Page 31 of Provoked
Euan nodded. “All right,” he said, but he didn’t move immediately, and a muscle in his cheek shifted.
“Are you?” David asked, frowning. “All right, I mean?”
“Yes, it’s just I’ve never been at something like this before. What if someone—” Euan broke off, as though unsure what the worst thing was that could happen, and looked helplessly at David.
“You’ll be fine,” David assured him. “You have a ticket. You’ve every right to be here. Just circulate and try to get a look at Balfour. I’ll see you back here, at this pillar, at nine o’clock.”
Euan nodded again and this time he moved away, towards Balfour, while David turned on his heel in pursuit of the Chalmers ladies.
After a few minutes of strolling round the ballroom, David found Elizabeth, sitting with a group that included her mother and sister. Forcing aside his usual shyness, David approached, addressing his first remarks to her mother.
“Mrs. Chalmers, how pleasant to see you. I trust you are having a good evening?”
She eyed him coolly but didn’t cut him, thankfully. “I am, Mr. Lauriston. And you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I see your companion is not with you?”
“He was waylaid by an acquaintance,” David fibbed. “So I took the opportunity to come over. I was hoping that one of your lovely daughters might deign to dance with me.” He glanced at the Misses Chalmers and smiled. Elizabeth pinkened. The other one looked amused.
Mrs. Chalmers gestured at her daughters with one satin-gloved hand, as if to say,Well, ask them, then, if you must,and turned back to the older lady she had been speaking with before David’s arrival.
“Would you care to dance, Miss Elizabeth?”
“How kind,” Elizabeth replied, her cheeks scarlet as she consulted her dance card. “I am free for the next set, if that would suit?”
“Excellent. And—” He turned to the other sister whose name he couldn’t remember, pausing for too long before glancing at Elizabeth again. She seemed to realise his difficulty.
“Catherine, do let me see your dance card,” she interjected. “Oh, look, you have the one after next free. That would be perfect as we’re both dancing the set after.” She looked up at David again, eyes twinkling, and said, “Would that suit, Mr. Lauriston?”
He smiled, amused, and said, “Oh, that would suit me very well, Miss Chalmers,” before realising he was really addressing the wrong sister, and turned his attention back to Catherine who was watching him with apparent interest. “If it suits, Miss Catherine, of course,” he added humbly.
Catherine gave him a dry look and assured him it suited her well enough.
He made small talk with the two young ladies for a few more minutes before the next set began, a rather dull country dance that David knew sufficiently to perform confidently. He offered his arm to Elizabeth to lead her onto the floor, and she laid a white-gloved hand on his dark sleeve. She was a small woman, and her fussy blue gown drowned her a little. It had ruffles everywhere: little ones round the neckline and sleeves and three deep ones at the hem. The skirt of the gown seemed to be hampering her as she walked. David had to slow his usual pace to accommodate her. It made her seem fragile to him, and, for a moment, he was almost attracted to her. Not sexually, but to the feeling of protecting someone smaller and weaker than himself.
They joined an incomplete set, smiling at their neighbours and introducing themselves while they waited for the music to start. At last the orchestra began.
“You look very nice this evening, Mr. Lauriston,” Elizabeth said breathlessly on their first pass.
He smiled back. “As do you, Miss Chalmers. That shade of blue looks very well on you.”
That much was true, and David liked the way her eyes sparkled a little at the compliment. She had such a very responsive face. He was never in any doubt as to what she thought. There was something rather intoxicating about making another person so obviously, and easily, happy.
“…your Miss Chalmers is enamoured with you…”
“You are very kind,” she said softly, and the expression on her face was tender and exposed.
“…because you’re beautiful, virtuous and utterly unthreatening…”
David swallowed. All the pleasure he felt in paying Elizabeth a compliment fled. Was he encouraging something he ought not to encourage? Might she interpret his kindness wrongly? And would it be cruel to allow that? He felt suddenly unsure and was glad when the dance parted them.
By the time they came together again, David had himself back under control. He asked after her younger sisters.
“Maria and Jane have been to private dances before, but Mother decided they were too young to come to a public assembly,” Elizabeth said, smiling mischievously. “They are wild with envy over Catherine and I being allowed to come, so although I shall officially remark that they are very well, in truth, they are gnashing their teeth at home with Father.”
David chuckled. “Judging by how much time they spent talking about a much less grand-sounding assembly at dinner a few nights ago, I should imagine that they are quite devastated.”