fitted together as if we’d been here before, his lean frame against my softness, my shoulder nearly level with his, his long fingers caressing the curve of my back. For a couple of seconds on the chilly stone terrace, it was just us, him in his evening dress, me in Violet’s borrowed feathers, and Kettlesheer’s benign presence and the navy-blue February sky.

Then, just as a tiny moan escaped from deep in his throat, I pulled away. A hunting horn was being blown inside to indicate the next reel. It cut through the silence outside, breaking the spell. I had enough there to base a hundred daydreams on. It was more than I should have taken anyway.

“We should go in,” I said.

“I’d rather stay out here,” said Robert. He turned and leaned on the wall, looking up at the spotlit façade. He held out an arm for me to nestle into.

I dragged my gaze away from his bare throat and made myself focus on the
now
. “No, you’ve got reels to dance. Girls to spin.” If we stayed out here, I had no idea what would happen; and much as I hadn’t warmed to Catriona, snogging someone else’s boyfriend at their de facto engagement party was hardly the stuff of Jane Austen.

I tried to smile. “And I’ve only got a few more chances to reel in your ballroom.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No,” I said. “Please, take me inside.”

“They’ll be doing some waltzing now. The band runs through its Glenn Miller routine between the main reels.” Robert lifted his eyebrow. “Can I tempt you?”

“You know you can’t,” I said. “You’re only meant to be waltzing with one person tonight.”

“I know.” He paused. “But I wanted to ask.”

“Sorry,” I said.

Robert looked at me for a long second, as if he was trying to save the memory too. Then he sighed, and held out his arm, and very courteously led me back inside to the clatter and chatter of the hall.

*

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of red jackets, black jackets, glasses of ice water brought on silver trays, an old Chinese fan lent to me by Ingrid, and constant, exhilarating reeling. I got everything wrong; I accidentally shoulder-barged a very nice old lady and trod on several toes, but it didn’t matter, next to the handful of moments when everything was going right and my feet felt two inches off the floorboards.

My dance with Robert flew round too soon as well. We lined up at the top of a long, long line of other dancers, starting off the Hamilton House reel. The butterflies in my stomach weren’t entirely down to him; nerves were joining in for the ride, with every expectant, experienced face turned my way.

“Watch out, this is the flirty one!” said Sheila, next to me. She didn’t need to remind me; it was flirty from the moment we sank into the preliminary bow and curtsy, then stepped forward into the reel.

I could feel Robert’s eyes following me as I hammed it up with Fraser and yielded cautiously to Douglas’s turn. Whoever had invented it knew something about flirting: pretending to toy with other men only sharpened the thrill of electricity that tingled across my skin as Robert and I joined hands and spun back together in the middle of the set. I loved the amateur dramatics that followed me down the line, winks and playful nods from strangers in kilts and frilly shirts, joined in the rituals of the reel. But Robert’s burning glances weren’t feigned; they reached right into my heart.