In Regency England, two brothers vie for Mabel's affections. Their passionate rivalry puts her reputation on the line and tests both her sense and sensibility to the maximum. On the verge of despair, she must cast the die: to decipher the most enigm...
"Fortunately for you, Mr. Chesterton, my second dance is free."
He chuckled again, as if being fully aware of her innocent lie. Let him chuckle. Tonight she'd prove to everyone that she is an accomplished dancing partner.
"Delighted to hear that, and thank you," he said and bowed again.
The chorus of seraphim rose to a celebratory crescendo worthy of the salvation of her soul, despite Everett disappearing into the crowd with the agility of a mischievous sprite out of a Shakespearean play, while she scribbled his name on the page.
"Seems like you are getting your wish, Mabel," Hazel commented, sending a charming smile over her fluttering fan's rim to Mr. Aldington.
"I did! I truly did!" Mabel said breathlessly, deploying her own fan before she died of excitement. Her heels tapped in rhythm with its fluttering. Drably dressed or not, she was going to dance with Everett. "But whoever got the first dance?"
"We'll know in a minute."
"It's such a terribly long time to wait," she complained.
"I should think it's Lady Catherine," Hazel said distractedly, while her fan fluttered, then folded, then fluttered again, sending messages to Mr. Aldington. Mabel wasn't sure he could read them, but never mind his fluidity in the elegant language of the fan! He sailed over obediently, to bow to Mabel and spirit Hazel away to the middle of the floor for the first dance.
Mabel was left sitting it out, but she didn't feel upset at all.
If it's not Everett, then I don't care if it's no one.
And, almost immediately, she wished she was shielded by the same indifference toward Everett as Hazel professed to have, because as the dancers took their spots in the shining middle of the floor, her eyes fastened to his tall, slender figure.
Many cheeks were blooming with excitement waiting for the music, but she was sitting out, and the blush was unbecoming for it hinted at resentment. Or even worse, desperation. When she wasn't desperate at all. She just wanted to know who had Everett's first dance and if she were very pretty. The fan came to her rescue again, yet it wasn't enough.
If only she was cut out to remain indifferent and cold as a true lady should be. If she could stomp out her unbecoming curiosity and the vexatious insects!
Alas! It was beyond her capability to remain frigid, particularly when it became apparent that only she and Lord Chesterton, Miss Carter and Amelia, wouldn't be dancing among those present and unwed.
Even sickly Cordelia Chesterton left her couch to join hands with her husband on the dancing floor. She didn't look anemic at all, and he looked happy for catering to her whims earlier. Could that be Everett and her one day?
The musicians tried a few notes to stir the sentiment even higher, then the music engaged in earnest. Its riotous start pushed everything and everyone into motion: the ladies, the gentlemen, the skirts, the chairs—and Mabel's heart.
This aching organ first lifted in her chest with relief when she saw Lady Catherine hand in hand with her son, then dropped seeing how lightly the lady skipped despite her years, and despite the dance master's calling out Mrs. Jersey's new-fangled quadrille, rather than the retiring cotillion. Probably, they had gotten used to it in London already.
And Everett... she could be absorbed in Everett for days, doing nothing else but watching his graceful deportment. He was impossible for all other gentlemen to even approach, let alone rival. Where they hopped like goats or shuffled their feet, Everett made his body flow to music.
The forms that confounded her and drove her batty as she fought to memorize them, didn't constrain him at all. It was as if they didn't even exist, and his whole dance came from the heart right here, right at this moment.
Even if everyone else moved the same, it wasn't the same with him... and his curls spilled over his shoulders and bounced with his every turn and hop.
Mabel shivered, her eyes positively refusing to do a polite thing and look at something other than Everett's hair.
After dreaming of it day and night, and with her heart's desire about to come true, she didn't even know if she wished to dance with him, or just hoped to spend the rest of her life watching him dance from her corner.
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