“Yes, indeed I would,” she said, “for I would still be nine years older than you.”
“And that is an insurmountable barrier, is it?” he asked.
“Of course it is,” she said. “Colin, look what you have done to me. I cannot even drink my punch because you have made my hand unsteady with your absurdity.”
“Is it the word of the evening?” he asked, taking the glass from her hand and setting it on the table beside them. “Absurd? Absurdity?Am I just a silly boy to you?”
“You are not a boy,” she told him.
“Man, then,” he said. “Am I just a silly man?”
“Yes, you are,” she told him, “when you talk absurdly.”
All the time he had been looking very directly into her eyes, his own smiling, perhaps with simple merriment, perhaps with something else. It was impossible to know. She was too agitated to read his expression. But if hewasjust teasing her, as surely he was, then someone ought to tell him that sometimes teasing could be a bit cruel. Perhapssheought to tell him herself.
“Colin,” she said. “Don’t.”
The smile faded, and he moved his head a little closer to hers for a moment, searching her eyes with his own.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I really am, Elizabeth. I was merely teasing. I did not mean to embarrass you.”
There. She had her answer.I was merely teasing.And did she feel any better?
“You did no such thing,” she said, determinedly picking up her glass again and drinking from it. “Now, if you really wish to make yourself useful, sir, you may put two of those sausage rolls on a plate for me, since I would have to exert myself to reach for them myself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Alas,” the languid voice of Avery, Duke of Netherby, said from beside them, “the waltz just sank to an ignominious near demise, I fear. Do you agree, Elizabeth, that you may never be able to dance it again without feeling that you are…frolicking?”
She laughed. “I thought it was quite delightful,” she said.
“Quite so,” he said with a sigh.
“Which isexactlywhat I said, Avery,” Anna told him.
“You did indeed, my love,” he said. “But I thought you were commenting upon the diamond stud you gave me for Christmas.”
“It is heart shaped,” Elizabeth said, peering at it nestled in the folds of his neckcloth. “How did you ever find it, Anna?”
“I daresay,” Colin said, “the duchess had it specially made.”
“How clever of you to have guessed, Lord Hodges,” Anna said. “Didyouenjoy the waltz?”
“But of course,” he said. “My only complaint is that Lady Overfield has probably spoiled me for all other waltzing partners.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “Well, you must get her to promise to reserve a waltz for you at every ball during the coming Season.”
“What a splendid idea,” he said.
“Lady Overfield, ma’am,” a gentleman said, approaching Elizabeth, who turned to smile at him. She recognized him as someone to whom she had been introduced on her first visit to Brambledean last spring. She could not recall his name. “May I have the honor of dancing the next set with you?”
“But of course,” she said, setting down her glass. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”
And she turned away from the table to engage in a vigorous country dance in which once more almost everyone below the age of fifty—and a few above—participated.
And so the party continued until almost midnight, an unheard-of late hour according to a number of guests, who claimed that none of the village assemblies ever continued beyond half past ten. But it had been wonderful, wonderful…
The compliments came from all sides as coats and boots and hats and mufflers and gloves were pulled on and the sounds of sleighs and a couple of carriages drawing up outside the doors penetrated to the great hall. It was half past twelve by the time the last of the stragglers disappeared down the driveway, walking in a huddled group, a lantern swaying above their heads.
