A Certain Magic (7 page)

Besides, be thought, spotting Miss Carpenter across the room with Alice, the idea of making love to the girl, of actually bedding her, seemed almost obscene. She was just a child. A luscious child.

And what on earth was Allie doing here, he thought, without the merest hint to him the night before that such was her plan? He made his way across the room to her and noted her appearance as he did so. A simple high-waisted gown of deep blue satin, completely unadorned, its neckline low but not indiscreetly so, Web’s unostentatious diamonds at her throat, her dark hair smooth and shining, with only a few curls at the neck, no turban or feathers.

She was by far the most plainly dressed woman present. She made them all look like so many gaudy and fussy bandboxes.

“Good evening, Miss Carpenter,” he said, bowing to the girl. He took Alice’s hand in his and raised it to his lips. “What on earth are you doing here, Allie? Apart from outshining everyone else, that is.”

“What nonsense you speak,” she said, laughing. “Is this your courtly behavior, Piers, paying outrageous compliments and kissing hands? I am here chaperoning Amanda. Phoebe, I fear, is coming down with the measles.”

“How mortifying at her, ah, age,” he said. “So you are to find a place in a dusty comer with all the other faded creatures, are you, Allie, watching with sharp eyes to make sure that no young buck—or old one, for that matter—clasps your niece’s waist with too much enthusiasm or takes her beyond the terrace when the need for fresh air is upon her?”

“Something like that,” she said, glancing at Amanda, who was conversing with a group of young acquaintances. “I do regret the fact that I left my lorgnette at home, though. I fear I will not look nearly stern enough without it.”

He grinned at her. “The second set is a waltz,” he said. “You must dance it with me, Allie.”

“Absolutely not,” she said, horrified. “I have not come to dance, Piers. And the waltz! Never.”

His eyes danced with amusement. “Do you consider it very improper?” he asked. “Will you swoon quite away even to watch others dance it? It is quite fashionable and considered quite proper, I do assure you. And I know you know the steps. I have not forgotten you and Web dancing it in your drawing room.”

“That was only so that we might all laugh and agree how ridiculous it was,” she said indignantly. “You know it was, Piers.”

“Anyway,” he said, “you must dance it with me, Allie. Very few of the infantry are allowed to do it. They have to be approved first by society’s dragons. If you will not dance with me, I must be a wallflower, and I should never live down the ignominy.”

“How ridiculous!” she said, laughing despite herself. “Better to be a wallflower than a public spectacle, Piers. I should trip all over your feet.”

“Never in a thousand nights, ma’am,” he said. “Do you think I do not know how to lead? Come, Allie, your answer. I see that lady Margam and Miss Borden are here, and I must dance attendance on them. I am to lead Miss Borden into the opening set. She looks quite delectable, doesn’t she? More ringlets than last night, would you say? Is it possible?”

“She looks very pretty, Piers,” she said. “The orchestra is about to begin, and Lord and Lady Partiton have come from the receiving line. You must go.”

He took her wrist between a thumb and forefinger and winked at her, “Not until you have agreed to that waltz,” he said. “I shall remain chained to you like this for the rest of the evening if you do not.”

“Piers!” she said, laughing. “This is blackmail. Oh, very well, then. Go!”

He strolled over to Miss Cassandra Borden, who was standing beside her mama, her eyes directed at the floor. Yes, quite deliciously lovely in an apricot-colored confection. He smiled and bowed at the mother and set himself to putting the girl at her ease.

***

Alice had certainly not intended to dance. For one thing, she was not dressed fittingly. She was very conscious of the plainness of her dress in comparison with all the finery she saw about her. For another, she had had no experience with grand balls. She had attended dances in the country with Web, but there was very little comparison between those affairs and the grandeur of this. And finally, she had come in the role of chaperon. She was Amanda’s widowed aunt.

Besides, she did not know anyone at the ball except Piers and Amanda. And Lady Margam, of course, and Cassandra. And Jarvis appeared before the first set ended, with a group of young companions, all hiding their youth in a dandified appearance.

“I say,” Jarvis said when he came across the room to greet her, “who is the beauty dancing with Mr. Westhaven? Can you secure me an introduction, Aunt Alice?”

Piers himself made the introductions when the set came to an end, and Jarvis was fortunate enough to engage Cassandra for the set of country dances that was to follow the waltz. It looked as if the girl would not lack for partners.

In the meantime, Lady Partiton had presented Lord Maisey to Alice, and she had agreed to dance the same set of country dances with him. And then Sir Clayton put in an appearance and engaged her for a quadrille later in the evening.

“You must reserve the waltz after supper for me, Allie,” Piers said as he led her away from Sir Clayton’s effusive compliments. “Otherwise your card will fill up and I will have no one sensible to talk to for the rest of the evening. Do you have a card, by the way?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I am a chaperone.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I hate to tell you this, Allie, but you forgot your lace cap, you know. A chaperon looks quite undressed without it. Not that I wish to discompose you, of course.”

She smiled. 

“You are also forgetting to trip over my toes,” he said a minute later. “Indeed, Allie, I believe you have been spending these months taking secret dancing lessons in Bath. Have you? Is Lansing your dancing master, by any chance? He certainly minces about as if he might be.”

“You are being unkind and absurd,” she said. “You told me yourself that you lead well in the dance. You do.” 

“Ah,” he said, and grinned down at her until she felt like giggling like a girl.

For it was, she was discovering, quite the most exhilarating feeling in the world to dance in such a large ballroom to music provided by a whole orchestra, instead of just a pianoforte and fiddle. And with Piers. She had never suspected that he was an accomplished dancer, though he had, of course, taught her and Web the steps of the waltz during that rainy afternoon when they had all laughed so much and agreed that it was quite the silliest dance ever to have been invented.

It was not. Oh the contrary, it was quite the most wonderful dance in the whole world.

“You are not supposed to be smiling and glowing with such enjoyment, Allie,” her partner said, amused.

“Why not?” she asked, sobering immediately.

“It is unfashionable,” he said. “Just look about you. You see the striped-waistcoated gentleman with the shirt points in imminent danger of piercing his eyeballs?”

She nodded. 

“The Duke of Eccles’ offspring,” he said. “And all the gentlemen with him? All of the very highest ton, my dear. And the ladies over there?” He nodded in the direction of the west wall. “Not one of them without some sort of title. What do they all have in common?”

“Oh, nothing at all as far as I can see,” she said.“You must solve the riddle for me, Piers.”

“All bored out of their pea brains,” he said “They are all competing to see who can look most as if he wished he were somewhere—anywhere in the world—rather than right here. They are in fashion, Allie. That is the fashionable look for this Season. To be imitated at all costs if you wish to appear to be one of them. Now, enough of these smiles. Give me a look of boredom.”

“Piers,” she said, her smile spreading again until it threatened to burst out into laughter, “you are quite the most absurd person I have ever known.”

“Whatever you do, “ he said, looking at her in some horror, “don’t let loose with that laughter, Allie. I would be mortified beyond words. 1 doubt I would have the nerve to show my face at any other entertainment for the rest of the Season.”

“Seriously,” she said, “they do look bored, don’t they? Oh, I wonder why. They must have everything in the world to make them happy.”

“Except something with which to stimulate their brains,” he said. “But I tell you, Allie, it really is not the thing to appear to enjoy yourself. I tell you only the sober truth. You do not think I would lie to you, do you?”

She smiled as he grinned at her again. And she became aware, as she had when he had been dancing with Cassandra Borden earlier, that eyes followed him about the floor. Just because he was the new heir to Lord Berringer? she wondered. But that was absurd. The room was full of gentlemen who already had titles, not just the expectation of them. Although Lord Berringer was reputed to be one of the wealthiest of the nobility, he was by no means one of the most exalted.

No, Alice thought, the foolish man quite misinterpreted the interest the ton was showing in him. For most of his life he had scorned tonnish events, avoiding balls and such during his stays in London. Now he was attending those events and dressing accordingly. And he was in search of a wife.

The combination was irresistible. For Piers, quite unknown to himself, it seemed, was easily the most handsome and attractive man in the ballroom. And it was not just her partial eyes that saw him thus. The eyes of many other female guests told the same story.

“So which one should I marry, Allie?” he asked, his customary look of ironic amusement replacing the grin. “There is a wide choice, is there not? Can you advise me?”

“Gracious, no,” she said. “I am no matchmaker, Piers.”

“Maybe I should move to the East and set up a harem,” he said.

“You would probably find it as difficult to narrow the choice to one hundred and fifty as you do now to one,” she said.

He laughed and spun her into a turn at the corner of the ballroom. “Will you allow me to escort you and your niece home at the end of the evening?” he asked. “I shall probably spend the rest of the night at one of my clubs otherwise, Allie, and will wake up about noon tomorrow with a thick head. Dreadful habits one acquires in town.”

“Why do you not spend some time at Westhaven Park, then?” she asked. 

He looked down at her. “I told you why,” he said. “It is lonely there, Allie, without either you or Web. If you had not taken yourself off to Bath, I doubtless would go home more often.”

“Well,” she said. 

“Will you let me escort you home?”

Alice thought of Sir Clayton Lansing, with whom she had promised to dance later in the evening.

“That would be pleasant,” she said.

***

Mr. Westhaven had sent the Carpenter carriage home, to the joy of the coachman and footman, who had an unexpectedly early night for a change. He conveyed the ladies home in his own carriage, escorting Amanda to the door of the house on Portman Square and then vaulting back into his carriage to take Alice to Cavendish Square. 

“Will you invite me in, Allie?” he asked when they got there. “For tea or coffee or water or something? I feel like talking to someone sensible.”

“At this hour?” she said. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Piers?”

“Just for a short while?” he asked. “Come on, Allie.”

“And do you realize how very improper it would be for me to entertain you alone at this hour?” she asked. “No, you do not, do you?” 

“What nonsense,” he said. “We are such very old friends, after all.”

“You can keep your ‘old’s’ to yourself, thank you,” she said. “Oh, come along, then. I shall not sleep for guilt if I turn you away.”

“Good girl,” he said. “Will your man insist on standing at my shoulder, glowering?”

“Perkins?” she said. “Not at all. He will be sent to bed, as he always is as soon as I come home. You will have to come to my sitting room, Piers, since the lamps have all been extinguished in the other rooms. And it will have to be chocolate, I’m afraid. That is what I always have at bedtime.”

“Chocolate sounds quite appetizing,” he said, handing her from the carriage and instructing his coachman to go home. He would walk, he explained. “You are not annoyed with me, are you, Allie?”

She clucked her tongue. “Why should I be annoyed?” she said. “What could possibly annoy me about being coerced into entertaining a gentleman in my sitting room after midnight?”

“Quite so,” he said, grinning down at her as her manservant slid the bolts back and opened the door.

Chapter 5

MR. Westhaven sank into a chair and looked about him.

“This is cozy, Allie,” he said. “You must have a gift for creating coziness. It was always there at Chandlos. I used to think it was the design and size of the house that made it so much more comfortable than Westhaven, but I see now it was your touch.” He yawned as Alice handed him a cup of chocolate.

She picked up her embroidery and seated herself on a love seat. She bent her head to her work.

He watched her for a while. “ You aren’t going to marry that Lansing, are you?” he asked.

She looked up startled. “Gracious,” she said, “of course not. I am not planning to marry anyone.”

“Good,” he said. “He is too thin.”

“What an absurd reason for objecting to my marrying him,” she said with a smile. “I take it you
are
 objecting?”

“And, his smile is too oily,” he said.

“Poor Sir Clayton,” she said. “He tries his very best to be agreeable, and someone objects to his smile.” 

“And his hair matches the smile,” he said.

Alice laughed despite herself. “But it is always neat, Piers,” she said. “You must grant him that.”

“Has he asked you?” he asked. “I’ll wager he has.” 

“Last night,” she said, “when we were returning from the theater. I refused him, of course. But it was kind of him to offer.”

“Kind!” he said, picking up his cup and sipping the hot liquid. “Allie, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Don’t let him harass you. He obviously has not been discouraged, judging by the way he was hovering over you tonight at every chance. I’ll plant him a facer if he keeps on bothering you.”