Cassandra looked back at the angel – the Earl of Merton. He was the only gentleman in the room about whom she knew anything at all. If the five ladies in the park were to be believed – and they had been right about this ball being a grand squeeze – he was a very wealthy gentleman indeed.
And single.
And there was that air of innocence about him. Was that a good thing, though, or a bad?
And then, as had happened with Mr. Huxtable, his eyes met hers across the room and held her gaze.
He did not smile. Neither did he raise one mocking eyebrow. He merely gazed steadily at her as she slowly fanned her cheeks and then half smiled at him and raised her own eyebrows. He inclined his head slightly in return – then someone stepped in front of him and he was blocked from her view.
Cassandra's heart was fluttering. The game had begun. She had made her choice.
The dancing was about to begin at last – though she guessed she had been in the ballroom for no longer than five or ten minutes. The Earl and Countess of Sheringford had stepped onto the floor, and others followed them. The Earl of Merton, she could see, was in the line of gentlemen, smiling across at his partner, a very young and very pretty young lady.
The orchestra, at a given signal, played a chord, and the ladies curtsied while the gentlemen bowed. The music of a lively country dance began.
Cassandra resumed her leisurely perusal of all the gentlemen in the room while the pool of emptiness about her appeared to expand.
Stephen had dined at Claverbrook House with his sisters and brothers-in-law, and with the Marquess of Claverbrook and Sir Graham and Lady Carling, Sherry's mother and her husband.
Meg had been quite nervous about the ball. She had been convinced no one would come, despite the fact that everyone else had agreed with Monty's prediction that the walls of the ballroom would have to be pressed outward before the evening was over in order to accommodate everyone who would wish to stand inside it.
And despite the fact that almost everyone who had been sent an invitation had replied in the affirmative.
The ball had been Meg's idea in the first place. There was no point in their coming back to town this year, she had said, if she and Duncan were going to creep in and hope that no one noticed. They might as well be quite brazen about it and throw a grand ball while the Season was in full swing. Her grandfather-in-law, who had been a total recluse for years before Meg's marriage to Sherry and not much better since then – apart from his rather frequent and lengthy visits to the country – had surprised them all by offering Claverbrook House for the event before either Elliott or Stephen could speak up to offer their own London homes.
And now Meg was a bag of nerves. At least, she was until the guests began to arrive – and continued to arrive and continued and continued until the early comers must have been wondering if the dancing would /ever/ begin.
Of course, there was the major distraction that took all their minds off the lengthy wait. There was a gate- crasher. A woman, who had, rather shockingly, come alone. She /was/ a lady – she was Lady Paget, in fact.
She was also notorious, if that was a strong enough word. She had killed her husband just a year or so ago. At least, that was the story when it reached Stephen's ear.
With an axe.
'Which I very much doubt,' Vanessa, the Duchess of Moreland, said to both Stephen and Elliott as she stood between them, waiting for Meg and Sherry to leave the receiving line and begin the opening set. 'How could she take an axe, after all, without the gardeners stopping her and wanting to know where she was going with it so that they could do the job for her? She could hardly have told them she was taking it to chop Lord Paget to bits, could she, and would they be kind enough to do the job for her? Besides, unless she is a very strong woman, she would not be able to lift it high enough to do damage to any part of him higher than his ankles.'
'You have a point,' Elliott said, sounding amused.
'And if she really killed him,' Vanessa continued, 'and if there was proof that she did – that is, if someone /saw/ her swing the axe – would she not have been arrested?'
'On the spot,' Elliott said. 'And she would probably have been swinging in a different way soon afterward. She certainly would not be gracing Claverbrook's ballroom right now looking for dancing partners.'
She looked up at him suspiciously.
'You are laughing at me,' she said.
'Not at all, my love.' He took her hand and raised it to his lips, winking at Stephen as he did so.
'But I do agree with you, Nessie,' Stephen said. 'I think we may discount the axe part of the story. Perhaps the rest of it too. One can only hope that her coming here uninvited is not going to ruin Meg's ball.'
'It will be talked about for weeks,' Elliott said. 'What hostess could ask more of her entertainment? I would wager everyone has already forgotten about what they all think poor Sherry was guilty of. His perceived crimes pale in comparison with a female axe murderer. Indeed, I do believe we ought to thank the lady in person.'
Vanessa eyed him suspiciously, and Stephen looked across the room again to where Lady Paget was standing, a small empty space all about her as if those in close proximity expected her to draw an axe from beneath her gown and commence swinging with it.
He had glanced at her only once before, when the story had first reached his ears and she had been pointed out to him. He did not want the poor woman to feel that everyone was staring at her.
Why had she been foolish enough to come? And to come /alone/. And without an invitation. Of course, she would probably sit at home for the rest of her life if she waited for one of those.
She was a tall, voluptuously formed woman. And the gown she wore did nothing to hide her curves. It was of a bold emerald green and fell in soft folds from beneath her bosom. On a lesser figure, those folds might have hung loosely. On hers, they followed the curve of waist and hips and long, lusciously shaped legs. Its sleeves were short, its neckline leaving little of her bosom to the imagination. Apart from her elbow-length white gloves and a fan and dancing slippers, there were no other adornments on her person. She wore no jewelry at all and no plumes in her hair. It was a stunningly clever idea. For her hair was her crowning glory – and it surpassed all clichГ©. It was a glowing red and was piled in loose curls on her head, with wavy tendrils to draw attention to the creamy white, swanlike perfection of her neck. Her face was pure beauty despite its bored, haughty, slightly contemptuous expression – a mask if ever Stephen had seen one. He doubted she was feeing as poised as she looked. It was impossible to see the color of her eyes, but there seemed to be a slight, alluring slant to them.
All this he had seen the first time he glanced at her. This time he saw immediately that she was looking directly back at him. He resisted his first instinct, which was to look hastily away. It was probably what everyone else was doing as soon as she glanced their way. He looked steadily back at her. And /she/ did not look away from /him/, as he had expected she would do. Her hand slowly plied her fan. Her eyebrows arched arrogantly upward, and her lips curved into an expression that was half smile, half not.
He inclined his head to her just as Carling and his lady joined them to inform them that the dancing was about to begin.
Stephen went to claim the hand of Lady Christobel Foley, who had just happened to stroll past him with her mama when they entered the ballroom earlier and had stopped to bid him a good evening. Before they strolled away again, it had been arranged that the set he had reserved with her yesterday in the park would be the opening set, and that he would dance another with her later in the evening.
He glanced toward Lady Paget again when he and his partner were standing in the lines waiting for the orchestra to begin playing. She was standing in the same place, though she was no longer looking at him.
And he felt a sudden jolt of recognition. Not that he knew beyond all doubt that he was correct. Nevertheless, he was as sure as he could be that Lady Paget was that widow all in black he and Con had seen yesterday when they were out riding.
Yes, it was surely she, though she looked quite startlingly different.
Yesterday she had worn a heavy disguise.
Tonight she stood exposed to the shock and censure of the /ton/.
Tonight she wore only the disguise of her cool indifference, even contempt for everyone's opinion.
/3/
