“Yes?” Della shouted back. She slipped on her glove and walked toward the door. It burst open, and she was glad she hadn’t been any closer or she’d have been knocked to the floor.
“You must get down there,” Clara huffed. “Guests are starting to arrive, and your husband is greeting them.”
“Andrew is greeting the guests?” Della asked, confusion evident in her tone.
“No, your other husband.” Clara rolled her eyes. “Yes, Andrew. Harry was going to welcome everyone, but Andrew said he would do it, and Harry listened because Andrew is the man of the house, whatever that means.” Her voice took on a mocking tone there toward the end.
With a sigh, Della strolled out of their rooms and into the hallway. She and Clara took the stairs arm in arm.
“Who made this?” Della asked, admiring the beading on the navy-blue sleeves attached to Clara’s fitted bodice. “Alice or Gwen?”
“Both of them, I believe,” Clara answered. “They are quite good at what they do together.”
“Are they in the ballroom already?” Della took each step slowly. She wore her riding boots again with her light-pink gown, and she didn’t particularly care if anyone saw. Her feet were killing her today, so everyone would just have to bear witness to the fashion offense.
“Everyone but you,” Clara remarked. Della pinched the inside of her elbow, and Clara swatted at her in retaliation.
“There she is!” Andrew smiled when his eyes caught hers, and he patted Harry on the shoulder as he left their combined post and marched toward Della. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you.” She tugged his cravat straight. He must not have eaten yet—he hadn’t spilled anything on it. His waistcoat was ivory, made to match her gloves and the shoes she would’ve worn had her feet been kinder to her. “Oh, no,” Della mumbled. She looked overAndrew’s shoulder at Clara and Harry. They were standing too close together, whispering intently in the shadow behind the door Harry still held open for no one. “What are we to do about that?” she asked him.
He hummed, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I don’t know, darling.” He used her shoulders to turn her in the other direction, toward where their guests waited. “It is your house; I am just the husband.”
Della laughed, but she followed his lead. They entered the ballroom to no grand announcement. No heads turned in their direction, and they naturally joined conversations already in progress. It was not customary to invite one’s household to a ball like this, nor was it traditional to invite one’s tenants. Della had never been traditional, though, and she found her party in progress to be a roaring success.
In the corner, Alice tried to convince Gwen to speak to the other young ladies her age. Those two were a positive influence on each other with their mutual interest in sewing, and they’d made half of the garments everyone in the room wore.
Harry and Clara entered behind them, walking arm in arm. Della wondered what the frantic whispering had been about, but she knew she’d hear of it later if it were anything important.
“Wait a moment,” Andrew stopped them as they proceeded through the room. It was her intention to speak to everyone, and he was halting her progress. “Where is your walking stick?”
“I do not need it this evening.” She patted his arm where it was connected to hers. “I have you.”
“Oh, I see,” he chuckled. “So, I am supposed to stay by your side all evening for support?” he asked in jest, but they both knew he would. She wouldn’t have even had to ask.
“If you wouldn’t mind terribly,” she replied with a grin. In addition to their other changes, they were also pivoting away from the traditional schedule a ball kept to. There would be a bit of dancing and then dinner, and everyone would be home in time to retire as theynormally would. They were a group comprised of mostly sick people and farmers, not those who needed to be out at all hours of the night at a party.
Music began to play from the corner of the room, and Clara brushed by them pulling Harry into the open space they’d designated as a dance floor. It wasn’t even the music for any particular dance, but no one could tell Clara that.
Della began gesturing to everyone around her, couples and friends and children filling up the space in the middle of the room. Alice even pulled Gwen off of the wall. It was less dancing and more conversing to music in close proximity to one another. She looked around, and she spotted nearly everyone. Silas still preferred to be out of doors, but he would come in for dinner. Mrs. Goldsmith was finishing up the cooking, which she’d insisted she do all herself, despite Della’s offer to hire several more kitchen maids to help her.
Andrew pulled her to the outside of the circle the party had formed. They stood under the portrait of Della’s mother that was painted when she’d been about Della’s age. At that point, her mother had been married for a couple of years and had given birth to Della, and she hadn’t lived much longer past that point. Since she’d been at Kinloss, Della had felt the inkling of a connection to her mother, something that hadn’t existed before. As she looked at that painting, Della tried to find some visible representation of it there. The jut of their chin was the same, maybe. Or the sharp bridge of their diminutive noses. Perhaps it was the straightening of their shoulders, or the way their brows seemed to smile more than their mouths.
“I did not know her, but I think she would be proud of you.” Andrew turned her by the shoulders again, clearing a spot for them in the crush of revelry.
Della hoped so. She hoped that somewhere out there, even in the beyond, there was some piece of her born family that was proud of her.
“This is the legacy I want to leave for our children,” Della said, gesturing behind her to the lively crowd with her chin. “This happiness. This sense of home.”
Andrew swept her into his arms, guiding them in a dance of their own creation. Della barely moved. She didn’t need to.
“We do not have children, as far as I am aware,” Andrew smirked.
“Stop teasing.” She smacked at his chest, but it was really more of a pat. “You know what I mean. Our future children, should we have them. I never thought I’d have the opportunity. But I quite like the thought.”
“So do I,” he smiled. He spun her, just like he’d done the last time they danced, but her leg caught. Pain flared through her locked-up joints, all the way from her knee to her spine. That damned hip.
“That damned hip, I know,” Andrew said. He rested his hand there, massaging until the rigid muscles gave way. “It’s quite irritating for you, I’m sure, but I do love this hip. It’s where I rest my hand while my mouth is—”
