small group across the floor. ‘I expect we are refining too much upon it.’ She collected herself and observed, ‘Here comes Lord Carmichael.’
Charlton was, indeed, making his way towards them, laurel wreath slipping dangerously on his balding pate, toga draped like a vast bath towel.
‘Ma’am.’ He bowed to Lady Freshford and glared at his sister. ‘Dessy.’
‘I hope you have not come to ask me to dance, Charlton,’ Decima remarked, sounding regrettably pert to her own ears. ‘I believe I have virtually nothing left but country dances and you certainly cannot perform those in that costume.’
‘Of course I am not intending to dance,’ Charlton fumed. He took Decima’s arm and steered her away from Lady Freshford’s seat. ‘I attended only to accompany Hermione and to remonstrate with you about where your duty should lie.’
‘If Hermione had invited me to join her in London when I was with you at Christmas, I would most certainly have been glad to oblige her.’ Decima had qualms about whether that was the truth, but she was not going to refine upon the matter now. ‘But to expect me to change my plans and to inconvenience Lady Freshford, who has been most kind to me, at no notice whatsoever—why, Charlton, that is the outside of enough.’
Her brother began to splutter, then his face went rigid. Decima was conscious of a presence close behind her and somehow knew who it was before he spoke. ‘Miss Ross, Carmichael, good evening.’
‘Lord Weston.’ She turned and dropped a slight curtsy. ‘May I say what a very fine costume group your party makes.’
‘Why, thank you, Miss Weston. You present the most elegant of willow trees, if I may be so bold. And, Lord Carmichael, what an admirable guise! But where is your barrel?’
‘Barrel?’ Charlton boggled at Adam ‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Why, you are representing Archimedes, are you not? At the point where you have leapt out of the barrel, wrapped a bath towel around yourself and cried “Eureka”?’
Charlton was becoming puce. Hastily Decima intervened before he had the threatened stroke. ‘My brother is representing a Roman emperor, my lord. Surely you observe the wreath upon his brow?’
It was very hard to control her laughter. She fixed Adam with an imploring look and he took her arm.
‘But enough of costumes. My dance, I think, Miss Ross; we must make haste or miss the opening notes.’
The formal sets of a cotillion were not the best place to remonstrate with one’s partner, but Decima did her best as they came together and parted.
‘How could you? Bath towel indeed!’
‘A genuine mistake,’ Adam observed as the measure brought him back to her side.
‘That, my lord, is a complete untruth,’ she scolded.
‘True,’ he agreed maddeningly.
‘And this is not your dance, either,’ she added.
‘Was it anyone else’s?’
‘No,’ she conceded, ‘but that is not the point. You are extremely autocratic, my lord.’
They were swept apart by the dance. When he took her hand again Adam was serious. ‘Will you give in to your brother on his demands to stay with him?’
‘No.’ Decima shook her head decisively. ‘It makes me feel guilty to defy him—he is the head of the family, after all—but I resolved to be independent, and I will be.’
‘Good.’ The smile came back to Adam’s face and with it a warm glow filled her. His approval meant so much—and it should not, she knew it. She should be guided only by her own conscience and her own sense of duty.
As the dance came to an end he retained her hand as they walked off the floor. Decima turned to thank him and was shocked into silence as he lifted her hand and, turning it in his, dropped a light kiss on the skin of her wrist where the buttons of her long gloves parted.
‘Good,’ he repeated. ‘I would hate to think I had misjudged you, Decima.’ And then he was gone, leaving her blushing on the edge of the dance floor. She was only a few steps from Lady Freshford, but Decima felt as though she had been abandoned in the midst of a throng of critical strangers. She glanced round wildly, expecting to see the chaperons all pointing at her and hissing about her wanton behaviour, allowing her bare wrist to be caressed in public.
But no one was looking at her, not even Lady Freshford, who was chatting animatedly to a friend. Still hot-cheeked, Decima escaped to the retiring room and retreated behind a screen to peer anxiously into a mirror and try to restore her countenance. A word of thanks sent the hovering maid away, leaving her alone.
This would not do, it really would not. She was relying too much upon Adam’s approval, his very presence, for her happiness and that was madness. He obviously felt so little for her that it never occurred to him that paying her attention might rouse unsuitable feelings in her breast.
Presumably now he was engaged to be married he was able to put aside their lovemaking in the hunting lodge and assumed she could do so as easily. And yet he had seemed jealous of Henry’s attachment to her. Men were very strange; she must have another talk with Henry.
Decima sighed and began to twirl strands of hair, that had lost a little curl in the warmth of the ballroom, between finger and thumb. They really needed the application of a hot iron again, but the fruitless exercise at least offered her some excuse for not going back out again for a few minutes.
The outer door opened. ‘Good evening. May I assist you, ladies?’ The maid had obviously stepped forward and this time was requested to find needle and thread for a torn hem. It was Mrs Channing, and as she chatted to her companion, loftily ignoring the maid’s presence, it was obvious that the possessor of the damaged dress was Olivia.
‘You must try for a little more poise and grace, Olivia. Your hurly-burly manner of going about things was bound to result in some damage to your gown. It is fortunate that it was only a sight tear at the hem.’
‘I am sorry, Mama, but there was such a crush of people…’
‘You should have stood your ground. You are a lady, it is up to them to make way for you, not for you, engaged to a viscount, to step back in that clumsy self-effacing way. You will have to learn to be more assertive when you are married, my girl.’
‘Yes, Mama, but…’
‘Do not argue, Olivia!’ Decima rolled her eyes at her own reflection. How did the woman expect the girl to behave if she browbeat her every time she tried to speak?
‘You should try for a little more presence. You could do worse than to copy Miss Ross.’
‘But she is older than me, Mama. She knows her way about in the world…’
‘She is an unmarried woman—I certainly hope she does not know her way about, as you so inelegantly put it, Olivia. I mean that she has poise and a certain something.’ Praise indeed! Decima suppressed a gasp of sheer amazement. Mrs Channing’s approbation was an unexpected honour.
‘Mind you,’ the matron continued forcibly, ‘she has so many faults to overcome that she must have had to learn to make the most of all her good points. And, of course, nothing could possibly win her a husband. Not with her height and those freckles. I wonder if I should recommend Delcroix’s Crème des Sultanes to her? I hear it worked wonders for Mrs Pettigrew’s youngest.’
‘Oh…perhaps she might take it amiss?’ Olivia ventured, earning an unseen, but vigorous nod of agreement from Decima. She should have known better than to expect unalloyed praise from that source!
There was a further flurry of activity from the other side of the screen and then the sound of the door opening and closing. Decima gave her hair a last tweak and stepped out from her concealment to find Olivia, alone except for the maid