Page 28 of One Perfect Dance
“You cannot imagine how delighted I am to see you,” Regina said as soon as the last of the guests disappeared. “I have been worried, and then when I saw in the paper that you had arrived… But they said you reached London just yesterday! And yet here you are! So soon. I mean, not soon. Such a long time after your last letter.”
Her blush was adorable. Ash wondered how far down her chest the color flowed. “I have sent several, but I thought them unlikely to arrive before me, if at all. They will have been passed from one petty potentate’s messenger service to another. And those I sent in Russia are probably in the hands of the tsar’s secret police. I did send one from Rotterdam, but…” He shrugged. “I am sorry you were worried.”
That was not true. He was delighted she cared enough to worry.Which does not mean she will see a nobody like you as a desirable suitor. She is a viscount’s daughter, wealthy, and a beautiful woman, besides. And you were raised the next best thing to a servant.
Regina’s blush deepened. “Your letters have meant so much to me, Elijah. You cannot imagine.”
She looked down at her clasped hands. “I suppose I should call you Mr. Ashby.”
“Perhaps in public,” ordained Mrs. Austin, “but since you and Mr. Ashby have been friends since childhood, and the friendship was encouraged by dear Gideon, calling one another by your personal names would be entirely acceptable in private.”
“If you say so, cousin,” Regina replied, “I know it must be true.” She looked up through her lashes at Ash, smiling, and his throat was suddenly dry. “It does seem silly to call you Mr. Ashby when we have been Regina and Elijah to one another for decades.”
“Not in public, however,” Mrs. Austin warned. “Mr. Ashby, you can expect to be invited everywhere, for you and Lord Arthur are great favorites in Society, and I daresay you have many stories to tell. Are you planning to stay in England for long?”
“I have not made plans,” Ash said, honestly, but his eyes were on Regina, and if his mind was still thinking of all the reasons why she would not be interested in a man like him, his heart had already decided he would not leave England again without discovering whether he and Regina might possibly have a future.
Regina sent for refreshments, and Ash spent another hour in that pleasant drawing room talking about everything under the sun. He only left when Mrs. Austin reminded Regina of an evening engagement. Before going, however, he gained Regina’s agreement to ride out the next day. Somehow, between now and then, he had to beg, buy, or borrow a carriage.
Chapter Twelve
Regina went upto change for dinner, her mind full of Elijah, comparing him to the boy she knew when they were both children and the young man with whom she had walked at her ball. This new version of the man took her breath away. He was taller, broader, far more confident. But he still had the charm and kindness of those earlier selves. He still spoke with her rather than to her, as if she had ideas and opinions of her own that he was interested in hearing.
Regina had had her fill of encounters in which her role was listener and her supposed admirer’s idea of a conversation comprised a self-interested monologue with easy compliments scattered like raisins in a stodgy dough.
It didn’t hurt that Elijah was handsome and a bachelor.Pull yourself together, Regina. Undoubtedly, now that he is back in England, he will be looking for a young bride—not a long-in -the-tooth widow. It was not, by all accounts, as if he needed her money, unlike most of the suitors who had made respectable offers since she returned to Society.
She pasted a smile on her face and went downstairs to present herself for inspection to Mary Austin, who looked up from her book for long enough to say all the right things.
Mary was a distant cousin of Gideon’s, and his pensioner. The elderly widow had traveled several days by stagecoach to pay her respects at Gideon’s funeral and had afterwards come down with an ague. She and Regina had had a fortnight together before she was well enough to return to her home and had kept up their relationship by correspondence.
When Mary commented she had never been to London, Regina had invited her. “I will enjoy the company,” she had said. Mary had agreed on condition that she would not be expected to attend everything Regina went to. “I am not as young as I used to be,” she said. “My idea of a pleasant evening is a warm fire, a good book, and a cup of tea.”
“The Stancrofts this evening, is it not?” she said, after Regina had twirled around to show her all sides of her gown and hair. “You shall have a pleasant time, then.”
“You are most welcome to come, Mary,” Regina reminded her.
“Thank you, dear, but the opera three nights ago was my late evening for the week. Today, too, has been very exciting, with your young man returning from abroad. I do like him, Regina.”
There was a stir in the hall, and then a familiar but unexpected face appeared around the edge the door. “Here you are, Mother. Cousin Mary.”
“Geoffrey? Come in, darling. What on earth are you doing here?”
The boy opened the door further so he could enter. He was at the tall and gangly stage, fast transitioning to adulthood. He could not really have grown three inches since she saw him at Christmas, could he?
“Come and sit down. Have you eaten?” He was probably hungry. He seemed to always be hungry.
“I should not sit down in my dirt, Mother. I will just go up and change, shall I?”
Now that she came to look at him, Geoffrey was a bit disheveled, his coat dusty and his cravat limp and crumpled.
“Very well, dearest. Just tell me why you are in London during term time.” She narrowed her eyes. “You have not been sent down, have you?”
Geoffrey flushed.He has been sent down. “Geoffrey!”
“It is not like that,” he protested. “Well, it is. But there were reasons.”
Regina nodded. “You shall tell me about them. Go and wash, my dear, and I will order your dinner.”
