He inclined his head. "My aunt's ball always was one of the grandest affairs of the year, Miss Jamieson," he said. He did not smile, Jane noticed.
"The next dance is to be a waltz," Honor said, turning to Lady Pendleton and smiling brightly. "I am so glad you included several this evening, ma'am. It is such a divine dance."
"I have been told that no ball is fashionable if it is not included," Lady Pendleton said with a smile. "I do hope you have been granted permission to dance it, my dear."
"Oh yes," Honor assured her breathlessly. "Lady Jersey was gracious enough to give me her approval almost two weeks ago."
"You are fortunate," her hostess said. "Some young ladies have to go through their entire first Season without the chance to practice the steps they have learned so diligently at home."
"Miss Matthews," the quiet, low voice of Viscount Fairfax said, "would you honor me with your hand for this set? If you have no previous commitment, that is."
Foolishly Jane glanced at Honor, almost as if she were about to ask her permission. That young lady's fan had ceased its motion and her mouth gaped a little.But only for a moment.She smiled brightly as Jane turned to the viscount.
"Thank you, my lord," she said. "I am free for this set."
He held out a hand to her, and she placed her own on top of it.
"You are a lucky chap, Michael," Lord Pendleton said with a wink. "This is the supper dance."
Jane felt as if she were in the middle of a dream. The handbeneath her ownwas slim yet quite firm. She was actually touching him. Lord Fairfax! He stopped when they had walked a few feet onto the dance floor. The music was beginning already. She turned to face him and found that she had to tilt her head back to look into his face. Her head reached only to his chin. She placed her left hand on one of his broad shoulders and the other in his outstretched hand. His right hand came to rest firmly behind her waist. She concentrated on following his lead as he began to dance.
It was pure accident that she had been presented to him. She really did not know Lord Pendleton well. He had merely been playing the courteous host. And Lord Fairfax must have felt obliged to invite her to dance.Her, rather than Honor.Of course, she had been presented first. Tomorrow he probably would not know her again if he met her at another function. But there was this half-hour that she was to spend with him.And supper afterward.It would be something to remember. Five years before, she would have been ready to swoon quite away at such an unexpected encounter. Jane smiled to herself at her own veryschoolgirlishresponse to a perfectly ordinary occurrence.
"You waltz very well," the viscount said. "You must have had some practice."
"Actually I was shamed into learning the waltz," Jane said. "The first few times I tried, I tripped all over my partners' feet. Then one young man told me to relax and feel the music in my bones. He said dancing with me was somewhat like dragging around a sack of meal. I thought him impertinent at the time."
His left eyebrow rose. "And you do not now?" he asked. "I hope you gave him a thorough set-down."
"Oh, undoubtedly I did," Jane replied. "He was my brother."
She expected him to laugh at the absurd story. She felt uncomfortable when he did not even smile.
"How do you take to London after living in the North of England?" he asked. "Are you quite dazzled by the splendor of it all, or do you find yourself longing for the peace and quiet of the countryside?"
Jane considered. "A little of both," she said. "I certainly would not like to live permanently in town or even to come here annually during the Season. But once in a while it is pleasant to have all the activity and the crowds around you. I would not say I am dazzled. I was here five years ago, you see, and discovered then that nothing is essentially changed when one moves to a different setting. I suppose it is because one has to take oneself with one. It is a lowering thought to realize that."
"You sound as if you do not enjoy your own company, Miss Matthews," Fairfax remarked.
"On the contrary," she said. "I have learned a great deal in five years. And one thing I have learned is to like myself. If we cannot like ourselves, we can hardly expect anyone else to do so, can we?"
"I suppose not," he said. "Sometimes it is difficult, though. To likeoneself, I mean."
Jane smiled and was suddenly very aware of his blue eyes looking directly into hers, and from so very close. She broke eye contact with him in some confusion and glanced around her. She was just in time to see Honor being led onto the dance floor by Ambrose Leighton. Why was he so late claiming her? But the answer was clear to Jane almost before the question was formed in her mind. Honor must have excused herself from her obligation to him, certain that the viscount would solicit her hand for this set. How humiliated she must feel to be caught thus on the sidelines, minus the partner she had been so sure of.
"Do you miss your daughters, my lord?" she asked, turning back to her partner. "I understand you left them in the country."
His eyebrows rose. "You know of them?" he asked.
Jane felt herself flushing. "I daresay everyone in thetonknows as much," she said. "You may not arrive in London and expect to remain anonymous, you know."
"I had forgotten," he said. "I thought I would be quite the stranger here for a while. It is years since I was last here. In fact, it must have been the year you were here. It is strange that we never met. But you asked about my daughters. Yes, I do miss them. They are a constant source of delight to me. The elder is only four. However, they are in the hands of a nurse who lavishes all the love of her heart on them. She was my nurse too, and I can vouch for the fact that they will receive the best of care."
Conversation between them flowed with surprising ease for the rest of the waltz and for the first part of the supper while they sat alone. She told him of her life on the Yorkshire moors, a life which was saved from loneliness by the presence of a village close by and the homes of her brother and sister and her numerous nieces and nephews. He told her something about his estate in Hampshire. She found him quite charming. Although he had solicited her company only out of politeness, he did not give the appearance of boredom or eagerness to be gone in order to find himself a more attractive partner. She had expected somehow that he would be a trifle arrogant.
Fairfax was not bored. In fact, he was beginning to relax somewhat. He felt quite fortunate in his first choice of partner. Not that Miss Matthews was the sort of female he would have chosen if he had been able to look around him freely. She was not a girl in her first bloom and there was nothing remarkably pretty about her. That little cousin of hers was far more to his taste. But sometimes good manners had to take precedence over personal inclination. His uncle had presented her first, the dancing was about to begin, and he had felt obliged to ask if she were free.
He had thought he was to be stuck with a silly partner for all of one waltz and the supper when she had told the story about her brother. But it was not so. In fact, she seemed to be a woman of some sense. Years before, when he was single, he had put up with all sorts of feminine silliness. And the sillier the female, it had seemed, the more she had to say. Strangely, he had not minded at the time. Empty-headed,vaporishgirls had made him feel more masculine and virile, he supposed. But he did not think he would be able to stand that now that he was older.
