Edmund might come home any minute now. He finally found the entry the day after the ball.
I had a v. nice time at Lady Huxley’s ball. There were a great many people there and it was v. crowded and hot. I did not have many partners and that made me sad and glad. Sad because I would have liked to dance more. I do love dancing. Someday I will dance every dance at a ball! But I was glad not to have too many partners because the dances I did have made me v. nervous. Except my first dance.
Phineas’s heart thudded. This was him.
Edmund’s friend Phineas Edge, the Earl of Burchester, was my first dance partner. He is Edmund’s age so I know he is three and twenty, but he is already an earl and he has lovely silver hair at his temples. Oh, oh, he is so handsome!
She had thought him handsome. And had been inclined to use an exclamation point about the fact. Phineas was flooded with a warmth the likes of which he had never felt before. Suddenly, her letter of rejection didn’t matter. The letter was a sham. Here were her real feelings about him.
I am sure he knows he is handsome, though. He is quite arrogant in the most delicious way.
Arrogantwasn’t too damning of a description, was it? And he wasn’t arrogant now. Not after her letter. Surely, she would forgive his youthful bravado when he had thought he was every girl’s dream come true? Anddeliciousmust be considered all to the good.
We are exactly the same height!
Caro must have grown since then. Now she was several inches taller than he was.
But the best thing was that he talked the whole time we were dancing. I did not have to say a thing! He didn’t say anything particularly clever. I just think he likes to talk. And then I thought, what if he is nervous and that is why he is talking so much? And then I felt so calm. I was taking care of him by letting him talk. He was taking care of me by letting me not talk!
That was my favorite dance. I thought he might ask me again, but he did not. Apparently that is not something that is done. You can only dance once with a partner at a ball unless you are engaged or madly in love and willing to defy propriety! I hope I have the opportunity to dance two dances with the same partner someday!
But I would be happy just to dance every dance with a different partner at my next ball. I would be nervous to have to speak to so many men, but I think the dancing would make me happy! I don’t want to be a wallflower. Mother says a wallflower is a girl who stands by the wall because she doesn’t have a partner for a dance.
But I will be sure to see Phineas at future balls because he is Edmund’s friend. So I will certainly get to dance with him again!
That was the last entry. He turned pages, but they were all blank, going forward.
She had never danced with him again because the Marchioness of Sudbury had fallen down the stairs and died the day after this entry was written. And the old marquess had taken Caro to the country shortly afterwards, and the two of them had never returned to London. Likely, Caro’s diary had been abandoned here, moved onto a library shelf, and, besides a dusting by a maid, had never been touched again until now. By him.
And although he knew he should feel wretched to have spied on a young girl’s most tender feelings, he could not bring himself to feel that way. He felt only wretched for her. That she had not had more dances and more balls.
Oh, Caro.
He heard someone come into the library, and he shoved the small volume into his tailcoat pocket where it just fit. Yes, he was pilfering, but he needed to read again the part where he was handsome and his dance had been her favorite one.
The door clicked shut, and he stayed seated, waiting for Edmund to apologize because the butler would have told him Phineas had been waiting for over half an hour, but there was only a soft rustling and then the person who had come into the library moved into his field of vision.
It was Caro.
A lavender dress of half-mourning. Her dark hair in a pinned swirl at the back of her head, a green ribbon tied around the bun. He had no eye for color, but he would bet a hundred guineas he didn’t possess that the ribbon matched her eyes.
She went to the shelves behind the table and replaced a volume and then ran her fingers over the spines as if looking for another book.
He felt he must warn her.
“Don’t be startled, Lady Caroline.” He stood. “I’m just waiting for your brother. I didn’t want to take you by surprise.”
She stood still, keeping her back to him. It was much the same view of her he had seen when he had come into her bedchamber at Sudbury Manor.
Those upright shoulders. After reading her diary, he knew a bit of the strength it must take to stand so tall all the time.
That silence. Maybe he understood it more now. The dreadedesses. But he would not force her to talk. He would do the talking. He wanted to do that. As always, it soothed him.
“I’m extremely happy to see you and have a chance to speak to you. I hope you might give some thought to allowing me to renew my attentions to you.”
Her back stiffened even further.
“Oh, no, I apologize.” He foolishly bowed even though she was facing away from him. “I didn’t mean bedchamber attentions. I meant perhaps I could call on you. Or we could take a stroll. I am sure Lady Lutton would be willing to chaperone since Edmund might have a rather, how should I say this, stifling effect on me. Not that there would be anything that needed stifling, but I would want to feel I might express some affection without fearing your chaperone was going to slit my throat. Although perhaps Edmund might feel a good deal more comfortable with my calling on you if he did chaperone us at first, since he is aware, perhaps a good deal too aware, that I may not have always been a gentleman with some females.”
