Page 29 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

He jerked back to the present. The Arthurs were coming up the stairs with Giulia.

They were appropriately dressed, but evidently not people of wealth or distinction.

Giulia was in a beaded garnet-red dress, with dark red silk flowers in her hair.

Not at all debutante-ish. She looked striking, even exotic.

‘Friends of mine,’ he muttered to his mother.

She leaned back to address him behind Rachel’s head. ‘You invited your university friends to my ball?’ She made university sound like music hall with a hint of seraglio .

Giles gave way for once to irritation. ‘I’m paying for this ball – I’ll invite who I damn well please,’ he whispered, and saw his mother flinch.

Her nostrils flared and how dare you? was in every line of her visage, but she couldn’t quarrel with him now.

She greeted the Arthurs with icy propriety.

Rachel, who had no idea who they were, gave them a formal smile and looked over Giulia with quick assessment as she might any rival young lady.

Giles tried to compensate with a hearty handshake and welcome; Mary Arthur raised an eyebrow and gave him an amused look.

He said, ‘I’m very glad to see you here, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves,’ which was as near as he could get to saying, ‘Don’t pay any attention to my mother.’

Mary said, ‘I’m sure you do,’ which was as near she could get to saying, ‘I’m not troubled by her; I expected nothing more.’

Talbot said, ‘Tremendous affair, Stainton.’

Giulia said nothing, gave Giles a blank look as if she had never met him before, and passed on to Uncle Stuffy, next in line and happy not to have to be hosting in Giles’s absence.

When they had moved away, Stuffy grasped Giles’s arm in a vice-like grip, leaned close and whispered hotly into his ear, ‘My God, Giles! Who is that transcendent creature?’

Giles blinked. ‘Which one?’

‘Who do you think I mean? That glorious vision in red,’ Stuffy said impatiently. ‘I’ve never seen such a beauty in all my life! She’s like – she’s like a Russian tsarina. Or an Egyptian princess. She walks like a queen. And those eyes!’

Amused, Giles said, ‘She is the daughter of an Italian professor who was my mentor. Her name is Giulia Lombardi.’

‘Giulia Lombardi.’ He seemed to taste the words. ‘It’s like poetry. It suits her. She could never have been a Dorothy or a Susan. Please tell me she’s not married. Or betrothed.’

‘What an odd question. As far as I know, she is quite unattached.’

‘Good,’ Stuffy said decidedly. ‘Glorious, glorious creature!’

Giles, a little startled, would have asked a question, but the next dignitary had arrived at the line, and he had his duty to do.

After the receiving line, Rachel had enjoyed a flattering rush of candidates for dances with her. Her mother, of course, had overseen her acceptances, at least for everything up to the supper interval. There was an order of precedence, her grim expression told Rachel, even for dancing.

In the brief moment of hiatus before the first dance, her cousin Angus came up to her, looking so handsome in breeches and stockings (he had very good calves, as she knew already from having seen him at home in Scotland in the kilt) that her heart had given an unruly jump.

She gave him her hand and said formally, ‘Mr Tullamore, how nice to see you.’

He was not at all formal. ‘I suppose, with all these terrible foreign dukes clustering round you, you don’t have a dance to spare for a mere mister?’

‘Why terrible?’ she asked, rather enjoying his hint of grumpiness after all the flowery politeness.

‘They have blue chins and they smell of mothballs!’

She laughed. ‘Oh, they do not!’

‘Some of them do. But that’s better – you sound like Rachel again. I was afraid they’d spoiled you with all this.’ He waved a hand around the magnificent room and the glittering throng. ‘However, you do look very, very pretty tonight. If I’m allowed to say so?’

‘You can say what you like to me,’ she said, with a naughty smile. ‘Cousin’s privilege.’

‘Give me a dance, then – cousin.’

‘I’ve nothing left before supper. Ask me again after that.’

‘I can’t wait until then – you’ll fill up your card with blue-chins. Write me in now, so I know.’

‘All right – the second after supper.’

‘Why not the first?’

‘Mama will be bound to buttonhole me at supper and ask me who has the first.’

‘And you’d be ashamed to say it was me?’

‘Don’t go red in the face. It’s not me, it’s her. She’d just cross your name out and write something else in. You don’t know what she’s like.’

‘Oh, I do. She’s a dragon.’

‘Ssh! Here she is with my first partner.’

‘A blue-chin! I knew it!’

‘Hush, she’ll hear you. That’s Prince Ludwig of Fürstenstein. He is a bit blue, now you mention it. I didn’t notice before. I’ll see you later. I must go.’

Alice caught Rachel during a brief moment between dances, standing at the end of the room and fanning herself. ‘Here, let me,’ Alice said, and plied the fan while Rachel turned her face and neck this way and that in the breeze.

‘Oh, thank you! You’re so good at it. Am I very red?’

‘No,’ Alice said. ‘Just a hint of pink in the cheeks where it should be.’

‘Thanks,’ Rachel said. She put a hand up to her head. ‘Is my—’

‘Perfect. Everything’s perfect. Don’t fuss.’

‘Are you having a nice time?’ Rachel asked, straightening her skirt. Alice, not being out, was sitting with the chaperones, and she felt a little guilty.

‘Oh, yes. I like watching people making fools of themselves.’

‘That’s not very kind.’

‘Making fools of themselves over you is what I meant. All the men want to dance with you. They all seem to be in love with you. And you are flirting so madly I can’t tell if you favour any of them.’

‘I’m not flirting,’ Rachel said indignantly. ‘I’m just – being pleasant.’

‘Of course you are,’ said Alice. ‘ Do you favour any of them?’

‘Oh, I don’t want to get serious about anybody yet,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m having too much fun. As soon as you accept someone, it’s all over. I want to have them all running after me for as long as possible.’

Alice nodded. ‘Well, you do it very nicely, I must say. And you look lovely.’

Rachel pressed her arm, touched. ‘Thanks. You’re very sweet. And your turn will come. Next year, this will all be for you.’

Alice laughed. ‘Mother won’t do it for me – and I wouldn’t want it. Don’t worry about me. Just enjoy yourself.’

‘I will – except for the next dance. Mother made me accept Paul Usingen, and I hate him. He creaks when he bends, and he has breath like deathly coffins.’

‘Hide,’ said Alice. ‘Look, if you stand behind this flower tub when the music starts, he might not find you.’

Giles had danced, as he was bidden by his mother, with various girls who, for one reason or another, found themselves without a partner.

After circling with a very young debutante who answered every attempt he made at conversation in a terrified whisper, he determined to have a break from them.

He saw Giulia not far off, unpartnered at the side of the room.

He had invited her, and it was his responsibility to see that she did not feel left out.

He went up to her, bowed, smiled, and said, ‘I should count it a great honour if you would dance the next with me.’ The thought came to him that she was like a wild rose, though with her dark eyes and mass of dark hair he could not quite determine why that was. ‘Will you?’ he urged.

The tint of red in her cheeks deepened, and her eyes were bright. She looked at him scaldingly. ‘No,’ she said.

He was taken aback. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I do not wish to dance with you, my lord. You will excuse me.’ And she walked away.

Someone chuckled behind him, and he turned to find Richard there. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he said. ‘What a set-back! Thank God no-one’s ever refused me like that! What on earth did you do to make her so angry with you?’

‘Nothing!’ Giles said vehemently.

‘It must have been something. Come on, you can tell me. I swear I won’t repeat it.’

Giles hesitated, but Richard understood women much better than him, and he knew he was to be trusted with a secret. He lowered his voice. ‘I kissed her,’ he said, feeling his face grow hot.

‘Oh, you dog!’

‘Don’t look like that! I didn’t mean it to happen. It was on the spur of the moment. And I apologised,’ he went on quickly. ‘Over and over. I told her it was a terrible aberration on my part and I was heartily ashamed, and I promised it would never happen again.’

Richard struggled not to laugh. ‘Oh, my God, you really don’t know anything about women, do you?’

‘You needn’t laugh,’ Giles said angrily.

‘When you kissed her, did she try to stop you? Did she struggle?’

‘No – in fact, she seemed to like it. But what has that to do with it? I should never have done it.’

‘Agreed. But then you compounded the error by apologising.’

‘How is an apology wrong?’

‘A woman can forgive a man for sinning, but not for hurting her pride.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Giles said in exasperation.

‘Try to see it from her point of view. You kissed her, and perhaps she’d been hoping you would – you are quite a handsome chap, after all.

Not in the same class as me, but I can see how some women might fancy you.

But then you told her it was the worst mistake of your life, and you would never repeat it for any consideration.

Are you surprised she’s furious with you? ’

‘Then – what was I supposed to say?’

‘You should have said you’d been overcome with uncontrollable passion.

That not to kiss her again would be a titanic struggle against your most powerful urges.

That the memory of the kiss would illuminate even your deathbed.

Instead you gave her to understand she was a deplorable lapse of taste on your part and that you felt only shame and loathing. ’

‘For myself, not her.’