All the guests from England stayed at Cartref at Mr. Bevan’s insistence, though Ben removed to the inn a little earlier than planned to make room for them all. Calvin, who was to be his best man, came there the evening before the wedding to stay with him.
All the Survivors came with him just for the evening, to the great pleasure of the landlord and the equal consternation of his wife, who had discovered not only that the lady and all the gentlemen were titled, which was bad enough, but that one of them was actually aduke.
“And there is onlythatmuch,” she whispered to her husband even though they were in the kitchen and two closed doors stood between them and the gathered company, “between a duke and a king.” She held her forefinger a quarter of an inch from her thumb.
George Crabbe, Duke of Stanbrook, meanwhile was asking Ben about his wheeled chair. “It seems a sensible notion,” he said, “but you have always been quite adamantly set against using one.”
“I have nothing more to prove,” Ben told him. “I can and do walk. I have danced. Now I can be sensible and move around as fast as any other man.”
“One is t-tempted to challenge you to a race along the village street, Ben,” Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, said. “But one would not wish to make a s-spectacle of oneself.”
“Or lose ignominiously to a man in a wheeled chair, Flave,” Ralph, Earl of Berwick, added.
“You will be able to race against Vince in March, Ben,” Hugo, Lord Trentham, said. “He is having a race track built about the outer boundary of his park. Had you heard? That will be a sight to behold.”
“A blind man and a c-cripple,” Flavian said. “Heaven defend us.”
“Call me that again, Flave,” Ben said cheerfully, “and you may find yourself being beaten about the head with a cane.”
“It might cure his stammer,” George said.
“Ben.” Imogen, Lady Barclay, was looking intently at him. “You havedanced?”
“Waltzed, actually.” He grinned at her. “There is an alcove at one end of the ballroom at Cartref. I waltzed all about it with Samantha during a ball just before Christmas.”
“Was that wise, Ben?” Calvin asked him. “I have always thought you may do more harm than good to your legs by insisting upon walking on them. Butdancing? I worry about you, you know. All the time.”
But the Survivors were all beaming at him.
“Bravo,” the duke said quietly.
“I s-suppose,” Flavian said, “this alcove is the size of an egg cup, Ben?”
“Probably a thimble, Flave,” Ralph said, grinning and winking at Ben.
“It does not matter if it is the size of a pin, you fatheads,” Hugo said, holding out one huge hand and giving Ben’s a hearty shake. “Good for you, lad. My Gwendoline dances too, and you have all seen how she limps when she walks.”
Imogen bent to kiss Ben’s cheek. “It was your dream to dance one day,” she said. “Everyone ought to have a dearest dream come true.”
Ben caught her hand in his. “And what is yours, Imogen?” he asked her.
He immediately regretted the question, for everyone fell silent to listen to her reply, and she gazed back at him, her eyes large and luminous. Something flickered in them and then died.
“Oh,” she said in her soft, cool voice, “to meet someone tall, dark, and handsome and be swept off my feet, of course.”
He squeezed her hand and held it to his lips for a moment. He wanted to apologize, but that would be to admit that he knew she had not answered his question.
“I am sorry, Imogen,” Hugo said, “but I am already taken.”
“She saidhandsome, Hugo,” Ralph said.
They all laughed and the moment passed.
“There must have been something in the air in Cornwall last spring,” George said as the landlord came into the room with a loaded tray.“Threeof our number married within the year. And my nephew too.”
“The heir?” Ben asked.
“Julian, yes,” George said. “And all love matches, it seems to me. One has only to look at you and Mrs. McKay, Ben, to smell May blossoms. You have done well. You will have a wife for whom you obviously care deeply and a way of life that seems to have been custom made for you, all in one neat package.”
