“Edward will pour you and Papa some champagne,” Barbara said as her husband got to his feet.
Oh, this, Matilda thought, gazing about her at Charles’s family and beyond the box at the sights and hearing the sounds of Vauxhall, was wonderful.Wonderful.She was going to tuck every single detail away in her memory to hoard for the rest of her life.
Her eyes rested briefly upon Charles’s face and she smiled.
The thing was, Charles thought, that Matilda looked every bit her age. She had attempted nothing to minimize it. And she behaved with a certain primness. At the same time there was something almost youthful about her—a certain innocence and wonder over her surroundings. There was no bright sparkle in her eyes, very little laughter, not a great deal of conversation, very few outright smiles. But … What was it about her? At every moment while they ate supper and listened to the music and watched the dancers and conversed, she looked … happy? Was that a strong enough word? She looked as if she really wanted to be here. She appeared fully present. She looked upon his children, his sons-in-law, her stepniece, as though she really liked them and was enjoying being with them. She looked very little at him, but when she did it was with almost a questioning expression, as though she did not quite know why she was here with him, but for this evening anyway was contented that it be so.
He suspected there had been very little joy in Matilda’s adult life. And very few outings that did not include her mother or other members of the Westcott family.
He sensed that his daughters liked her, even knowing of her connection to Gil. He knew that Adrian did.
“I want to dance,” Barbara announced after the remains of their supper had been cleared away. “And the next one is to be a waltz. Come, Edward.”
“I believe almost every dance at Vauxhall is a waltz, Barbara,” Wallace said. “Jane?” He held out a hand for his wife’s.
“Have you been approved yet to dance the waltz, Lady Estelle?” Adrian asked. “I know this is your first Season.”
“I have,” she told him.
“I am not sure the rules apply so strictly here at Vauxhall anyway,” Charles said as Lady Estelle got to her feet and set her hand in Adrian’s. He turned his head. “Matilda?”
“Oh,” she said, “I have never waltzed. The dance was not even performed in England until a few years ago.” There was a certain wistfulness in her voice.
“But you know the steps?” he asked her.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I always think it must be the most romantic dance ever invented. Young people now are very fortunate.”
“I do not believe,” he said, “there is any prohibition upon the not-so-young waltzing too.” He stood and extended a hand for hers.
“I would make a cake of myself,” she protested. “And humiliate you.”
“Matilda.” He leaned a little toward her. “Do you not trust me to hold you and lead you and prevent you from tripping over your own or anyone else’s feet? And do you not trust yourself to perform the steps you have seen and yearned to dance?”
“I have not yearned—”
“Liar,” he said softly, smiling at her. “Your eyes give you away.”
“Oh, they do not,” she protested.
“Waltz with me,” he said.
She raised her hand and placed it in his. She primmed her lips and squared her shoulders and he almost laughed. But it was not the moment for laughter. Only for tenderness. He knew that the bright, youthful star that had been the young Matilda was still locked within her, long repressed. All the warmth and vitality and love he remembered were still there too. He was not imagining it. It was not wishful thinking on his part. His Matilda still existed, but she had grown older, as he had, and he was not sorry for it. He was no longer interested in youthful beauty and allure. A fifty-six-year-old Matilda suited him perfectly. But therealMatilda, not the one shaped by her sense of duty to her mother and the perceptions of her family, who saw her merely as a spinster sister or aunt.
“You will be sorry,” she warned him.
“Only if you are,” he said. “I am wagering on my ability to make sure that you are not.”
He led her onto the floor with a number of other people, including his son and his daughters, and waited for the music to begin. He looked up, beyond the colored lanterns, and saw the moon, almost but not quite full, and stars against a black sky.
“Look,” he said, and she gazed upward with him.
He lowered his eyes to her face and the music began. He placed a hand behind her waist while hers came to rest on his shoulder. He took her other hand in his and held her firmly, close to but not quite touching his chest. And he led her into the steps of the waltz, tentatively at first, avoiding any fancy twirls. She kept her eyes on his, though she was not really seeing him, he knew. She was concentrating upon the steps she had seen performed but had never danced herself. And then she smiled fleetingly and then more brightly, and he knew she was seeing him and beginning to enjoy herself.
He led her into a simple twirl, and she laughed. With pure delight. He smiled back into her eyes. She was warm and vital in his arms, and he was where he wanted to be more than anywhere else on earth—not at Vauxhall specifically but within the loose circle of Matilda’s arms. He was where he had surely always yearned to be, long after he had consciously and then unconsciously let go of the memory of her and his passion for her.
“Neither of us is going to be sorry,” he murmured beneath the sounds of music and voices and laughter.
“No,” she said. And then, with a touching sort of wonder in her voice, “I amwaltzing, Charles.”
