A Waltz Among the Stars
Saint Valentine's Day. It was the worst day of the year. Even worse than Christmas. Christmas at least was for families, and there were always family members—and plenty of them—with whom to cheer himself. Always family members with whom to mask the absence of that one person.
But Valentine's Day was different. It was a day for lovers, a day for two people, a day when relatives and friends counted for very little. Just, that one other. That one dearly beloved other.
Anna-Marie. Dead for almost two years already. Married in January, dead before March turned to April. Married in haste because she was dying and they had both wanted her to die as his wife. And Valentine’s Day, when she had sat propped up in bed against her pillows, almost as pale as they, presenting him with an absurdly large red velvet heart trimmed with copious amounts of white lace. And laughing with him over it until she tired and fell asleep, her head on his arm.
And the library downstairs afterward, when he had set the large heart down on the desk and cried for the first time—racking, painful sobs, admitting to himself finally that the miracle he had hoped for and prayed for was just not going to happen.
Just two years before. Last year he couldremember only as a haze of pain intensified even as his year of mourning drew to its end. And this year the dull ache of the approaching day and its reminder of love lost and of emptiness and loneliness.
Caleb White, Viscount Brandon, noted at a glance from the window of his traveling carriage that Durham Hall was finally coming into sight at the end of the winding driveway. The sun was shining off its long mullioned windows, making them appear to be glazed in gold. He had never been there before, but all the reports he had heard of the splendor of the Duke of Durham’s principal seat had not been exaggerated. First the twin stone houses at the gates, one occupied by the porter. Then the square stone dower house with its neat garden, followed by the dense forest with occasional glimpses of grazing deer and follies and distant lawns. And now the house itself.
He was glad he had agreed to come. A week-long party in honor of Saint Valentine with the promise of plenty of company. And the possibility that at the end of the week he would be betrothed to Lady Eve Hanover, the duke’s daughter. It was a match favored by both his own parents and hers. And it was one he had agreed to consider seriously.
He was acquainted with the lady. He had danced with her a few times the year before during the Season in town, and he had twice been a member of a party that had included her, once to Vauxhall and once to the theater. She was pretty, amiable, charming. He had scarcely noticed her. But then, he had noticed no one else either. He had still been raw with pain over Anna-Marie.
But it was time to live again. And time to love again too, or at least to make a marriage and work on bringing contentment to his wife and to himself. It was time to start begetting sons and daughters. He would be thirty on his next birthday. And he wanted children. It was all he had ever wanted—a wife and children in the quietness of his own home. And Anna-Marie, of course. She had been his father’s ward, nine years younger than he. He had loved her from the moment of her arrival at their home, a thin and wide-eyed waif of an eight-year-old. Yes, Anna-Marie had always been a part of his dreams.
But it was time to put aside old dreams and to live again.
Lord Brandon glanced out of the window as his carriage slowed almost at the top of the driveway and drew to one side. A child—a little boy—was tripping along at the other side of the road, alternately hopping on one foot and landing on both feet. He stopped at the approach of the carriage and glanced up curiously. A handsome dark-haired, dark-eyed child. The viscount smiled and raised a hand. The boy waved back.
And then the man saw that the child was not alone. A lady walked a short distance behind him, a lady dressed modestly, though not inexpensively, in blue cloak and bonnet. A lady who also looked up and met his eyes for a brief moment before he touched his hat and the carriage passed her.
Beautiful. She was beautiful, he thought. But the carriage was rounding the formal gardens, and the great double doors at the top of the marble horseshoe steps were opening to reveal liveried footmen and the duke himself moving between them to descend the steps.
Yes, the viscount thought, he was glad he had come. It was February the eighth. He would be at Durham Hall until at least the sixteenth, perhaps longer if the suggested betrothal became a reality. He would be surrounded by other people, and his days doubtless would be filled with activity and merriment. Perhaps he would be too busy to think. Perhaps this most painful of all times of the year would be over before he had time to brood.
He smiled and raised a hand to the Duke of Durham.
Saint Valentine’s Day. Always the worst day of the year. Many times worse than Christmas. At Christmas there was always Zachary and his child’s exuberance. And there was the house to decorate and the baking to participate in and a thousand and one other things to be done to occupy her time and her mind.
Worse too than July 28. The Battle of Talavera. Spain, 1809—eight years before. She had been at her Aunt Sophie's in Bath on that date, awaiting Zachary's birth. The anniversary of that day and that battle was always painful, for Zach had been killed there, though she had not known until the end of November, two weeks after their son was born. Everyone had kept the news from her—for more than two months since it had filtered through from the Peninsula. It had been strange, unreal, during those days of joy in her child, grief over her lover, to know that he had been dead since July and she had not known it. She had tried, in vain, to remember exactly what she had been doing on that day.
But Valentine’s Day. It was a day for lovers, a day for two lovers, all the rest of the world excluded. Zach had left for Spain hurriedly, unexpectedly, the day after Valentine's Day eight years before, upsetting their plans for a summer wedding. They had become lovers on Valentine’s Day, in a last bittersweet farewell, and he had left her with the most precious love gift of all.
Lady Barbara Hanover, leaving her father’s house after a brief afternoon visit to her mother, glanced ahead of her to where her son was skipping along the driveway toward the dower house where they lived, singing tunelessly to himself. Her brother, William, had just promised him one of the spaniel’s puppies after it had spent a suitable amount of time with its mother, and Zachary was entirely happy. He was blissfully unaware of the approaching anniversary—the anniversary of his conception.
But Lady Barbara was not unaware, even though there were six days yet to go. There were guests at the house, several of them, almost all of them young, single, and eligible. They were to be there for more than a week. It was a Valentine’s party. And probably a betrothal party too. The Viscount Brandon, eldest son of the Marquess of Highmoor, was coming as a prospective suitor for Eve. And Eve was prepared to accept him, since he was wealthy and well-connected and handsome. Though he was quiet and humorless, Eve claimed. He would not perhaps be the most amiable of husbands, but...
Eve had shrugged and laughed.
Barbara had never seen the Viscount Brandon. Or any of the other guests at the house. She had never mingled with thetonat all, even though she was the elder daughter of a duke. She had been scarcely eighteen when her great disgrace had happened. She had never had a come-out Season. Her mother had just informed her, gently enough—though she had not needed to be told— that it would perhaps be as well to keep herself from the house and from the sight of Papa’s guests during the coming week. Even William had told her that he would come to fetch Zachary to see the puppies the next day—to save her the walk up from the dower house.
“Zachary,” she called ahead to her oblivious son, “watch the carriage, sweetheart. Move over to the edge of the road.”
She had thought that all the guests had arrived. Obviously there must be one straggler. Her son stopped, looked up in curiosity at the strange and grand carriage, and waved to whoever was inside.
Lady Barbara had time only to notice the crest on the side of the carriage and to look up into a pair of blue eyes that were still twinkling from the smile their owner must have given Zachary, and the carriage had passed.
“Who was that, Mama?” her son asked, looking back at the carriage.
“I think probably the Viscount Brandon,” she said.
“He waved to me.” Zachary sounded surprised. He did not know very many adults except his mother and the servants at the dower house. Those he did know, with the exception of his Uncle William, had a tendency to ignore him or to frown disapprovingly at any signs he gave that he was not deaf and mute and immobile.
“I wonder if Cook has those jam tarts ready,” Lady Barbara said. “Shall we hurry along and see?”
