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Chapter32
Lady Edith stared at me with barely concealed frustration when James and I finally made it downstairs. We’d spent too long in the gallery hall learning of his ancestors, and I returned to my chamber afterward to remove half of the white roses adorning my hem. Madame Rousseau had left the ones on my bodice to a tasteful amount, but the number of roses on my hem were nothing short of ridiculous.
Once I’d carefully snipped half the roses off my hem, it felt much lighter and dragged far less. I moved more comfortably, but Lady Edith appeared to notice, and she did not seem pleased.
“You are late,” she said. “The dinner is about to begin. Lord and Lady Claverley are here already, and I need help if I am to navigate any conversations that have to do with Thea’s absence.”
James leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Sorry, Mother. I did not mean to cause you distress. Felicity and I needed to discuss something and time escaped us.”
I looked over her shoulder at the crowd mingling in the ballroom, and my pulse increased. Lord Claverley stood beside a regal woman whose feather-endowed hair was styled abnormally high. Neither of them smiled, though they carried a regality that made their status clear. My sight fell upon Jane and Ewan standing against the wall together not far behind the earl and countess, and I inhaled a deep breath. I was not alone here. I could do this.
“There is another matter I wanted to settle before the majority of our guests arrive,” James said.
“The majority of them have arrived,” Lady Edith said. But she seemed to sense that James would not be put off. “Can you be quick about it?”
“Yes.” His gaze flicked to me, then back to his mother. “Felicity will not be required to dance.”
I sucked in a quiet, surprised breath.
“I beg your pardon?” his mother said.
“It is ridiculous to ask it of her when it is bound to end in a fit of nerves and a fainting spell.”
Lady Edith looked from her son to me. “He is in earnest?”
“It would appear so.” I had never felt so wholly loved in my life.
“This ball is to celebrate the both of you and your union. You realize—” She looked behind her, then walked into the drawing room and we followed. She closed the doors behind us, her face a tight expression of irritation, red mottling her cheeks. “If Felicity does not dance, it will only confirm the rumors that she is with child and that your union is a product of that very child.”
“That could not be further from the truth,” James said.
“But that is what you face, all the same.”
Lady Edith was correct. Something about seeing the ancestors that built the foundation for the life I was able to give my future children had unlocked an appreciation in me for this family and all that it represented. It gave me the desire to further investigate my own heritage—another time—and it gave me a desire to protect the Bradwell name in whatever way I could.
“I can dance.”
“No,” James said, taking my hand. “I will not spend another dance watching you for signs of distress. I cannot do it. I refuse to carry your limp body from the dance floor again, not when it can be helped by so simple a thing as avoiding dancing.”
Love shined in his eyes and reached my heart, warming my spirit and giving me confidence. “I can dance with you, James. I truly think I can do it, so long as it is a waltz.”
“A waltz?”
“Yes. I can dance with you and only you. In a waltz, you can hold me, and I will not be passed off to another partner. I will be well.”
“And if you are not well?”
I lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Then I suppose we’ve learned our lesson. But I do believe I am capable.”
He took up my other hand and squeezed both of them. “I know you are capable, though it makes me nervous all the same.”
I turned to Lady Edith. “We will open the ball with a waltz. Surely it will not be frowned upon. It was approved in Almack’s last year, if you want to share that bit of information with any of the sticklers.”
She gave me an odd expression, a faint line forming between her eyebrows. “It is true, then? You will actually faint?”
“I have never lied to you,” I replied, hoping she understood my greater meaning. Everything I shared with her was true.
“Our first public dance was at the Pickering ball, and before we took to the floor Felicity’s mother warned me to try and catch her should the need arise.”
