“Yes…and no. I live here with my aunt and cousin most of the year, but my home is in Hampshire. My father has a country vicarage.”
This knowledge only added to her intriguing charm. He could at once envision her in the perfect tranquility of a pastoral setting, with the beauty of nature surrounding her, accentuating and enlivening that spirit of confident goodness and purity that seemed to animate her. He observed with fresh insight the yellow rosebud nestled in her hair at her temple.
“I am to go home next Thursday,” she continued with the wistful eagerness of a child. “So, you see, I have been a little preoccupied with the thought of it,” she explained with a tinge of guilt at the remembrance of his earlier remark.
“And I imagine there are no grand ballsthereto distract one,“ he added, raising a brow in mock accusation.
A soft burst of laughter bubbled up from her throat and caused her lips to part in undisguised gaiety. “No…indeed!”
A stab of potent feeling charged through Mr. Thornton’s body. The sound of her spontaneous joy was clear, sonorous, and vibrant. He thought it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard and fought the urge to pull her closer and tighten his grasp.
“You’re not from London,” she conjectured, averting her gaze as a warm blush rose to her face under his close scrutiny.
“No, I’m from the North. I’ve come here on business,” he answered in faint amusement that his Darkshire accent should so easily distinguish him from the crowd.
“I’ve not been north. Is there much beauty in the landscapes of your home?” she asked with a casual air, endeavoring to ignore the quickening patter of her heart at the warm clasp of their gloved hands and the forced intimacy of his possessive hold at her waist.
A wry smile twisted his lips. “There are rolling fields and a few streams in the surrounding countryside, which are very pleasant in the spring and summer. However, I’m afraid I dwell among the structures and scenery of an industrial town, which is not recommended for its beauty.”
“Oh,” she replied, faintly bewildered at his reply. She could not imagine that anyone would choose to live where there was nothing of nature’s wonders to brighten and inspire the spirit.
The lilting music and matching rhythm of their synchronized steps spun a spell of enchanted intimacy as they continued to dance in silence. Both lamented the impending notes of the gentle rallentando and reluctantly brought their patterned motions to a halt as the final sustained scrape of the violin’s bow signaled the concluding note.
Mr. Thornton bowed to his partner and offered his arm to her with perfect propriety. Distinctly pleased to feel her gentle grasp on his sleeve, he escorted her through the crowd toward the column where he had first found her. The girl at his side proclaimed the sight of her cousin, and he followed her indicated gaze, leading them closer to a fair-haired beauty swathed in an elaborate and delicate gown of white tulle and lace.
Swarmed by a gathering milieu of hopeful suitors, Edith took no notice of her country relation’s approach. Upon theestranged couple’s arrival at the scene, Margaret’s small hand withdrew from her escort’s arm. Mr. Thornton felt at once a cold emptiness as their connection was severed.
“I thank you for the privilege of a dance,” he uttered with a proper bow, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment with a flustered smile.
He hesitated. A scattering array of half-formed sentences and urgent inquiries hung on his tongue, but he closed his lips firmly, dropped his gaze, and forced himself to turn and leave. His limbs moved with an awkward weight of reluctance as he pressed through the tangled throngs of elegant vanity.
He rejoined the company of his hosts and entered once again into the atmosphere of superficial conversation. He smiled and nodded as others did. To all outward appearances, he remained unchanged. No one engaging him in light banter suspected the current of distraction that swept through his silent thoughts.
Never before had he been roused to pay such attention to a woman. He chided himself for being so swayed by the pull of feminine allure. The novelty of the sensation coursing through him was pleasantly unnerving, confounding him with contradictory pulses of reasoned dismissal of this intrigue and the startlingly potent desire to know with every breath where she was and to whom she would next give her attention. He was resolved, however, not to fall to impulse. With concentrated effort, he refrained from turning his head to search for a glimpse of her.
For Margaret, the entire atmosphere of the room had changed. A fascinating energy charged the air now that she knew he was present. She paid scant attention to the small crowd attending her cousin while she waited for Edith to notice her. A fluttering in her stomach rose to quicken her heartbeat as she dared to dart her eyes about in search of him.
There he was! Even from afar, he seemed to exude a natural confidence. A flicker of some restless emotion made her eyes gleam as she watched him converse with an attractive woman with apparent pleasure.
“Oh, there you are, Margaret!” Edith declared, brushing past her admirers to lay a gloved hand on Margaret’s arm. “Such a headache as I have, you cannot imagine,” she uttered in whispered tones of self-pitying gravity. “Let us depart at once. Will you call for the coach?”
As the carriage jerked forward, Edith sank back into the velvet cushions with the wearied manner of a monarch. “Ned Harrelson has tested me beyond endurance with his provoking manners and affectation to be my preferred suitor. I shall not want to go to dinner at Helen Gibson’s if he will be lurking about,” she announced with emphatic annoyance.
Margaret smiled vaguely at her cousin’s complaint and turned her face to the window, assured that Edith’s distress would be remarkably alleviated by the time they reached Harley Street. Edith’s continued mutterings faded into a distant drone as Margaret gazed with familiar solitude at the passing scenery of the city.
A full moon painted doors and iron-guarded mansions in shadowed blue light. She pondered the gloom of her own discontent as her eye caught fleeting glints of light from paneled windows where sleeping occupants lay oblivious to the night’s celestial display.
On any other evening, she would have been glad of the opportunity to escape the tedious hours of well-ordered elegance and relegated gaiety. What was it that would have kept her there tonight?
Her thoughts riveted on the answer. She recalled the brilliance of her last dance partner’s smile as she had answered his forthright inquiries. But the image of him conversing with another with satisfied ease rose to mar the temporal pleasure of her musings. He might dance with scores of others that evening with the same finesse and dignity. How foolish it was to imagine that he had treated her with any special consideration.
She lifted her eyes to the moon, which had doffed its common appearance for one altogether radiant and gloriously transcendent. Its steady mystery recalled her to childhood comforts and the memory of walking in moonlit freedom on the meadows surrounding the vicarage. She smiled in hopeful tranquility as she turned her thoughts to Helstone—to home.
Mr. Thornton tugged off his starched shirt, eager to doff the last remnant of society’s restrictive clothing in the humid air of the small room he had rented for his lodgings.Bending to scoop scented basin water in both hands, he lingered in the luxury of bathing his face in the refreshing coolness. Careless of the dripping water that traced paths over the contours of his chest as he stood up, he wiped the excess dampness off his brow and set the towel down.
He snuffed out the light, and turned to the wide bed that filled the simple, uncluttered room. Casting aside the layers of bed coverings, he settled himself upon the cotton sheets and let out his breath in the dim silence.
Lying on his back, with his hands restfully folded across his midriff, he waited with closed eyes for sleep to take him as it usually did within minutes of his lying down for this much-deserved rest.
