hideous sketch over the fireplace of an obese Cupid shooting his arrows. The air was slightly musty as if the rooms were shut up for most of the year - as they doubtless were. The music was enthusiastic but inferior - the violin was half a tone out of tune and the pianist had a tendency to gallop along as if she were anxious to finish the piece before she could hit any wrong notes.
Several candles came close to dying every time a door was opened and a draft attacked them. Everyone talked at once - and at ear-shattering volume. And it seemed that everyone was very much aware of his presence and was at great pains not to show it.
Mrs. Dew danced well at least. She was light on her feet and there was rhythm and grace in her movements.
He wondered idly if her husband had been the eldest son. How had she attracted him? Did her father have money? Had she married him, perhaps, because she had expected to be Lady Dew one day?
George, he could see, was dancing with the lady who had been standing with Mrs. Dew - the eldest daughter of a family whose name Elliott could not recall. And if she was the beauty of the family, heaven help the rest of them.
The younger of the two Huxtable sisters - Miss Katherine Huxtable - was also dancing. The elder was not but stood watching with Lady Dew. He had not been introduced to the third sister. She must have remained at home.
The elder Miss Huxtable was extremely handsome but was certainly no young girl - just as one might expect, of course, of the senior sibling of a family in which the parents were both deceased. She had probably been responsible for the care of the others for a number of years. He could feel some sympathy for her. Miss Katherine Huxtable looked somewhat like her though she was considerably younger and more animated. She also was ravishingly beautiful despite a faded, shabby gown that someone had tried to disguise with new ribbon.
Stephen Huxtable was indeed a young cub. Tall and slender and coltish, he was seventeen years old and looked it. He was also very attractive to the young ladies despite his youth. They had clustered about him before the dancing began, and though he had chosen a partner, there were two other young ladies on either side of her in the line who were giving him at least as much attention as they were giving their own more plodding partners.
His laughter wafted down the line toward Elliott, causing him to purse his lips. He hoped the laughter did not denote a careless mind and a shallow character. He had already lived through a difficult year. Let there not be something equally trying in store for him for the next four. 'You came to Throckbridge at an auspicious time, my lord,' Mrs. Dew said when the figures of the dance brought them together for a few moments.
Because it was St. Valentine's Day, he supposed, and there was a dance at the assembly rooms of the inn where he had the great good fortune to be staying. 'Indeed, ma'am.' He raised his eyebrows. 'Auspicious for /us, /perhaps.' She laughed as they parted company, and he understood that his tone, if not his words, had been less than gracious. 'I have not danced in more than two years,' she told him when they came together again and joined hands in order to turn once about, 'and am quite, quite determined to enjoy it no matter what. You are a good dancer.' He raised his eyebrows again but made no reply. What did one say to such an unexpected compliment? But then what had she meant by that /no matter what/?
She laughed once more as they returned to their places. 'You are not, I perceive,' she said the next time, 'a conversationalist, my lord.' 'I find it impossible to converse meaningfully in thirty-second bursts, ma'am,' he told her, an edge to his voice. Particularly when every villager appeared to be shrieking at every other villager with no one left to listen - and the orchestra played louder to drown them out. He had never heard such a hideous din in his whole life.
Predictably, she laughed. 'But if you wish,' he said, 'I will pay you a compliment each time we meet. Thirty seconds will suffice for that.' They parted before she could reply, but instead of being quelled by his words, as he had intended, she laughed across at him with her eyes while Huxtable twirled his partner down the set and they all prepared to dance the figures over again. 'Most ladies,' he said the next time he met his partner and turned back-to-back with her, 'have to wear jewels in their hair to make it sparkle. The natural gold in yours does it for you.' It was a rather outrageous claim since her hair was distinctly mousy, though the candlelight /did /flatter it, it was true. 'Oh, well done,' she said. 'You outshine every other lady present in every imaginable way,' he told her the time after that. 'Ah, not so well done,' she protested. 'No lady of sense likes to be so atrociously flattered. Only those who are conceited.' 'You are not conceited, then?' he asked her. She had precious little to be conceited about, it was true. 'You may certainly tell me, if you wish, that I am ravishingly beautiful,' she said, turning her laughing face up to his, 'but not that I am more ravishingly beautiful than anyone else. That would be too obvious a lie and I might disbelieve you and fall into a decline.' He looked at her with unwilling appreciation as she danced away. She had a certain wit, it would appear. He almost laughed aloud, in fact. 'You are quite ravishingly beautiful, ma'am,' he told her as they clasped hands at the top of the set. 'Thank you, sir.' She smiled at him. 'You are kind.' 'But then,' he said as he began to twirl her down between the lines, 'so is every other lady present tonight - without exception.' She threw back her head and laughed with glee, and for a brief moment he smiled back.
Good Lord, was he /flirting /with her?
With a dab of a plain woman who was not dazzled by his rank or greedy for his compliments? But who danced for all the world as if life held no greater joy?
He was surprised when the set ended. What, /already/? 'Is there not a /third /Miss Huxtable?' he asked her as he was leading her back to the spot at which he had met her. 'A third?' She looked inquiringly at him. 'I was presented to Miss Huxtable, the dark-haired lady standing over there,' he said, nodding in her direction, 'and to Miss Katherine Huxtable, her younger sister. But I thought there was a third.' She looked keenly at him, saying nothing for a moment. 'There is not a third /Miss Huxtable,/' she said, 'though there /is /a third sister. I am she.' 'Ah,' he said, his hand going to the handle of his quizzing glass. 'I was not informed that one of the sisters had been married.' And poor woman, she had certainly been passed by in the looks department in that family, had she not? '/Ought /you to have?' Her eyebrows arched upward in evident surprise. 'Not at all,' he said briskly. 'It was merely idle curiosity on my part.
Was your husband Sir Humphrey's eldest son?' 'No,' she said. 'He was the younger of two. Crispin is the elder.' 'I am sorry about your husband's demise,' he said. A foolish thing to say really since he had not known the man and it had happened quite a while ago. 'It must have been a nasty shock.' 'I knew when I married him,' she said, 'that he was dying. He had consumption.' 'I am sorry,' he said again.
How the devil had he got himself into this? 'So am I,' she said, unfurling her fan and plying it before her face. 'But Hedley is gone and I am still alive and you did not know him and do not know me and so there is no point in either of us becoming maudlin, is there? Thank you for the set. I will be the envy of all the other ladies, having been the first to dance with you.' She smiled dazzlingly at him as he bowed to her. 'You will not boast of it, though,' he said. 'You are not conceited.' She laughed. 'Good evening to you, Mrs. Dew,' he said, and turned away.
Before Sir Humphrey could bear down upon him again and take it upon himself to force another dancing partner upon him, he strolled off in the direction of what he thought must be the card room.
Fortunately, he was right. And the din in there was marginally muted.
He had made himself visible in the ballroom and reasonably agreeable for quite long enough.
So Mrs. Vanessa Dew was the third sister, was she? Strange irony that one so plain had been the first to marry. Though there was admittedly a sparkle to her that sometimes belied her looks.
She had knowingly married a dying man, for the love of God.
4
THERE was still no one up at Rundle Park when Vanessa had finished her breakfast the following morning except for Sir Humphrey, who was preparing to ride into the village to call upon Viscount Lyngate and Mr.
Bowen at the inn. He was, he told Vanessa as he rubbed his hands together and looked thoroughly pleased with life, going to invite them to dinner. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'if I were to call out the carriage, you would care to ride with me, Nessie, to visit your sister. /She /is an early riser like you, I daresay.' Vanessa was happy to accept.
