“Are you making progress?” she asked him. “Is Miss Dunmore the one? She is extremely pretty. Or Miss Madson? She looks sensible and…nice. Or even Miss Eglington perhaps? Or…someone else?”
“I think you and I ought to elope,” he said, and they both laughed.
But she looked searchingly into his eyes. Despite the laughter, he did not look quite the carefree young man she had known at Brambledean. He was not finding it easy, then, to make the changes in his life he had decided were necessary. But she suddenly remembered Christmas Eve and the family and the carolers, and Colin standing among them, looking bleak. Her heart had reached out to him then, as it did now.
“I believe the waltz is about to start,” he said. “Let us enjoy it, shall we?”
Yes, she would savor it to the full.
They danced without talking for a while, and Elizabeth focused her full attention upon a conscious enjoyment of the occasion, of this particular dance, of this particular partner. He was smiling, his eyes on hers. And how precious, oh how utterly precious was this moment. This now.
And how…desperate.
“I shall miss waltzing with you,” he said, echoing her thought of a few minutes ago.
“You are not going to dance with me after this evening, then?” she asked.
“I do not believe Sir Geoffrey would approve,” he said.
“Oh, but he was joking just now,” she protested.
“Was he?” He was still looking at her. His eyes yet held traces of his smile.
“Yes, of course he was,” she said. “But perhaps you are tired of waltzing with me, which might be just as well. For soon I will be an old married lady, and you perhaps will be a…young married man.”
“It is not a possibility,” he said. “It is a definite impossibility, in fact. I could never grow tired of waltzing with you, Elizabeth.” And he swept her into a double twirl, causing them both to laugh while she concentrated upon her steps. Not that it was necessary. He was a superb dancing partner. He proceeded deliberately to show off for her with fancy footwork, drawing her with him and laughing down into her upturned face. And she was reminded, as she so often was when she was with him, of Christmas Day and all the carefree, joyful outdoor activities he had pretended to resist while she had somehow been set free by the snow to revert to girlhood exuberance.
Ah, it had been a good time, a precious little cameo to last a lifetime, for it could never be repeated.
She felt like weeping.
“That snowballwasintended for my face, was it not?” she asked.
He looked startled for a moment and then grinned in comprehension and chuckled outright. “I would not confess to such a dastardly deed even under torture,” he said. “Would a gentleman deliberately hit a lady in the face with a snowball when she was not even looking?”
“But are you a gentleman?” she asked.
He answered with another grin and some eyebrow waggling and twirled her again.
She must stop looking back. She must look forward instead.
“You are still planning to make Roxingley Park your home, are you?” she asked him.
“It is time I confronted a few ghosts,” he said. “Perhaps when I go there I will discover that after all they are without substance.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But ghosts can exert a powerful influence.”
“Say it is not so.” He smiled, but his eyes searched hers. “Have you not rid yourself of yours entirely, then, Elizabeth?”
“I am not sure one ever does,” she said. “One accepts them, makes peace with them, and stops paying attention to them.”
She still could not believe she had told him about her miscarriages. Sheneverspoke of them. She guarded her thoughts so that she never thought of them either. Even her dreams had been ruthlessly purged of them. But she had spilled it all out for Colin, or enough anyway for him to fill in the missing pieces. Her son would have been seven years old now, the other child three years older.
“And how does one make peace?” Colin asked.
“By…forgiving oneself,” she said. If that was the right word.
“Even when one was not in any way to blame for whatever happened?” His smile had turned to a puzzled frown. His head had moved closer to hers.
