She felt very inappropriately dressed in her rose-pink silk. It was the best she had. She had not had need for any fancy evening gowns for many years. She wore Cal’s pin at her bosom and the small diamond earrings she had been given on her eighteenth birthday. She had coaxed her hair into curls at her temples and ears.
And she was terrified. Almost shaking with fright. It had been eight years. And she was to face her father, her mother, William, Eve, all their guests, all the neighboring gentry, who had done little more than nod to her after church for years past. Her betrothal was to be announced. She was to dance with Cal. He had said so.
She gripped his arm after a footman in the grand hall had taken their cloaks, and was reassured by its firmness and warmth. She received his brief kiss gratefully, heedless of the presence of several of her father's servants.
“I am terrified,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “You look lovely, Barbara. I love you.”
His blue-eyed smile, his hand over hers, calmed her. She raised her chin.
“That’s my girl,” he said, and he led her in the direction of the ballroom.
She could never afterward remember the following half-hour with any clarity. She knew that her father opened his arms to her and that she went into them, forgetting all about bitterness and blame and pride and a long estrangement. And she knew that her mother hugged her as if intending to break bones. And William was winking at her and Eve looking shocked. And there were neighbors too, and people she had never met before. Her father was presenting her to some of them, Cal to others.
And the announcement of her betrothal. And exclamations. And more hugs and kisses. Even eventually from Eve. And the growing conviction that it must after all be a dream, that it was too perfect and too bizarre to be real.
But there always, beyond the noise and the confusion and laughter and hugging and exclaiming, was Cal. Cal steady and smiling and kindly. Cal with pride in his face and love in his blue eyes. Love unmistakable.
And she was more convinced than ever that she dreamed.
“You have come late,” her father told them when all the excitement of the announcement seemed finally to be dying down—except in her heart. “We keep country hours here, my boy, and do not dance until dawn as you do in town. The last set is about to begin.”
“A waltz, I hope,” Lord Brandon said, smiling at his betrothed.
“Probably not,” the duke said. “But it will be, my boy. My elder daughter and her fiance must have their wishes granted on this particular evening.” He strode away in the direction of the orchestra.
“Not a waltz,” she said in some panic. “I will make a spectacle of myself, Cal. I will tread all over your feet.”
“I want you to look into my eyes the whole time,” he said, leading her onto the floor. “I want you to pretend that we are dancing among the stars, Barbara. And it will not be entirely pretense. That is what we will be doing. Stars were not meant to be put in pockets, you know. They were meant to be danced among.”
He smiled slowly into her eyes, drawing an answering smile from her. The music began and she held his eyes determinedly and almost immediately forgot her terror and her inexperience with the dance.
They waltzed among the stars.
