C.J. found it difficult to maintain her gaze on her partner and still keep up with the exchange between Mr. Chiltern and Miss Austen, not wishing to miss a word Jane uttered. “Were I to have the opportunity to know your cousin well,” she told the earl, “I should become fast friends with her. There is already much to admire.”
“Miss Austen has expressed the same desire to better acquaint herself with you, Miss Welles. But do not deny your own ability to fascinate. There is an unquenchable energy to your spirit, a strength of character, and—if you will forgive me—a certain contradiction in your nature that compels me to discover the cause. Forgive my bluntness, Miss Welles, but from the moment I made your acquaintance, you have never ceased to haunt my thoughts. I am but a poor suitor in your thrall.”
“You give me far too much credit, your lordship,” blushed C.J. “Were your countenance not so earnest, I should scarce believe such pretty words!”
“Oh but you must, Miss Welles! You may apply to your aunt as my character witness should you doubt my integrity on the matter.”
The tune ended and the musicians laid down their instruments. The couples parted, moving toward the gilded doors of the ballroom to take advantage of the break in the dancing by enjoying whatever light repast was available.
“I do love dances,” Jane told C.J. as they joined their families and the Fairfaxes at the perimeter of the room. “And, as for gentlemen,” she added whimsically, “all I want in a man is someone who rides bravely, dances beautifully, sings with vigor, reads passionately, and whose taste agrees in every point with my own.”
Not such a bad aspiration, when all is said and done, thought C.J.
“And you have met him, Jane,” the earl teased. “But fortunately—for Miss Welles’s sake—he is your cousin!”
THE FOYER WAS A CRUSH of people rushing to crowd into the Tea Room to locate glasses of cold punch or warm negus, depending on their age and preference. As the evening progressed and the ballroom grew increasingly more populated, the temperature rose, causing many of the ladies in particular to require a cool refreshment. Apparently, the warmer the ballroom, the greater success the ball. The smell of sweat and of well-tanned leather, commingled with the aromas of various perfumes—from hyacinth to jasmine to rose to honeysuckle—was overpowering and not entirely pleasant. In fact, the odor did much to dampen C.J.’s appetite.
Mrs. Fairfax, with Miss Austen in tow, fairly elbowed her way past those who had recently been on the dance floor and were flushed from their terpsichorean exertions. The parvenue’s husband was nowhere to be seen, having decided to avoid the crowd by remaining sedately in his chair along the wall of the ballroom, and trusting that his good wife would no doubt bring him his glass of wine soon enough. To endure her complaints about his complaisance was an acceptable barter for the punishment he would have had to suffer packed among hundreds of other patrons in a hot, stuffy anteroom.
“If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it,” Miss Austen slyly remarked.
The two smaller parties had joined, and now C.J., Lady Dalrymple, and the Fairfax family brought their chairs over to where the Leigh-Perrots, their remarkable niece, Darlington, and the redoubtable Lady Oliver had positioned themselves earlier in the evening. The dragon was doing her best to create distance between her noble nephew and the object of his inappropriate fascination. Whenever Darlington attempted to maneuver himself closer to C.J., his aunt managed to insinuate herself between them or impede his advance by discreetly adjusting the angle of her chair.
Miss Austen seemed to derive a wicked little pleasure in baiting Mrs. Fairfax, who had not the slightest inkling she was a subject for the writer’s gentle raillery. C.J. listened to Miss Fairfax prattle on about some inconsequential nonsense to Captain Keats. The girl appeared to have very few subjects, and a discussion of the merits of her military beau seemed to be the chief topic of any conversation she began. C.J. would have much preferred to spend the tea break enjoying the clever observations of Miss Austen. “I can never fathom why so many gentlemen seem to prefer such empty-headedness in women,” she remarked to her new friend.
Jane squeezed C.J.’s hand and smiled beatifically in the direction of her handsome cousin. “A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.” Miss Austen then turned directly to the earl for confirmation of her assessment. “To the larger and more trifling part of your sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, and there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.”
Darlington, however, was ready for the riposte, and C.J. was developing the opinion that the two cousins relished their banter as a sort of sport. “I will allow that a good deal of men may share the sentiment you have just expressed, Miss Jane, but as I have informed Miss Welles, I am not one of those gentlemen who disdains the company of intelligent women. To be sure, I often find greater stimulation in the sharing of ideas with one of the brighter members of the fairer sex than I do in the company of men, all of whom have been schooled to believe the same credos and frequent the same clubs.”
C.J. smiled. “Then you are sui generis, your lordship.”
He blinked at her use of a Latin phrase. It may have been in common usage, but issuing from her lips, it sounded uncommon indeed. What an extraordinary specimen of womanhood! The earl saw his opportunity to take advantage of his aunt’s occupation in animated conversation with Lady Dalrymple. “Miss
