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The other guests began clapping, too.
And the newly betrothed couple were asked to lead the first dance.
Mama is in alt,” Lady Clara told Leonie. “You have no idea what a coup this is for her. Lady Bartham has been perfectly vile with her sympathy because we’ve had to house Gladys and try to entertain her. Yet Lady Bartham can’t marry off even one of her two pretty daughters, and here—in no time at all—is Gladys carrying off the man every girl wants.”
“Not every girl,” Leonie said.
“No, my dear, and I don’t want him, either, though he is good-looking, rich, propertied, and rather sweet. But his poetry!” Lady Clara glanced about her and lowered her voice. “The sadder it is, the more I want to go off into whoops. But Gladys says he has a beautiful soul, and he—well, you’ve seen the way he looks at her.”
“I shouldn’t mind being looked at in that way,” Leonie said. “One of these days it could happen, I daresay.”
Clara drew her head back a bit, surprised. “Are you entirely blind? That’s the way my cousin Lisburne looks at you.”
But Lisburne had practiced that way of looking at a girl, or else he knew how to do it instinctively. Leonie could do it, too. She could gaze up into a man’s eyes and make him believe he was the sun and the moon and the stars.
She didn’t say this to Lady Clara. Her ladyship had suffered sufficient disillusionments lately as it was.
One day, though, a gentleman would gaze at this beautiful girl in the same love-struck way, and he’d mean it, all the way down to the secret places of his heart. And one day, it would be the right gentleman, and Lady Clara would reciprocate. And she’d be able to give her heart freely, because—
“I should have known I’d find you two lurking in a corner, conspiring,” came a low male voice that made the back of Leonie’s neck prickle.
“Simon,” said Lady Clara. “We were talking about you. Were your ears burning?”
“If they were, it’s no surprise I failed to notice, since everybody else was working them so hard,” he said. “Every step I take, somebody must draw me aside to confide this or that or ask what I mean to do now or tell me how you could have knocked them over with a feather. If I’d had a feather, half the people in this house would be stretched out on the floor.”
He looked at Leonie, his gaze softening in a way that made her heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s. “It’s taken eons to find you. You promised me a dance.”
“As I recall, you promised to do me the very great honor,” she said.
“Well, then, here I am,” he said. “I’ve been assured that the next is a waltz, and I believe your dress will show to great advantage in waltzing.”
“I spy Lord Geddings looking for me,” Lady Clara said. “I do want to see how this business between you comes out, but when one has promised a dance, one must keep the promise, except in cases of broken limbs—and then only if the fracture is multiple.”
Away she went, a vision in lilac.
“You’ve won,” he said.
“Yes,” Leonie said. “Aren’t you glad?”
“If that’s meant to be a jest, it’s a cruel one,” he said. “A fortnight. I might have had a full two weeks alone with you, if only my fool cousin had waited one more day, curse him.”
She looked for the teasing note in his eyes, his voice. But no.
He must have realized because he gave a short laugh. “That’s being a bad sport, and I thought I wasn’t. But everything is . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “There, the music is starting. I’ll have my dance—and I’ll see what more I can accomplish.”
“If you make yourself very alluring,” she said, “I might grant you two dances.” She oughtn’t to, she knew. But she didn’t know how to resist temptation when it stood right in front of her.
He smiled. “Come here, you wicked girl. You’re too beautiful this night. Almost unbearably so. I can’t sustain my ill temper.”
“Come here?” she said indignantly.
But he only laughed softly and drew her into his arms and then out onto the floor among the other dancing couples.
And then . . .
And then . . .
Magic.
It was as he’d told her. Compared to this brilliant gathering, Vauxhall was a single glowworm on a moonless night.
A grand company filled the splendid ballroom. Above their heads three great chandeliers hung from shallow domes, their myriad crystals shooting rainbow sparks. Below the glittering lights floated gowns in every variety of muslin and silk, in every shade of white and every color in nature. As at Vauxhall, the men were the chiaroscuro, with colors swirling about them. But this place offered more of every sight and sound and feeling. This was truly beautiful.
Instead of dozens, scores of dancers whirled about her. On this night the multicolored lights were precious jewels. Pearls and diamonds and sapphires and rubies and emeralds and every other color of stone sparkled in the ladies’ hair and at their ears and necks, upon their wrists and fingers, and over their gowns.
The music was heavenly, and under it flowed a sound like summer breezes and whispered secrets: the sibilance of muslin and silk in motion. Dancing this night was like dreaming, and the sound at times seemed like the rustle of bedclothes.
One of Lisburne’s gloved hands clasped her waist, the other her hand, and she moved into another realm of being. She’d danced with other men this evening, but it wasn’t the same. It could never be the same. She’d been aware of him from the first time she’d met him, potently, physically aware, and the awareness had only grown stronger, until it seemed to course in her veins and beat in her heart.
He’d made her his, and now she belonged to him, it seemed. Her intellect might claim otherwise, but her body wouldn’t listen. Her heart wouldn’t listen.
While they danced, he drew her nearer. If she were capable of listening to intellect, she’d have drawn a proper distance away. But she wanted to go where he led. She ached to twine herself with him, to feel his mouth on hers, his hands on her skin.
Never had he seemed more like a Roman god than now. He glittered as gods ought to do, the sparkling lights dancing about his head and shimmering in his green-gold eyes. When she dropped her gaze, because studying his face made her foolish and too unforgivably fanciful—he was only a man, after all—the emerald in his neckcloth twinkled at her.
She was distantly aware of Lady Gladys dancing with Lord Swanton, but they might as well have been in another world. Though guests filled the ballroom and spilled into adjoining rooms, they all seemed to be far away, far below her. Their feet remained solidly on the ground while she soared among the stars. Her heart was broken, and yet she couldn’t remember when last she’d been so happy.
Ah, yes, the last time she was in his arms.
“When you entered the ballroom, you took my breath away,” he said.
“All three of us at once is more than some minds can sustain with any degree of balance,” she said.
“I meant you,” he said. “The others might as well have been the curtains framing the window display.”
“Oh, very well,” she said. “You take my breath away, too. There isn’t a man here whose attire sets off my dress so well.”
“Actually, it’s I who set you off,” he said.
“Don’t underestimate your waistcoat,” she said.
He released a theatrical sigh. “Curse that Polcaire! And bless him! When I saw this white waistcoat I said, ‘Are you mad? Ivory and gold? Tonight?’ and he said he had a horror of my clashing. With whom, he didn’t say, but I reckon he knows, as he knows everything, being an oracle. Come out with me to garden.”
“Certainly not,” she said. “I know what happens in gardens during balls. Girls take leave of their senses. And their virtue.”
Not that she owned any of the last article
. Yet some sense remained. If she gave herself to him again, she’d have to start all over again, trying to take herself back.
“You voice my fondest hopes,” he said. “Come. The dance is ending, the place is stifling, and half the company has slipped out for a breath of air. You must give me a chance to worm myself back into your good graces or . . . or I’ll run mad, Leonie.”
The music had stopped, but he held her hand.
“Whatever ails you, I promise you’ll recover,” she said, heart pounding.
“You of all women ought to know better than to judge by appearances,” he said. “You don’t believe I’m a desperate man because Polcaire won’t let my feelings show. Left to my own inclinations, I should not be so point-device. My hose should be ungartered, my sleeve unbuttoned, my shoe untied, and everything about me demonstrating a careless desolation. But I can’t, because my valet won’t allow it. All I can do—plague take the man, he can’t be meaning to dance with you!”
Lord Flinton was walking determinedly toward them.
“He’s had a terrific disappointment,” she said. “He’s trying the dance-with-every-girl-in-the-room cure.”
“Then by all means let’s get you out of the room,” Lisburne said.
His gloved hand clasping hers was warm, his hold firm.
She knew he’d let go if she resisted, but she was still in love.
And it was all very romantic, a night she’d remember, probably forever.
And she was, after all, a Noirot.
Leonie made herself as invisible as possible—not easy with Lisburne in close proximity—but he seemed to know, too, how to pass smoothly through a crowd, acknowledging acquaintances, speaking to this one and that one, yet never really calling attention to himself or pausing for long on their way out of the ballroom. In any case, the house was in motion, guests coming to and from various rooms in search of refreshments or card games or even quiet conversation. She walked with him through the next room, small but spectacular. It was the work, he told her, of “Athenian” Stuart. The theme, Lisburne told her, was the Triumph of Love. She wanted to linger and gape at the gold-topped Corinthian columns and the copies of ancient paintings. A moment ago, she’d wanted to throw caution to the winds. A moment ago, she couldn’t wait to be alone with him.
But as soon as they’d entered this room, something changed. He stared for a long time at the chimneypiece frieze, a wedding scene.
