‘Eat her own baby?’ Sebastian said.
‘Possibly a slight exaggeration, but basically, he’ll be in the shit if he doesn’t make it. Anyway … The long and short of it is that we’re down by a fiddle player, and … Hang on. Wait a minute. What am I saying?’ Olivia looked Sebastian up and down as if she’d never seen him before. ‘Hold the front page – is this Sebastian Barclay-Brown I see before me? Tutti violinist extraordinaire?’
Sebastian was already shaking his head. ‘No. I can’t. I don’t know any of the pieces, it’ll be a disaster.’
‘The band says the music won’t really work without a fiddle, so if you’re happy to disappoint all these people we can always send them home, I suppose …’ Olivia said, ignoring his concerns.
‘And it would be amazing to hear you play,’ Jess added.
‘But I wanted to dance. With you.’ He caught Jess up in a hug, pulling her close.
‘We’ve got all the time in the world for that, haven’t we?’ Jess said. ‘Please play for the band.’
Sebastian let out a theatrical sigh, then smiled. ‘I’ll get my violin.’
‘Great,’ Olivia said. ‘I’ll go and tell the band, and we can finally get some dancing started.’
‘Now we’re alone, would you like to complete your sentence?’ Sebastian said, as she left.
‘Alone?’ Jess glanced around; she’d never seen this many people in the picture gallery.
‘Might as well be nobody else here, for all the attention anyone else is going to get from me tonight,’ he said, the rise in his eyebrows making her grin. ‘So, tell me. The sight of me in a kilt means you’d like to do … what?’
‘Better not say if you’ve got to play with the band. I don’t want to put you off your stroke,’ she said, the words barely out of her mouth before she felt her cheeks begin to burn and he guffawed at her words.
‘With regret, then, let’s park that for now,’ he said, leaning in for a kiss, before spinning away to fetch his violin from the music room.
Dee was late down to the ceilidh on purpose. This was her first official social function since the death of Henry – and she had no idea how to navigate the situation. Although she and Robbie had spent plenty of time exploring the strength of their emotions for one another since she’d gone to find him on Christmas Day, he’d put no pressure on her to tell anyone else. The ceilidh would be the first time her feelings for Robbie would become blatantly clear for everyone else to see. Dee couldn’t work out whether that thought thrilled or frightened her.
When she had finally left her room and arrived in the picture gallery, Dee paused to take in the scene. The room had been made for this – it was amazing to think that during the entire time she’d lived here with Henry it had never heard music, had never been alive with laughter and dancing, or been adorned with fairy lights like it was this evening. Dee allowed herself a glance at Henry’s portrait, wondering if his soul was looking down with the same kind of mean-spiritedness as the glazed face in the painting.
The dancing was already in full swing, the sight of the twirling figures enough to lighten even the hardest of hearts. Dee could see Freya, Christian, Olivia and Candida making up one square, while Jess and Isla made another with Freddie and Karl. Dee held her breath as she saw Robbie – resplendent in a three-piece tweed suit and looking every inch the man she wished she’d always been with. She watched him twirling his mother around as though she was a kite, the hitch in her breath turning into a laugh as she heard Dorathy squeal when both her feet left the ground, and then into a sharp sob as her gaze moved on again and she realised who was playing violin with the band.
Oh Sebastian … At last …
Her son thought nobody knew about the promise he’d made himself, about his determination to set aside his violin once he became earl. But Dee knew. She wondered if it had been Jess who had persuaded him to pick it up again. She hoped so.
After the dance ended and Dorathy had finished scolding Robbie, he headed for the drinks table, a glass in his hand by the time Dee had negotiated her way across the dance floor.
‘Robbie – could I have the next dance?’ she said, ploughing straight in before he had a chance to speak.
His brow furrowed and he glanced around before he said, ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, is it? I don’t want you to feel awkward, and people will talk, Dee.’
‘That’s exactly what I want them to do.’
He looked even more confused, but Dee remained firm in her request, holding out her hand for him to take and leading him out onto the dance floor. As they spun and skipped, reeled and promenaded, all the time doing their best to follow the caller’s instructions, Robbie began to relax, and Dee’s smile grew broader as their movements became increasingly fluid, more and more in tune with one another.
They stayed on the dance floor for dance after dance and Dee decided she hadn’t had this much fun since – well, for long enough to render it irrelevant. It was difficult not to notice people staring at them, then smiling – when they’d made a foursome with Freya and Christian, Dee had thought her heart might burst with the glittering smile her daughter had given them both. Which was why what she was going to say to Robbie was going to be so difficult.
Eventually, they broke away from the dance floor and got a drink.
‘I need to ask you something,’ she said.
‘Aye. Anything,’ Robbie said, rubbing at beads of sweat which had formed at his brow line. ‘Might have to ditch my jacket in a minute,’ he added.
‘I’ve never known it so warm in here,’ Dee said, and she meant it in more ways than one. Then she frowned. ‘Robbie, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I can take my life forwards.’
He nodded, taking a pull from his bottle of beer.
