"That was very rude," hissed Eliza, giving him that look that reminded him so much of mother.
Perhaps he had been a little harsh in his refusal of the dance, but that was natural instinct.
He rubbed his forehead. "I'm aware," he drawled. "That hadn't been my intention."
"Intention or not, that's what it was."
"If you would like to further scold me, do so in private. I've got enough embarrassment as it was being scolded by mother."
"Maybe you deserved that too." Possibly, but he wasn't going to admit it. "Ask Miss Price to dance, Richard. It is what a gentleman would do."
He raised a brow at her but she was looking straight ahead, arms crossed. He sighed. "You know how to guilt a man."
"She has been watching the dances with a smile and no one would dare to ask her hand in a dance. Did you not tell me you were to be her confidant? This is what confidants do."
The word confidant was starting to become bothersome, like a throbbing bite of an insect that wouldn't dissipate even with a few hard scratches.
"And you would like me to ask for her hand in a pity dance? Surely that would be more of a bruise to her ego than my denying of it in the first place."
"Richard. Look at her."
He followed her trail of sight. Miss Price swayed slightly from side to side, hands interlaced at her front as she studied the dancers in the middle as if a woman starved of such activities; she looked like a little child, seeing the world for the first time and enjoying what was given.
A bumbling, rude idiot is what you are, he thought, a pain in the back of his throat that swallowing did not appease. Eliza was right.
"I suppose one dance couldn't hurt," he mumbled. Eliza squeezed his arm and he took that encouragement, manifesting it into his steps as he inched closer to the woman. He cleared his throat beside her, getting her attention successfully. "If you were so inclined, might you want to dance?"
Miss Price didn't respond for a while. Her expression did not rise nor fall and he wasn't exactly sure how she felt about his presence there. Or the question he had asked, for that matter.
Then she spoke. "I can't, my lord," she said softly. "I was not lying when I said I could not dance. You say you have two left feet, too."
"Oh, that was merely a saying. An excuse, really." He didn't want to say for what to risk further wounding her. So he changed the topic. "Regardless of your skillset, or the nonexistent levels of it, what better time than now to learn?"
"I would only make a fool of you."
He leaned in to whisper, "A mighty excuse to escape from this suffocating party, then."
Crinkles around her eyes deepened as she flashed a smile. Her gaze then darted over his shoulder. "Lady Delafort would not mind?"
"It is just a dance. This one in particular requires two to four couples, so perhaps she may join us with her own partner."
"You do not want to dance with your fiancee?"
He made a show of an exaggerated eye roll. "Good God, we've danced together so much that I've gotten quite bored of staring at the same face around the dance floor."
"I don't think that's a wise thing to say when she's so close to you."
"Then I suppose we shall keep it a secret."
"Another one?" she asked. "With all these secrets, one day I'm bound to expose them."
"So long as the ones you expose aren't at my expense." Richard then extended his hand. "Shall we, Miss Price?"
She placed her slender hand in his, the colour reminding him of chestnuts on an open fire. Eliza was led by some other man, tall and pale but with a shapely moustache that sat beneath his hooked nose. The three of them shared friendly smiles at one another.
Miss Price turned her head this way and that to survey the couples. "What do I do?" she asked.
"You will know." Vague, sure, but instructing on how to dance during a dance didn't seem very plausible. He gestured for her to stand beside him. There were four couples altogether, including Eliza and her partner opposite them, one couple to his corner and another to Miss Price's. From his peripheral vision, he could see her fist her gown material; she was overwhelmed. "At the beginning, you turn to me, curtsey and then turn and bow to your corner."
"Corner?" she whispered back.
"The man to your right."
"Then, my lord?" The uneasiness dripped from her tone.
"You go forward to Eliza's partner, then back and forward again to take arms and circle one another. The rest will come naturally to you."
"I'm not so sure," she mumbled. He inclined his head slowly, to appease her nerves somewhat though his foot tapped rapidly against the porcelain tiles.
He caught Eliza's eye whose rosy lips quirked up slightly. His stature relaxed, if even just a little bit and her look reminded him to cut the woman some slack.
As the music began, Miss Price did exactly as she was told, body robotically moving.
"Feel the music," he told her as she came back to him.
"I can't."
"What do you mean 'you can't?"
"I mean, I don't know how." The man to her right was already waiting for her as she took speedy steps to meet him before jerkily making her way back.
Richard resisted the urge to chuckle, covering the little noise that came out with a cough. He caught Eliza's eyes again as they came forward, took arms and circled one another.
He could easily read the message in the light green of her orbs: Be nice, Richard.
As they repeated the same steps a couple of times and waited for the third lady and gentleman to do what they had done at the beginning, he noticed Miss Price had become less stiff. The swaying from before had commenced, as if she had now started to enjoy the dance.
"Not so difficult now, is it?" he asked, leaning in to quickly say.
"My palms are wet from sweat and I feel as though I'm going to faint any second," she stated bluntly.
Well, then. He hadn't expected that response. Richard struggled to keep a straight face.
"You're standing upright so that must mean it isn't as dire as you claim it to be."
"That's because even though it is difficult, I am enjoying it," she said with a meek smile. "It's unlike..." she trailed off, shaking her head and humming a little along with the quadrille band.
What an odd woman, he thought to himself for what seemed like the tenth time.
When the dance ended, Richard bowed and Miss Price curtseyed. "You are now adept in one dance. Now there is only twelve more to go!"
"Twelve?" she squeaked out, eyes widening.
"Why of course, did you think it would only end with one? You really are a novice on all things dance." She opened her mouth but scarce but air came out. "Not to worry, Miss Price. It was a jest."
She let out a loud exhalation that caught the eyes of other onlookers. "You scared me, my lord! I was afraid I was going to have to make a fool of myself twelve more times."
Once was certainly sufficient, he thought absentmindedly. He spotted Weston near the back of the hall, skin as red as the red superfine dress coat he wore. He excused himself from Miss Price after she had been approached by Eliza, making sure she was not left alone so that his mother would not turn chew off his ears to a degree where he would never get his hearing back.
"Weston, my friend! Have you been hiding away?"
"From all the women that seem to want to witness my doom," he muttered.
"Ever so dramatic. What has happened now?"
"You remember those two women from earlier?"
"There are many women here, Weston. Do elaborate."
"The ones that were accompanied by a stout man with those dreadful yellow trousers."
The one that looked like he deliberately wanted to stick out of place. Oh, them he remembered. One was young and had hair the colour of the coffee his father used to love to drink and the other was tall and much older with raven hair, so silky he was sure he would see his reflection in it.
Richard pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You mean the younger woman whom kept batting her lashes at you as if there was a pebble stuck in her eyes?"
"Yes, her."
"Well, what about her?"
Weston hesitated, licking his lower lip. "I wasn't certain at first, but they were talking ill about Miss Cavendish—"
"I thought you didn't give a harp about her?"
"I don't, but talking ill about ones character when they are not around to defend themselves is pathetic. I do not stand for it."
Richard very nearly sniggered. Weston clearly didn't understand how contradicting he sounded. "I seem to recall you doing that exact thing the other day at Devonport's."
"That is different."
"Of course, of course. Go on, then, hero."
Weston blew out a breath. "Miss Cavendish had overheard the conversation between them. I felt compelled to follow and apologise since those words were what I'd been thinking for a while."
"And?" asked Richard, expecting him to elaborate. "Has something come from it? A friendship?"
"God no, all I wanted to tell you was that I spoke amiably to Miss Cavendish. I think a friendship may arise between her and Miss Price, however."
"Miss Price?" He couldn't help the shock that had him recoil a little with a jerk. What did she have to do with any of this?
"She was there, comforting the other woman when I had made my presence known."
Richard endeavoured to think this through. She seemed nice enough but too quiet—he didn't know how she would have managed to do that when she barely spoke more than a few sentences.
"Besides," continued Weston, "my interests lay in another."
That was new. "And who would that be?"
"Miss Prescott," he said, cheeks rosying slightly. Richard's neck snapped back.
Tonight was full of surprises. "You sly fox! Did you reserve a dance?"
"Not yet, but I shall."
"Best get to it." He gestured to the suitors eagerly waiting for her to look their way. "She seems to be in demand."
"Competition will do me well, Caldwell. If not tonight, then tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Don't tell me you are to go to that early breakfast affair?"
"The race, yes. What, you're not coming?"
"I have matters to tend to up north. If I do arrive, it'll be much later than that."
"At least come for tea. These parties are mind numbingly boring without a familiar face."
"You haven't a clue as to how true those words are," he mumbled. Mother never said he had to be there from start to finish. Perhaps she would be satisfied with him showing face, like she had tonight.
That way, both parties would benefit. Now came the task of actually convincing her that this would be the case.
***
No one had told him that Lady Margaret and the suffocating Lady Ainsworth would be here, too.
Mother was satisfied, as he had hoped, with his plans. But arriving late hadn't been the problem. It was the attention he brought from those two unwanted guests that was the issue.
Perhaps he should have listened to mother and came early. No one would ask questions if he shirked his duty.
Don't be a fool, he thought to himself as he adjusted his top hat and single breasted vest that sat too tight against his body. Beau was fidgeting about, not invested in conversation and too unfocused to focus.
"What's the matter? You've been floundering about. Don't think I haven't noticed."
He tugged at his arm, pulling him away nearer to the front door he had entered from. "If I ask something of you, will you help?"
"If it is in the realm of my abilities, then of course."
"I need your advice."
"Go on then."
He hesitated. "I was...thinking of telling Lady Harriet how I felt about her. Do you think it wise?"
Richard almost didn't believe him. He watched his brother's expression cast into such greyness that one would mistake him for a man in his fifties, burdened with trivial matters. No, the Beau before him looked a hundredfold matured.
"Huh," he let out unintentionally. "If you are serious about the girl and do not mind risking the nature of your friendship, then I think it's a wonderful idea."
"....Risking our friendship?" he squeaked out, all confidence that he had seen before oozing out from him. Richard winced. Perhaps he shouldn't have said it like that.
"Every confession has its risks, Beau. Yours is one worth fighting against. How long will you hide how you feel? Surely you are not satisfied with merely being a friend?"
"Oh heck no!"
"I beg pardon?"
"Mother's influence on me," he rushed, abashed, "but really, brother, you believe I should go ahead with the plan?"
"Why not give it a try?" He sighed seeing his younger brother run a shaky hand through his hair. "You worry too much, Beau. It's Lady Harriet. How wrong could it possibly go?"
"Thanks," he drawled, "you've made me feel much better about my decision."
"That's what I'm here for," he grinned. "Now tell me, when do you plan to do this?"
"Whenever I see Lady Harriet next which so happens to be tomorrow. I will be seeing her at the house after my private lesson."
"I'll make sure to look out for your face to see how it went. Your expressions give yourself away I'm surrpised she hasn't already caught on to your feelings."
Beau rolled his eyes. Richard squeezed his shoulder before leaving him, mother and Miss Price inside to venture out to where the older men had stood.
Or at least endeavouring to venture out, as his path was blocked by a woman he had never seen before, powder caking the lines in her face.
"You missed the race," she stated.
"I was here in spirit, Mrs...?"
"Not good enough." She turned away. Strange. He blinked and shook his head before continuing on.
Lady Margaret's curls bounced around her face as she rocked on her feet, chattering to Weston who was looking everywhere but at her. Devonport had his time occupied by some other men who tended to their horses a few feet away on the large ground.
"Enjoying a stimulating conversation, I take it?" he asked as he reached them, keeping the mockery out of his tone. Weston, though, picked up on it with a purse of his lips.
"Less so now that you have arrived."
"You wound me, dear friend."
"We were speaking about the race," said Lady Margaret, out of breath. "Miss Prescott defied all the odds and raced against this man and won."
"She did, did she?" he asked, surveying Weston as those words escaped his lips. "A special one, she is. Perhaps you might do the same. A friendly competition. What say?"
"I could never ride a horse, Lord Caldwell. My delicate palms would be scratched from the reins. It is overall too improper for women."
Devonport sauntered over then. "If it isn't Caldwell making an appearance."
"One that is long overdue," he stated.
Lady Margaret said, "I was in the process of telling him all about it. Right, Lord Weston?"
"Uh, yes, I think," came the confused response. He looked to Richard for assistance with wide eyes but he only shared a glance with Devonport who shook his head. Richard rolled his lips in to keep in the laugh.
"We will let you two discuss the race, then," said Devonport, tapping Richard's bicep with the back of his hand.
"Wait, I—"
"You don't want to stay and listen?" she asked.
"We wouldn't want to impose," said Richard, "Weston here would hate if we were to stay."
"And there are other important matters to discuss," added Devonport. "Perhaps we shall indulge in a small game of quiots with the others if they're willing?"
"Wonderful idea!"
Before Weston could stop them, both men turned, laughing amongst themselves as they left the man to fend for himself.
"You think he would survive with Lady Margaret for another minute?" asked Richard, glancing over his shoulder at them.
"I don't think he would last even half a second. He'll be drawing out all the excuses to get away from the woman surely enough."
Abruptly interrupting the conversation was a shrill scream heard from inside. Blood curdled within his skin and his coat suddenly seemed tighter as he hurriedly headed inside the hall.
Grave faces and loud whispers gathered around his Mother who nestled a pale Miss Price on her lap. She looked as though she had awoken from a fainting spell.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"Sh-she fell out of the blue," mother said, shaking her head. "She hadn't eaten at all last night and only drank the lemonade today. It must be because of that."
"We mustn't come to our own conclusions," he said, bending down to help Miss Price up. She stood but her weight was now fully on his left arm. He adjusted so that she was leaning comfortably in a manner that was comfortable for the both of them.
"Might you be able to take her back, Richard?" she asked after they had gone a fair distance away from the crowd. Mother was about to come with but he paused.
"Stay here, Mother," he advised, "you deserve a little break. I'll take care of this."
"Your father," she said, "I would like to go back to him."
"I'm on my way to the manor. I will take care of him." He helped Miss Price, who was still quiet with her lids barely opened as she dragged her feet beside him.
"Are you able to walk at all, Miss Price?"
"I...I'm afraid I can't," came the meek reply. She placed a hand against her forehead, chin trembling.
"Have you not eaten?"
"I could not stomach the food from the party last night. It was..." she trailed off. "I have been feeling ill all day. I didn't know I would cause trouble for you all. I apologise, my lord."
She was becoming frantic as the words left her lips. "Not to worry, Miss Price. I will take you back to the house and call on Dr. Luis to check on you."
Richard gestured for the driver to come over and asked him to gather the carriage around and to them.
This would be a good opportunity for him to properly face his father without anyone else around. To take a good look at his paled face and unmoving figure, except for the light breathing and swallowing he did.