It did not snow again, but it would take a few days for all that had come down to melt. The roads would be slushy and muddy and treacherous for quite a while. Colin resigned himself to at least another day and night spent at Brambledean. It was not difficult. He was enjoying himself.
He spent the morning of Boxing Day outside building snowmen, only to have his most artistic creation knocked down and trampled upon by young Sarah Cunningham while everyone else’s snowmen were left intact. He snatched her up and held her, giggling, above his head before setting her down and chasing her with a snowball, which he finally hurled deliberately to miss.
He spent much of the afternoon in the drawing room, talking with Harry Westcott and the Duke of Netherby about the wars and watching Joel Cunningham, sitting slightly apart from everyone else, sketch first the dowager countess and then Lady Matilda Westcott without their knowing it. He was amazingly skilled. Both subjects were not only perfectly recognizable in the resulting drawings; their very essence seemed to have been captured too.
“It must be gratifying to have such talent,” Colin commented when Joel closed his sketching book.
Cunningham looked back over his shoulder at him. “Well, it is,” he agreed, “though I take no credit for it, only for making the effort to use it. But we are all talented, and in more than one way. Unfortunately, many people do not recognize their talents or consider them commonplace or inferior to other people’s.”
“Now you will have us wondering for the rest of the day,” Harry said, laughing, “whatourtalents are. Are you sure we all have them, Joel?”
Colin wondered what the realization of his illegitimacy and the resulting loss of his title and properties and fortune had done to Captain Harry Westcott. His world had been turned upside down and inside out. Yet he seemed as cheerful now as Colin remembered him from the slight acquaintance he had had with him before it happened. Except that there seemed to be a core of hardness in him now, carefully hidden from his family, that had surely not been there when he was a carefree, wealthy young earl, sowing a few fairly harmless wild oats.
Colin’s eyes came to rest upon Elizabeth, who had been avoiding him if he was not mistaken. He deeply regretted that brief, unguarded kiss in the snowbank yesterday that must have caused her reserve. Although she had been gracious about accepting his apology, she must despise him, or at the very least wish to make it clear that such disrespect was not to be encouraged.
She caught his eye even as he thought it and smiled warmly at him. She made no move to come closer, however, and he kept his distance from her.
Bertrand Lamarr and his twin, Lady Estelle, had set up a game of spillikins with Lady Jessica Archer at the far end of the drawing room and were calling for someone else to join them so they could form two teams. Colin got obligingly to his feet. Lady Estelle was apparently to be his partner. She was an attractive combination of shyness and vivacity. And she was really very pretty. Also very young. Too young. She was eighteen, eight years younger than he. She smiled at him and blushed.
Lady Jessica was beaming at him too. But she was also not immune to the charms of young Bertrand, he had noticed.
“I was spillikins champion of my school class,” Colin said with a grin. “Be warned, you two.”
Lady Estelle laughed while the other two jeered.
•••
Wren and Alexander had decided to use the ballroom for the Boxing Day party even though they admitted it was probably too large and was really the most shabby room in the house.
“Andthatis saying something,” Alex had added with a rueful chuckle.
But they had invited almost everyone in the village and surrounding countryside, not only the members of the gentry, and the drawing room would simply not be large enough even if only half of those invited came. So one third of the ballroom had been set up with tables for refreshments, while chairs had been set about the perimeter of the remaining two thirds, and the whole room had been decorated with more greenery and ribbons and bows. It was to be lit with dozens of candles, and really who cared that the room would have been looked upon askance by the highest sticklers of theton? Their Christmas party did not pretend to be atonball.
Fires had been kept burning for a couple of days in the two fireplaces that faced each other across the midpoint of the ballroom. They had taken away the worst of the chill. The fires would be kept going through the party, and the presence of a largish number of people would add more warmth.
A trio of musicians who played for the village assemblies had been engaged to provide music for the entertainment of the guests and perhaps even for some dancing if anyone seemed so inclined.
It all looked rather cozy to Elizabeth when she stood in the doorway early in the evening, her fine wool shawl—a Christmas gift from her mother—drawn snugly about her shoulders. Most of the family was already present, and the musicians had begun to play soft music. The two punch bowls had been filled as had some of the large food platters. And the outside guests had begun to arrive.
They came in surprisingly large numbers, considering the weather, and they came early. There was no concept here of being fashionably late. They arrived on foot and by sleigh, and in a few cases, by carriage, bringing with them hair-raising tales of slithering wheels.
“An entertainment at Brambledean is a rare treat for the people hereabouts, my lord,” Elizabeth overheard the vicar say to Alexander as he wrung his hand. “Most do not remember anything so grand in their lifetimes. You cannot expect a little snow to keep them away, you know.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” Alexander told him. “And delighted to see it.” He gestured about the ballroom.
Many of the new arrivals were apple-cheeked and a bit disheveled after walking all the way huddled inside coats and scarves and hats. Many were dressed in nothing like the sort of finery one would expect to see in a London drawing room, though all were clearly wearing their very best attire. None of it mattered. Everyone had come to be delighted, and delighted they all seemed to be. So did the Westcott family, who set out deliberately to welcome the newcomers, many of whom were feeling a bit shy and intimidated. They circulated about the room, talking to everyone who was not already part of a group, making sure everyone who wanted a seat had one, fetching food and drink to the older people.
And after a while there was dancing.
Most of it was country sets, performed with skill and enthusiasm by all and filling the space so that Elizabeth thought in some amusement that Wren would be able to boast afterward that the evening had been a sad squeeze—the greatest compliment any London hostess could be paid after a ball during the Season.
Elizabeth danced with the vicar and two of Alexander’s tenant farmers.
It was the son of one of the tenants, a young man who had spent a few months in London earlier in the year and clearly fancied himself a man of the world, who begged for a waltz. He did so after a short lull in the dancing for them all to catch their breath and revive themselves with punch and sausage rolls and Christmas cake and other delicacies. Alexander conferred with the musicians, who indicated their knowledge of a suitable tune. Most of the guests were content to remain on the sidelines with their refreshments while a few brave couples stepped onto the floor to perform the steps of a dance not yet much performed in the country. The young tenant’s son had Jessica in tow.
Alexander was looking about, Elizabeth could see, but Wren was busy filling plates for an elderly couple that was seated by one of the fires.
“Lizzie,” he said, turning to her, “we cannot allow the waltz to proceed undanced, can we? Let us show everyone how it is done.”
