Page 18 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

So Amanda had arranged for Martha to come, just as soon as Mama had seen her in the blue gown, and say that Philip was complaining of the stomachache. Everyone had played their part with perfection, even the unknowing actors: Martha had worn a wide-eyed expression of concern, Amanda had bustled and fussed and been on the point of declaring she couldn’t go to the ball, and Mama had protested and insisted all would be fine and declared that she would personally go upstairs to look after the boys.

Before ten minutes more had passed, Martha had helped Amanda out of the blue gown, into the rose one, and out the door.

The guilt that prickled at her now wasn’t entirely because she had deceived her mother, though. Certainly at two and thirty, she hardly required a chaperone. No, it was in larger measure the knowledge that she had insisted on the low-cut rose gown not to please George, who would almost certainly not be pleased by it, but to attract the notice of someone else entirely.

But would Major Stanhope even see it?

Not that she expected compliments from him if he did. Even knowing him so little, she felt certain it was not in his nature. She would have been contented with a few other words from him: some explanation of how he imagined the evening would proceed, at what hour she was to go looking for the book, and how she was to return it to him if she found it. But the walk into the house had been so brief—it had taken her more than half the time to decide whether it was really he beside her—and now, here she was, alone, moving through the receiving line and refusing to look down at her bodice.

Oh, who was she kidding? Her bosom was neither the size nor the shape to be prone to bursting out of its confinement.

On the threshold of the ballroom, she curtsied to Lord Wrexham, George’s brother-in-law, whose town house was by design too small to host the grand entertainments his wife adored. From here, Amanda could see guests milling about in what yesterday had been the receiving room, now cleared of most of its furnishings and transformed into a ballroom. Not a crush, but respectable nonetheless.

“I’ve so been looking forward to this evening, Lady Wrexham,” she said, squeezing her hostess’s fingers.

“As have we all,” Lady Wrexham replied with a sly glance toward her brother, who was studiously refusing to allow his gaze to travel any lower than Amanda’s chin.

“May I have the honor of the first pair of dances, Lady Kingston?” Lord Wrexham asked, and she knew then that the gossip-mongers had not been wrong. She and Lord Wrexham were to open the ball, with George and his sister following. Every eye would be upon her, every tongue would wag about her inclusion in the family circle. George almost certainly intended this evening to be the prelude to something momentous. A question. An announcement.

If she gave him the chance.

“Of course,” she murmured with another curtsy, before turning a dazzling smile on George, who gaped and stammered and could not quite muster the words to ask her for the second set before she glided past him into the ballroom.

The scent of flowers, the glow of a hundred candles, the sound of the musicians tuning their instruments—all of it made her heart beat faster, just as it had when she was little more than a girl, nervously stepping out on a very different sort of adventure. Then, she’d been thinking of marriage, of doing what she must to attract the proper notice of a proper gentleman. Of minding her step.

Quite the opposite of what she was thinking about tonight…

As she moved about the room, she nodded and spoke to the acquaintances of what seemed a lifetime ago. She kept her chin up and did not mind that her long-delayed return to society was likely the subject of at least some of the whispering that was presently going on behind gloved hands and fans. The Countess of Kingston had no reason to hide.

When the music began, Lord Wrexham approached and they took their places at the top of the dance. He was a pleasant-enough partner, though she knew his heart and mind were upstairs in the card room. She could hardly fault him for that: her own thoughts were almost entirely filled by a small green book and poor Major Stanhope in footman’s livery, standing in the rain.

Don’t look for me, he’d instructed, but it was difficult not to wonder when and where she would see him again.

Even as her feet went through the motions of dancing with Lord Wrexham, in her mind’s eye, she traveled over the unlighted parts of the house, anywhere Lord Dulsworthy was likely to have laid down a book and forgotten about it.

Though the figures of the dance brought her in frequent contact with George—the touch of hands, a little walk, ample opportunity for conversation—she managed to evade any and every question he might be primed to pose, by keeping up a steady stream of chatter herself.

Despite George’s clear intent, Mr. Hurst secured the next dance. Mrs. Hurst had been a school friend of Amanda’s, and that gentleman was eager to report his and his wife’s delight at Amanda’s unexpected acceptance of their invitation to the theater. Cymbeline was to be the play, and they spent a pleasant half hour moving through the steps while discussing both Mr. Shakespeare’s genius and Mr. Kemble’s.

By a stroke of something that at the time seemed far from luck, her third partner was Lord Penhurst, whom everyone present knew to be penniless—and in search of a wife who was not. Given that oleaginous gentleman’s predicament, he naturally made every effort to be charming. He was not, however, an accomplished dancer. Still, partnering him allowed her to avert a tête-à-tête with George for yet another set.

But she knew she could not avoid her fate forever. Foregoing the duties of a host, George had carefully watched the progress of her dance with Penhurst, ensuring he was at her side as soon as the sweaty-palmed younger man released her hand.

After a quick glance around the assembled company, and a silent prayer that she might discover Major Stanhope searching for her in one guise or another, she faced George and favored him with a smile. “Yes, of course, Lord Dulsworthy. I shall be honored to partner you. I only wonder it has taken you this long to ask.”

Amanda had little hope that George would prove a superior dancer to Lord Penhurst, but she dutifully took her place in the line, performed the requisite curtsy with her eyes lowered, and discovered she owed the younger man a debt of gratitude after all.

She had been painfully aware that Lord Penhurst had trod more than once on her foot. But she had not noticed until just that moment that he had also stepped on the hem of her gown.

The overskirt of delicate organza was gathered in scallops along the bottom, each one suspended by a small rose fashioned from the same amaranth-red silk. In one spot, the thread holding the rose in place had broken and a swath of fabric now trailed on the marble floor. Another careless move, her partner’s or her own, and the dress could be torn beyond repair, even beyond the abilities of Martha’s needle. For once, she really did need to mind her step.

Thank goodness for Lord Penhurst’s clumsiness!

“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Amanda, gesturing at the damage. George did not look, still steadfastly refusing to take in the splendor of the low-cut gown, with its daring suggestion of translucence, lest he glimpse something improper. “Please forgive me, but I must pay a visit to the ladies’ retiring room.”

“Ah, hmm,” was Lord Dulsworthy’s only reply, and she was soon halfway across the dance floor, slipping past the other couples and into the freedom of the hall.

The retiring room was empty of guests, and the maid stationed there for just such a purpose would have made quick work of pinning the rosette back into place and averting further disaster. With very little effort, Amanda could have returned to George’s side before the Boulangère began.