As if her dance card would be crowded to capacity. “It is a promise,” she said.
“Preferably a waltz, as the Duchess of Netherby suggested on Boxing Day,” he added, and something happened to both her breathing and her knees at the thought of waltzing again with Colin. “In fact, definitely a waltz.”
“That can be arranged too,” she said. She was almost whispering, she realized. “But I believe there will be plenty of young ladies in London to compete with me for your attention.”
“Ah,” he said, “but none of them will be Elizabeth, Lady Overfield.”
He might have kissed her then. She sensed that it was about to happen. She drew away sharply from him and busied herself pulling up the muffler to cover her mouth before she dug her hands into her muff.
He had taken a step back and watched her, his hands clasped at his back. “I’ll race you up,” he said.
“I do not for a moment doubt it,” she agreed, but she took the slope at a run anyway and arrived at the top, panting and laughing, only just behind him. He stretched out a hand to haul her up the last few feet.
They walked back to the house without talking, but it was a companionable silence.
Almost.
Oh no, it was not companionable at all. It resonated with a kiss that had not happened and with words that had been spoken.
But at every ball you attend, I would ask that you reserve one set of dances for me.
Preferably a waltz…In fact, definitely a waltz.
Six
Colin returned to London after Easter, reluctantly admitting to himself that he would not make his permanent home at Withington after all. He definitely needed to settle at Roxingley. While he had been neglecting it, his mother had had the run of it, and if the complaints of his one neighbor were anything to judge by, that was not a good thing.
His mother had always liked to host lavish house parties, but while Colin’s father was still alive perhaps there had been some check on what happened at them and even upon who was invited. Now there was no such restraint. He knew that his mother held parties in the London house too during the Season.Sleazywas one way they had been described in his hearing on one occasion before someone had shushed the speaker.
It was more than time he did something about the situation.
If only Justin had lived…But he had not, and the repetition of that thought was becoming tedious.
He left Withington after Wren’s child was born—a chubby, healthy, dark-haired little boy, whom they named Nathan Daniel Westcott, Viscount Yardley. Mrs. Westcott had returned to Brambledean to help Wren through the final weeks of her confinement, but Elizabeth had remained at Riddings Park. The father of a friend of hers was dying, and she had stayed to give help where she could. Colin was disappointed and hoped she would be free to go to London for the Season as she had planned. Perhaps he ought not to hope for it, though. He really ought to turn his mind to the serious task of choosing a bride from among the eligible young ladies who would be brought to town in search of husbands at the annual marriage mart that was the Season.
He wondered if Elizabeth remembered promising to waltz with him at everytonball they both attended.
He settled in his old rooms close to White’s Club. Until last summer he had lived there year-round since coming down from Oxford at the age of twenty-one, though most members of his social class fled the heat of summer to return to their country estates. He had stayed even during the winter when company was sparse.
He resumed the life with which he was familiar. There were his parliamentary duties and the regular communications with his bailiff at Roxingley Park and his man of business in town. There were his clubs and conversations with his peers. There were his close friends of long standing. There were his boxing and fencing clubs. There were rides in the various parks.
But this year he was going to have to give closer than usual attention to the numerous invitations that were delivered to his rooms daily. He had always attended a variety of entertainments—private concerts, soirees, garden parties, Venetian breakfasts, among others. He had generally avoided balls whenever possible, however. He enjoyed dancing. He even liked mingling with crowds. But it had always seemed to him that balls, more than any other type of social event, were for courtship. It was to the grand balls of the Season that hopeful mamas took their daughters in search of husbands. He was a baron, a peer of the realm. He was also young and wealthy, and his glass told him, all vanity aside, that he was passably good-looking. He had always been unwilling to take the risk of somehow being snared by a young lady determined to land herself a titled husband or, more likely, by her even more ambitious mama. He knew men who had been the victims of such aggressive husband hunting.
He would avoid the grand balls no longer.
He lined up four such invitations on his writing desk one morning, considered them carefully, and found himself wondering—of all things—which of them, if any,shewould attend. Elizabeth Overfield, that was. He knew she was back in London with Mrs. Westcott. Wren had mentioned the fact in her last letter. But he had no idea how manytonballs she was in the habit of attending. Probably not very many. She was no young girl fresh upon the marriage mart, after all. And she already had her beau, the man with whom she was considering marriage this year.
He just hoped the man was worthy of her—if there was such a man. He hoped the man would appreciate her, at least, and cherish her. And love her. And make her laugh. And take away the remnants of her winter. And…
Well. It was none of his business really.
He looked from one invitation to another, not really seeing them, but seeing Elizabeth sputtering and clawing snow out of her eyes and then challenging him to a snowball fight and setting about choosing her team. He must give her lessons sometime in how to throw accurately. Oh, and he had lied when he had told her that particular snowball had been intended for her shoulder. It had not. He had made the snowball deliberately soft, and he had aimed it just where it had landed. He wanted to dance with her again—to waltz with her, as he had on Boxing Day. He wanted to waltz with her at every ball of the Season.
Would she be married by the end of the Season?
Would he?
He dipped his quill pen into the inkwell and set about accepting all four invitations.
