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“I see,” she said. Then, after a moment’s thought, she added, “It must be difficult for you. Do you have many acquaintances in town?”
“Very few, and none who can introduce us to the best society,” he said soberly. “My father’s friends are in the City, and mine are the sons of men in business. We had hoped that a relation of my stepmother’s first husband could introduce us, but she was a fraud, sad to say. We have been forced to depend on our own ingenuity to meet people. My sisters devised a cunning scheme involving a young neighbour of ours, a rather beautiful young lady, seemingly, although I have never seen her myself. She has a little dog which she walks in the gardens of Grosvenor Square, and so Rosie and Angie thought that if they had a dog also, they could walk it in the gardens and thus would be sure to meet the young lady and fall into conversation with her.”
“Let me guess,” Eloise cried, interested despite herself. “They have never yet bumped into the young lady.”
“True enough, but that is not the worst of it,” he said. “The dog is not a refined lap dog, such as sensible ladies carry about. No, he is a fiend, who bites the ankles of the footmen, steals the housemaids’ dust brushes and leaves his calling card in every part of the house, usually under the beds. Oronthe beds. And this morning he stole away a leg of mutton set out ready for the spit and buried it in the garden. Our expensive French cook is threatening to give notice, the housekeeper will not allow the housemaids above stairs unless the animal is locked away and Pa is in high dudgeon because there is no mutton for dinner. It is a disaster.”
Eloise could not help laughing at this catalogue of woe. “Can you not get rid of the creature?”
“No, because Rosie’s eyes fill with tears at the very thought, and none of us can withstand Rosie’s tears. It is a very strange thing, Miss Whittleton, but grown men, men who would brave any hardship ordinarily, and are capable of facing down an entire French army, as any Englishman would be, are yet reduced to jelly at the mere sight of a weeping woman. We would all of us do anything — anything at all — to stem those accusatory tears.‘How can you be so heartless?’they seem to say.‘How can you so impose upon me?’And every red-blooded male, be he ever so brave, crumbles at once.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Such nonsense you talk, Mr Fletcher.”
“Is it nonsense?” He threw her a sideways glance. “I cannot be so certain. Men behave strangely around women, Miss Whittleton. Look at my father, a man very settled in his home town, knowing his place in the world and perfectly content. Then he fell in love, and uprooted his entire family to move to Hertfordshire, and all to give his new wife the life she wanted. Men act in the most absurd manner when they wish to impress a woman.”
“But you are not dissatisfied with your new life, I think,” she said tentatively.
“Not at all, and not the least of my reasons is that I have the opportunity to drive out with you. Here we are at Hyde Park. Which way shall we go? You direct me, and I shall keep my nonsense to myself and allow you to enjoy the prospect in silence.”
He kept to his word, too, and for a while Eloise was determined to say nothing also, for she felt that his silence was a greater penance than hers. But after a while, the lack of conversation seemed like incivility.
“Is there to be a ball for your sisters this season?”
“Oh yes! What sort of season would it be without a ball? We are to hold an evening with dancing in about two weeks — not a ball, you understand, just the carpets rolled up and a few men with fiddles. Very informal.”
She chuckled. “Like the Iversons’ evening party. Yes, very informal, Mr Fletcher.”
“Then next month we are to hold a ball of modest proportions at home, and another larger affair in July. Stepmother is confident that we will have enough acquaintances by then to fill the house. She is one of life’s optimists.”
“Are your sisters excited to have a ball held in their honour?”
“Angie is in alt, because she is a person of high drama, but Rosie is more restrained in her ecstasy. She has enjoyed a great many balls in her honour already, after all.”
“But not here — not in town!” Eloise cried. “She must be excited about that, surely?”
“Rosie just likes to dance,” he said, turning to smile at her. “Angie, too, of course, but she is young enough that there is still novelty in a ball. You like to dance, too, Miss Whittleton, do you not?”
His eyes twinkled with the shared memory of the two dances they had enjoyed at the Iversons’, and something inside her melted a little under his gaze.
“Iloveto dance,” she said, returning his smile in full measure. “The music, the rhythm, to bepartof the music — that is what dance is, Mr Fletcher, becoming one with the music, and I can think of no greater pleasure.”
“What is your favourite dance? The cotillion? A country dance? The waltz? Or an energetic reel?”
“All of them!” she said, laughing. “Well… not the waltz, perhaps. It is a little too intimate for my liking, and I am relieved that it is not yet widely danced. But if I must choose a favourite, it would be the minuet.”
“That is not widely danced, either,” he said.
“Not any more, no, although Bath is behind the times, as in many other respects, so there are often minuets performed at the assemblies, and in the proper costume, naturally. The minuet is the most elegant of all dances, do you not agree?”
“And also the most difficult to do well,” he said, pulling a face. “The girls have a dancing master who insisted on teaching us the minuet, and I have never had so much trouble with a dance in my life.”
“It is the restraint involved that makes it difficult,” she said.
“No, it is thehat!Miss Whittleton, you cannot imagine the trials I suffered in trying to remove that hat, and then to replace it afterwards, and how any man managed it in the days when enormous wigs were universally worn is beyond my comprehension.”
She gave a little laugh behind one hand. “Very true! I had forgot the hat. I have seen some very ill-managed hats. And yet, if one allows oneself to be swept into the music, the minuet is not so difficult. I love it, but I am so rarely offered the opportunity. It is supposed to represent the delicate dance of courtship, did you know that? The couple move around each other again and again, before finally coming together. So beautiful to watch. I wish it were danced more often.”
“Then I wish it also, for your sake, Miss Whittleton.”
