Page 56 of The Cornish Mermaid

He looked up as his father approached, and a broad smile lit his face, dropping the years away. The duke would himself have been a handsome man thirty years ago, just as this silver fox of a man was now.

“Jasper,” the duke said, slapping his son on the back. “I’d like you to meet Miss Lucas, of the Oxfordshire Lucases. Miss Lucas, this is my son, the Marquess of Flint.”

Morvoren made her curtsey and the marquess made his bow, his grey eyes appraising her and shining in what appeared to be appreciation. Not that she wanted that sort of appreciation from a man who must at best be in his early fifties. Where was Kit? She more and more needed rescuing, and although all the men were being polite, she couldn’t get over the feeling that most of them were assessing her like a prize heifer. There was an obvious downside to a Regency ball.

“My,” the marquess said, unable to tear his eyes away from Morvoren’s decolletage, which she was now wishing wasn’t so low. “You are a pretty girl. How have I not met you in London?”

Oh no. This was running into the sort of conversation she didn’t want to be having, and that not even Ysella could have prepared her for. She glanced around the room, feeling hemmed in and hunted. If only Kit would appear and whisk her away to safety.

The next best thing happened. One of the young men who’d earlier pressed her to write their names on her dance card arrived, standing politely back and coughing into his hand, no doubt very much aware that he was facing his illustrious hosts. But thank goodness for his persistence.

Morvoren took out her dance card and pretended to study it. “Why Mr. Brunton, I’d quite forgotten I’d promised this next dance to you.” She smiled up at the handsome letch who was still staring south of her face with a hungry look. “I’m so sorry, Lord Flint, but I’m afraid I must leave you.”

“Before you go,” the marquess said, the light of acquisition now shining in his eyes. “Perhaps I can have the pleasure of a later dance with you?”

How she wished she hadn’t flashed her dance card about for him to see the gaps in it. The chance to tell him she was all booked up had vanished. With great reluctance she wrote his name down for a later dance, all the time vowing to hide herself away when it began. If she could.

More bows and curtseys all round, and she left on young Mr. Brunton’s arm, the glow of success in combat emanating from him in tangible waves.

Goodness, dancing at a ball was more of a minefield than she’d expected it to be.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Morvoren

The ball passed in a whirl of different dances and heady scents. All the younger guests bounded about the dance floor with seemingly endless enthusiasm, and some of the older ones, too. Morvoren found herself partnered by a different young man for every dance, returning in between dances to rejoin Lady Ormonde and Mrs. Fairfield who seemed determined to keep a close eye on their three girls.

To her relief, Kit turned out to be quite right. Not everyone was step-perfect with the dances, so it didn’t matter if she occasionally went wrong. In fact, misstepping turned out to be the cause of great hilarity amongst the dancers.

Time ticked on. She managed to glimpse Kit from time to time, but never close enough to speak to. When supper was announced some time after midnight, the young man she’d had the last dance with led her through and took a seat beside her at the supper table.

Archibald Hatherleigh’s skin boasted plentiful pimples, but his kind-hearted face radiated pride that it was he who could lead her into supper.

The light dinner at Ormonde felt a long time ago, so, what with all the dancing, Morvoren was feeling quite hungry by midnight, but she’d not expected such a spread. Platters of cold chicken and ham lay out on the long table beside whole poached salmon and glazed vegetables. There were salads and fruits fresh from Denby’s hot houses, pies, trifles in individual dishes, biscuits, and cake, as well as an array of different cheeses and a tureen of pale soup. If only she weren’t wearing these infernal stays, she could have done justice to such a banquet.

Her young escort, although a bit tongue-tied to begin with, soon relaxed after a couple of glasses of wine and at Morvoren’s prompting recounted his life story. Although her interest in him as a suitor, which, by the look of adoration on his face he fancied himself as, was less than nil, she listened with interest to tales of his schooldays at Eton and the “japes” he seemed so proud of.

“Of course, when I was a senior boy, I had a fag of my own to run my errands, which was worth it after so long being one myself. It meant I could wield some power over the younger boys and go out into town whenever I wanted.”

A fag? Oh, of course. She’d once read somewhere that the older boys at Eton all had younger boys as servants. Was that where Kit had been schooled? Was it anything like the Eton of the twenty-first century? She hoped not, for the sake of modern schoolboys. An awful lot of birching seemed to have gone on in Mr. Hatherleigh’s day, some of it done by the older boys themselves. It all sounded a bit Lord of the Flies.

Despite her curiosity, it was hard to concentrate properly on his stories of days spent foxhunting, as part way through the meal she spotted Kit at the far end of the long dining table, bearing company to Lady Elizabeth Carlyon, the huge feather adorning her hairdo bobbing well above the table and interfering with the servants. She’d have made a good figurehead on a ship.

Narrowing her eyes, Morvoren took a better look at her. It was easy to see why Kit’s uncle had seduced her, if he truly had. Beneath the veneer of pouchy middle age lurked the bone structure of a beautiful woman, a little faded around the edges by time, but nevertheless, still something worth staring at. Kit was laughing at something she’d said, so perhaps she was a wit as well.

After supper, Morvoren kept a weather eye on Jasper, who bestirred himself to seek her out and request the dance he’d earlier set his heart on. Then, to her consternation, he straightaway requested a second dance. Ysella had expressly warned her that she wasn’t to dance with any young man more than once, but hadn’t given her any advice as to what to do if a request for this came her way. So Morvoren, who had a gap in her dance card, had no defenses prepared when he asked.

And he was no young man but someone old enough to have been her father. His acquisitive eyes gave her the definite creeps as they roved over her body throughout the dance, and she’d never been gladder that none of the dances involved being taken in his arms. That would have been too awful for words. There was something to be said for the ban on dancing the waltz.

After that second dance, Morvoren finally managed to get a moment with Ysella, in between dances, who seemed agog with excitement. “Lord Flint has danced with you twice!” she gasped, drawing Morvoren into one of the curtained alcoves. “And you know what that means!”

Morvoren didn’t. Kit and Ysella had neglected to inform her of every little nicety of dancing etiquette, or rather, of their possible consequences. Over by the refreshments the marquess himself was watching Morvoren over a glass of punch, his father by his side. She had the uneasy feeling they were talking about her, probably as though she were a brood mare they were considering purchasing.

“That I shouldn’t have?” she asked. “You did tell me to only dance once with any man, but I couldn’t think of an excuse the second time he asked me, and I had no other name on my card. What was I supposed to do? Doesn’t he know the rules?”

“Why,” Ysella exclaimed in a loud hiss that probably carried to the far side of the dance floor and set nearby heads turning. “Of course he does. Don’t you know what it means?”

Double glass doors within the alcove opened onto a wide, flagstone terrace dotted with empty chairs and tables, the lights from the ballroom spilling through the windows the only thing illuminating it now the lanterns had gone out. Morvoren pulled Ysella through the doors to where they couldn’t be overheard. “What does it mean?”