Page 70 of One Perfect Dance
Regina wanted to lean back, to rest her hand on his chest, but that might be a bit much even for this suddenly supportive audience. She folded her hands in her lap to keep them out of trouble. “Thank you for coming.”
“I thought you were going to scold me for not staying in my bed,” he admitted.
“I am just too pleased to have you here.”
He reached a hand to touch her arm. “Has it been difficult, my love?”
“Not awful,” she reassured him. “In any social event, there are those who come to pick fault. None of them did so to my face, Elijah. And your arrival appears to have disarmed even them. With you at my side, I do not care. Let us give them no more of our dance.”
“I agree. Let’s talk about us, Ginny. When and where do you want to wed? And can it be soon?”
*
Regina had alwaysbeautiful. The sprite who had captured a part of Ash’s heart when he was a boy and garnered more over the long years of his correspondence, now held the entire organ in her kind and capable care.
That she had given him her heart in return seemed a miracle almost beyond believing. This evening, he saw her glow with love, and knew he had been granted that miracle.
What had been added to her loveliness was not the gown in the finest silk, the exact blue of her eyes, though that was a perfect setting for the smooth pale perfection of her throat and shoulders. Nor was it the intricate styling of her hair, dressed high on her head and adorned with some of the pretty trinkets he had sent from the far-flung corners of the world.
It was her eyes that made her more stunning than ever before, or rather the look in her eyes when she smiled at him. The message of love and desire passed between them in their gaze, not needing spoken words to be received and understood.
Indeed, in the half hour of the set, they spoke little. They agreed they would wed by common license within the next few weeks. “Perhaps we could dance at our wedding breakfast,” Ginny suggested.
Leaning close enough to keep his remark private, Ash commented, “The waltz, while we are still in company, and then Adam’s jig, which is also dance for two, but a more private one.”
“I think you are being naughty,” Ginny said. “Are you?”
He wrinkled his nose at her and mimed a kiss. “I am thinking very wicked thoughts, my Ginny.”
After that, they fell silent, not wishing to shout their feelings to be heard over the music nor to continue the intimacy of heads close together, lest they attract comment that would sully the moment.
A smile, a twinkle of the eye, a press of the hand. These would have to do for the moment, and they were enough for Ash, for soon they would have a lifetime in which to express their love in every possible way.
Towards the end of the set, they were jarred out of their absorption with one another by the arrival of Lady Kingsley and her son. “After this display,” Lady Kingsley said, when she managed to call them back into a consciousness of their surroundings, “no one will doubt you have a love match. What better way to seal the approval of Society than to announce the betrothal?”
Ash had to approve the older woman’s grasp of strategy. “I am willing to shout our betrothal from the rooftops, but the decision must be Mrs. Paddimore’s,” he said.
Ginny met his warm smile with one of her own. “William, will you make the announcement?” she asked. “Before supper, if you please.”
Her brother bowed and went off to talk to the conductor of the orchestra as the dance came to a close.
Lady Kingsley moved to stand behind the sofa, one hand resting on Ash’s shoulder. Geoffrey Paddimore came striding over. “Are they going to do it,” he asked his step-grandmother.
“William is going to announce it now, dear,” Lady Kingsley said. “Come and stand next to me, Geoffrey, behind your mother.”
At a signal from the conductor, the pianist played a series of loud chords and William held up his hand to ask for silence. When everyone was looking in his direction, he began to speak in a booming voice, even as he walked across the floor towards Regina and Ash.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to disclose something that has become an open secret to Society, and particularly to all of you here present, who have seen with your own eyes the attachment between my sister and our childhood friend, Mr. Elijah Ashby, which we have all witnessed developing since Mr. Ashby returned to England.
“As her brother, it is my privilege to announce to you all this evening that Regina Paddimore has accepted Mr. Ashby’s offer of marriage.” He had reached the sofa and flung out his hand with a magician’s flourish. “Ladies and gentlemen, the betrothed couple!”
Chapter Thirty
The attack camein the half-light of dawn. The first Regina knew of it was a crash, mingled with the sound of broken glass. She was out of bed and searching for her pistol before she heard the thud of boot heels and the bang of doors being thrown back against walls. Shouting, too, some of it from Wilson, calling the footmen to defend the stairs to the upper floors.
She grabbed a shawl to wrap around her and hurried down to the next floor, just in time to encounter Geoffrey and Elijah, both carrying guns.
She put a hand on Elijah’s chest and protested, “You should not be up.”
