Anne Barbour (15 page)

Sally smiled inwardly. No matter what Charlie said, she simply could not transform herself into a spiritless widgeon just to win a man’s approval. Besides, it was time her unsuspecting swain was granted an inkling of her true character.

The next moment, with another of his charming smiles, Sedge had swept his papers into a packet. Shortly after that, he was gone.

* * * *

Sally stood in front of the mirror in Elizabeth’s room and gazed at the vision before her. Elizabeth had finished her tucking and pinning, and now stood back to admire her handiwork.

“Oh, Sally,” she sighed happily. “I knew this was the perfect gown for you. You look like a fairy princess.”

Indeed, thought Sally dazedly, Elizabeth was not far wrong. The amber silk fell from her breasts in alluring folds, dropping softly against the outline of her body.

Over the tunic floated a cloud of cream-colored net, sparkling with hundreds of tiny spangles. Gold ribbons caught up the fabric at her hemline and her puffed sleeves, and more ribbons of the same color were woven through the mahogany wavelets of her hair.

Sally took a long breath. She had not known she could show to such advantage. During her Season, she had dressed with propriety and elegance, but always in frilly muslins of white or a pale pastel that did nothing for either her shape or her complexion. She had always reminded herself, when garbed for a ball or soiree, of an underdeveloped child dressed for a party in finery stolen from her big sister.

But this ... She swung about and watched the amber silk move about her in a sensuous flow. Hugging herself, she turned to Elizabeth,

“You are a genius, Liz. I wish you had had the dressing of me when I was in London.” She transferred the hug to her sister, who blushed in pleased modesty.

With some regret, Sally removed the gown and dressed herself in the serviceable muslin she had worn when she came into the room. Casting one more glance at the amber silk, now resting in the arms of Elizabeth’s maid, she left, feeling a little like Cinderella relegated once more to the cinder heap.

Reaching her own room, she flung herself into a small emerald-striped armchair and gave herself up to reflection. The ball was only three days away. Sedgewick had garnered a promise from her of two dances, though that thought did not elevate her self-esteem as much as it might have, since he had asked the same favor of Elizabeth and had even asked Lady Berners to save a country-dance for him. Nonetheless, Charlie had seemed pleased when she had related this news to him.

Charlie. She allowed her thoughts to drift back over the last few weeks. As her relationship with Sedge grew apace, Charlie had grown oddly pensive. Now that Sedge had taken up her instruction in fly-tying and ancient Greek, and now that she and Sedge spent long hours discussing poetry of which he had no knowledge, he appeared to feel somewhat at a loss. He seldom appeared at The Ridings by himself anymore—Sedgewick was nearly always at his side. On these occasions, he had begun to keep well into the background, satisfied, Sally supposed, that Sedgewick was well and truly under her spell.

Except for last Tuesday. The strangest thing had happened last Tuesday. Charlie had appeared at The Ridings. It had been quite late, and he came not to the great front door, but to the French doors that opened out from Sally’s workroom.

“Charlie!” Sally had started, nearly oversetting the candle that stood near the book she was reading. She observed that he was carrying a slim volume, and she gestured him to a seat across the table from her. “What in the world are you doing here at this hour? Mama would have a fit if she knew you had come.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Charlie, placing the book on the table with a thump, causing the nearby piles of feathers to sir fretfully. “Young ladies do not receive gentlemen unattended in the dead of night.”

He moved about the room in a restless fashion, absently sifting through the feathers and riffling the pages of the several volumes of poetry that lay nearby. Sally watched him silently as his shadow danced and grew and shrank against the wall in the flickering candlelight. At last, he threw himself into a chair next to her.

“Sally ...” he began, and then fell silent once more. He met her eyes and grinned ruefully. “I am having an attack of cold feet, I fear.” At the questioning lift of her eyebrows, he continued hesitantly. “I have been wondering if we are doing the right thing—in hoodwinking Sedge.”

“Charlie Darracot!” Sally bestowed upon him a look of astonished indignation. “You have done nothing for the past month and a half but throw me at his head, and now you wonder if ...”

“I know, I know,” responded Charlie hastily. “And the whole plan is working splendidly. I just wondered if—you know ...”

“No, I don’t know—and I wish you would explain this sudden about-face.”

“I’m not doing an about-face. I just thought—well, I just thought that if you were having second thoughts, it’s not too late to abandon the whole thing.”

“I see.” Sally studied him, noting that it looked as though he had not been sleeping well lately. She rose, and with an angry swish of her skirts, began pacing the path just abandoned by Charlie.

“Of course I had second thoughts,” she said slowly. “And third and fourth thoughts as well. But I have concluded that we are doing the right thing. Particularly since, as you say, the whole thing seems to be working out so splendidly. Sedge spends nearly every waking hour here, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Charlie, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “He rode out this morning and did not return until almost dinnertime. What were you doing all that time, anyway?” he asked idly.

“Oh.” Sally mentally reviewed her day with Sedge. Or rather, the small portion of the day she had actually spent with him. “We read some poetry and went for a walk.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Down to the river and back. We discussed some of Sedge’s ideas on Homer. He’s doing a translation of the Prologue to the
Odyssey
, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, he found himself in such disagreement with the Wolf translation that he decided to attempt one of his own.”

“Ah.”

“Then he read the latest stanzas of a pastoral ode that he’s composing.”

Sally saw no reason to mention to Charlie that she had managed to escape the reading by foisting Sedge off on Elizabeth and her mother while she fled to her greenhouse. Sedge’s poetry was not truly dreadful, but she had discovered in herself an extremely small tolerance for the massive doses he dispensed on a daily basis. She was grateful that her mother and Elizabeth, particularly Elizabeth, seemed content to listen for hours to the stuff.

In an effort to turn the conversation, Sally picked up the little volume Charlie had placed on the table. She opened it to discover that it was a book of verse by one Ambrose Philips.

She looked up at Charlie, and was surprised to discover that a flush had crept over his handsome features.

“Oh, that,” he said awkwardly. “I was browsing through some more of father’s stuff, and I found ... That is, some days ago I tried to describe you in poetic terms and failed rather miserably. I found something that I thought—more appropriate. May I—may I read it to you?”

Sally’s mouth formed a small O of surprise, but she said nothing, merely nodding in acquiescence.

Charlie opened the book to the place he had marked, and with one more quick glance at Sally, began to read:

For the dark-brown dusk of hair,

Shadowing thick thy forehead fair ...

O’er the sloping shoulders flowing,

And the smoothly pencil’d brow ...

And the fringed lid below,

Thin as thinnest blossoms blow,

And the hazely-lucid eye,

Whence heart-winning glances fly ...

Charlie closed the book and replaced it gently on the table, and turned to face her. To her horror, she felt her eyes brim with tears, which in a moment began to spill over her cheeks.

“Sally!” exclaimed Charlie. “What is it? Good God, I never meant to ...”

“Oh, no,” she sniffed, hastily wiping away the tears. “It’s—it’s just that no one has ever said anything half so beautiful to me in all my life.”

“You like it then? You don’t think it’s—rubbish?”

“Of course not!” She blew her nose purposefully on the small handkerchief she kept in her pocket. “I do thank you, Charlie, for thinking of me when you read it, and for bringing it tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly. He appeared to fall into a reverie then, from which he jerked himself a few moments later.

“Valentine’s Day is next week,” he observed.

“Oh. Yes.”

“I suppose you and your sister have made all your preparations.”

“Yes.”

“I should imagine Sedge will want to bid on your token. What is it to be?” he asked casually.

“Charlie! You know I can’t tell you that!”

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Sally, don’t come all over missish on me.” She turned an innocent stare on him, and he continued irritatedly. “This is me, after all. How is Sedge going to know what token to bid on if I can’t tell him which is yours?”

Sally glanced down to her lap where her fingers were pleating her skirt with great precision. “I suppose he will just have to guess, like everyone else.”

“You know good and well that everyone else is going to know the identity of the owners of every token on display. That’s the point of the whole thing, goose. Otherwise, how would all the eager swains end up with the ladies of their choice?”

Observing the stubborn tilt of Sally’s chin, he sighed. “All right, but assuming he guesses right, he will probably dance the waltz with you. Do you remember your steps?”

She stared at him. “Charlie, I do not know how to waltz at all.”

“Of course you do,” he said patiently. “Your mama had a caper merchant out here for both you and Elizabeth just before you went to London.”

Sally’s gaze dropped again to her now severely wrinkled skirt. “Yes, but I never quite got the hang of it. Elizabeth learned to perform it in no time, and Signer Canelli was so impressed with her grace that he spent all his time in pirouettes with her.”

“Yes, but when you were in London ...”

“Oh, Charlie, you know how it was with me in London. I never even received permission from the patronesses to waltz—not that anyone would have asked me anyway.”

“Nonsense,” he said briskly. “I would have.”

“But you never appeared at Almack’s,” she observed pointedly. “And besides, you don’t count.”

“I beg your pardon?” His voice carried an unmistakable edge.

“I only meant,” she returned soothingly, “you’ve always told me that dancing with me is like taking a turn around the floor with your sister.”

“Did I say that?” He stared at her in some confusion for a moment before continuing. “Well, there’s no help for it. You’ll have to practice on me.”

He rose and extended his hand

“You mean right now?” she exclaimed, startled.

Charlie did not reply, but bowed low from his waist. “It is I, Sedgewick, Earl of Walford. Would you do me the inestimable honor, Miss Berners, of joining me for the waltz?”

Sweeping her skirts into a curtsy, she glanced up at him and laughed.

“It would be my great pleasure, my lord.”

Leading her to the center of the room, he placed his arm around her waist. “One, two, three, one, two, three. Remember how it goes?”

It appeared that she did. As Charlie hummed a light tune, she settled herself against him, feeling as though she had stepped into a dear, familiar haven. Around the cleared space in the center of the chamber they whirled, and he bent to whisper, “But you dance divinely, Miss Berners.”

“Why, thank you, my lord.”

They danced for a few more moments before Charlie stopped suddenly. He gazed down at her, an arrested expression on his features.

“You are utterly captivating, Miss Berners,” he continued in an unsteady voice. “And you have won my heart.”

“Have I, my lord?” she whispered. She gazed up at him, mesmerized, feeling as though she were being drawn into those dark eyes. Sally prayed he could not feel the thunderous beat of her heart beneath the plain fawn muslin she wore. She was totally unnerved by Charlie’s closeness. The feel of his body against hers was having an astonishing effect, and it seemed as though everything in her was suddenly focused on the unfamiliar sensations that coursed through her. “Will he really say that, Charlie?” she whispered.

“Oh, yes,” he replied in a strangled voice. “He will tell you your eyes are like deep, mysterious pools, and he will kiss your hand.” He brought Sally’s fingers to his lips. “And then ...” His face was very close to hers, and she could feel the feather touch of his breath on her cheek. She was filled with the familiar soap and leather scent of him, and she thought she might simply die right there in his arms.

“And then ...” Charlie repeated in a barely audible voice. He clasped her to him, and one hand cupped the back of her head. Slowly, he bent his head and brushed her lips tentatively with his. She stood unmoving, lost in the unexpected wonder of the gentle contact. Then, with a sigh that was more of a groan, his mouth came down on hers once more, and this time the kiss was deep and urgent and achingly tender, seeming to reach into her very soul for a response that was only too freely given.

Sally had no idea how long they remained thus, but suddenly Charlie released her and stood back. A growing expression of horror crossed his face.

“Sally, I ...” He spoke in a barely recognizable rasp.

“And will Sedgewick do that, too?” Sally interrupted, her own voice emerging in reedy thread.

It was some moments before Charlie answered, and when he did so, his tone was light. “He may, but not, let us hope, until after he has proposed marriage.”

“But you did,” she said softly.

“And I apologize, Miss Berners,” finished Charlie, still in that light, faintly bored tone. “I was overcome by the, er, wine and the music.”

Sally smiled demurely. “You have a vivid imagination, Charlie.”

Charlie had said nothing in reply, and after a few more moments in idle conversation, he left the house, slipping through the French doors into the darkness.