“Now,” he said to Beatrice, taking her hand, “we will dance all night long together, as I have driven the rest of them off.”
And so they did. Perhaps they were noticed missing at supper, but nobody thought to look in the library and Matthew was to later understand that the earl’s search for them was entirely lackadaisical.
After the guests left the house, the library door was finally knocked softly upon and it was found that Beatrice had somehow mussed her hair again.
Matthew suspected her hair often would be mussed from now on.
*
Beatrice had trippedup the stairs, leaving her father and Van Doren in the library to discuss the arrangements for a marriage contract. She did not give a toss what those arrangements were, as Van Doren had said he didn’t care if she came with not a farthing, as long as she came.
She fairly danced into her room to find four sisters on her bed, staring at her intently.
“You will wonder at it, I know,” Beatrice said.
“Wonderat it?” Juliet said. “Miss Mayton was so overcome that Lynette had to wave a vinaigrette under her nose and escort her to bed.”
“It is just that, Beatrice,” Rosalind said, “we have spent all our lives trying to get Van Doren out of our house. Are you really going to live inhishouse, never to escape him?”
“How are you to stand up against the speeches and hints and sermons, day in and day out, every minute?” Viola asked.
“Not to mention what he will say when he sees how wretched you are at adding up household accounts,” Cordelia pointed out.
“Or planning menus. Remember that time you did it for practice? We still call thatnever-ending pork week,”Rosalind said.
“And you shall be terrible at managing servants as they will do what they like and you will never put your foot down,” Viola said.
“We just do not see why you wish to live being lectured all the time,” Juliet said.
“Oh, I do not think he will lecture me further,” Beatrice said, laughing.
“So, we are to believe he is really done scolding us?” Viola asked.
“Goodness, I doubt it,” Beatrice said. “He may be done lecturingme, but I imagine he’ll still have plenty to say to you.”
Below, Beatrice heard the front doors close. She ran to the window and her sisters followed her.
“Now,” she said, “there he is, striding across the road. Look at him as I have done. Step back and see him as any other gentleman.”
“We have always admitted he is handsome in his way,” Cordelia said. “It is only when he starts talking.”
“Yes, the talking,” Viola confirmed.
“He has so much to say for himself,” Rosalind said.
“Such a lot,” Juliet said, nodding.
“Well, you are to know that he had such a lot to say tonight,” Beatrice said, “and I could not tell you half of it without blushing a thousand shades of red.”
Cordelia peered out the window. “Van Doren?”
“Indeed, Van Doren. He is more mysterious and tortured than you would imagine,” Beatrice said. “He stormed into the house and threatened to do a violence to himself if he could not have me, tore at his hair– though, thank goodness he did not pull any of it out– put himself down for every dance on my card, and said he would meet any rival suitor at dawn. He was terrifically intemperate about driving off any other gentleman who thought to put himself on my card. Then he stole me away at supper, which was very wrong.”
“Van Doren?” Viola said.
“Yes, Van Doren,” Beatrice said, laughing. “It turns out he does have a heart after all, and it beats rather passionately.”
The four sisters were silent for some moments, no doubt all attempting to reconcile the Van Doren they had always known to the Van Doren Beatrice described.
