Page 171 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Chapter 35

The difference between this ball and the servant ball was…

Well, it was difficult to articulate, Stacia decided.

Many of the same people had attended both. The Bellamy sisters and their spouses, as well as their houseguests, for example. But the magical feeling of having stepped out of time, not to mention the utter lack of social convention—a duke and a scullery maid performing a country dance together and a duchess partnering a stable lad for a Scottish Reel for pity’s sake!—was sorely lacking.

Also lacking was Lord Shelton.

Again.

The one thing that wasn’t lacking, in a completely different sense of the word, was her employer’s attendance.

Nobody could have been more dismayed than Stacia that Lady Addiscombe had decided to attend the ball after all. Even her youngest daughter’s entreaties, and Stacia had overheard Lady Kathryn’s pleading and not-so-subtle insinuations about the putrid influenzas one could contract in a crowded ballroom, were not enough to convince the countess to remain in her chambers.

Stacia really could not comprehend the woman. All day long the various Bellamy children had celebrated intimate Christmas gatherings with their new families and then assembled in the great hall for one big celebration and Lady Addiscombe had not attended even one of those functions.

Instead, she had sent Stacia to deliver her gifts—the exact same thing for all five daughters and her son: a book of self-improving sermons that Stacia had collected from the bookbinders several weeks before.

She had briefly opened one of the books, read a few pages, and slammed it shut, disgusted that any person could earn money from the sale of such sanctimonious claptrap.

Stacia, who’d grown up yearning for siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles, could not comprehend the countess’s determination to ignore—if not outright alienate—every single one of her children.

Stacia suspected that the only reason she had come to the ball tonight was to cast a pall over the festivities.

Without Shelton in attendance, the countess focused her ire on Needham and Lucy, and, to a lesser extent, Captain Walker.

Although Lucy had only turned fourteen today—a Christmas birthday—her father had allowed her to attend the ball. There was nothing shocking in Lucy attending a country dance under her own father’s roof, but Lady Addiscombe had been glaring at Needham as if he had invited naked courtesans to debauch the guests.

And when Lord Bellamy had solicited Lucy’s hand for country dances, not the scandalous waltz, Lady Addiscombe had sounded like a goose being sacrificed for Christmas dinner.

She had looked around frantically, as if looking for somebody she could order to intervene. But all the Bellamy sisters had been dancing themselves.

Temporarily thwarted, Lady Addiscombe had watched the dancers in brooding silence, her mood boding ill for the rest of the evening.

The set was drawing to a close and Stacia had just begun to hope the older woman might have swallowed her wrath when she turned to Stacia and said, “I suppose you had no inkling of this—this travesty, Martin?”

“Travesty?” she repeated, her hope of avoiding a public raking dwindling to dust when she met her employer’s enraged blue eyes.

Lady Addiscombe’s lips drew into a thin, bloodless slash and she hissed, “If you think I believe that you knew nothing of my son’s budding friendship with that—that—”

Stacia interrupted the other woman before she could give life to that ugly word. “It is an innocent infatuation on her part, my lady. Your son is merely being courteous to the daughter of his host.”

“How dare—”

Just then Lady Lowell and Sir Thomas—parents to the giggling Lowell twins—drifted over with their daughters and three nieces

“Sir Thomas, Lady Lowell,” the countess said, her tone grudging and her expression hardening as she turned to the younger women. “And the Misses Lowell.” She offered up an exaggerated pause. “Unless, that is, either of you have recently married?” She smiled, the expression that of a cat toying with two mice.

But Sir Thomas was not to be outdone. He chuckled heartily. “I have not found anyone I’d be willing to give them to, my lady. Unlike some other, more unfortunate girls, there is no pressing need for them to sacrifice themselves to a man they do not love.”

Stacia was amused to see a malicious glint in his gaze. The countess really did bring the worst out of people. She had chatted with Sir Thomas a half dozen times over the past ten days and he had been nothing but charming.

Lady Addiscombe’s smile curdled at Sir Thomas’s not-so-subtle dig.

Lady Lowell, the peacemaker of the couple, changed the subject by asking how the countess liked Bath.

That left Stacia with the five young women.