Page 81 of Gallant Waif
His uneven footsteps echoed as he led her out on to the deserted dance floor. He finally released her arm, but took her hand instead. Bowing, he kissed it lightly. Kate stared at him in a daze. He grinned at her, a wicked, tender grin.
“Courage, love,” he whispered as he straightened up. “Let’s show them that an old cripple and a gallant war heroine are not beaten by a paltry bit of gossip.”
He nodded to the band. Kate followed his glance. Sir Toby was standing over the band in a very determined manner. He smiled and waved, then turned back to the band. The music started.
Kate’s eyes misted as she looked up into the handsome face bent over her. She had been prepared to withstand anything—scorn, mockery, disgust, revilement. His kindness had undone her.
Jack determinedly stumped his way through the intricate steps, his bad leg making a clumsy mockery of the movements. Kate gracefully performed her part, making adjustments for his limp where she could.
Jack’s eyes never left her face. Her head was held high, but she danced blindly. No one in the audience could see the tears which trickled down her cheeks unheeded. Jack wished he could take her in his arms, wished that strait-laced English society would bend their rules sufficiently to adopt the scandalous Viennese dance which was all the rage in Europe. Jack smiled at her tenderly. Yes, it would be wonderful to hold Kate in his arms for a waltz.
The ballroom might have been deserted, the audience silent ghosts. Only the strains of the band playing, the clumping of Jack’s shoes and the faint shuffle of Kate’s tiny satin slippers could be heard at first, then the murmuring started again.
The dance ended, but under Tubby’s supervision the next one started almost immediately. As the second dance drew to a close, Jack bent over her hand again and murmured, “Two dances are my limit, I’m afraid. A third and people will begin to think you are fast.”
Kate stared at him, stupefied. She was being pilloried as a whore and a traitress, and he was concerned that three dances with the same partner would label herfast!A bubble of hysteria rose in her throat. The music started again.
“My dance, I believe, Miss Farleigh. Off with you now, Carstairs. This lady is promised to me.” The whole room heard him, but without waiting for a reply Francis swung Kate into a country dance.
There was still no one else on the dance floor.
“Miss Farleigh, would you do me the honour of partnering me in the next dance?” A young man bowed over Kate’s nerveless fingers. He was dressed in immaculate evening attire, one empty sleeve pinned neatly back. Kate stared at him dumbly.
“You may not remember me, Miss Farleigh, but we met at Badajoz. Arnold Bentham at your service. Francis’s cousin.”
Kate glanced at his empty sleeve. The young man smiled. “No, Miss Farleigh, that arm I lost at Salamanca. You saved the other one at Badajoz, and I offer it now at your disposal. Shall we?” With his one remaining arm, Arnold Bentham swept Kate into the next dance.
Two other couples joined them on the dance floor—Francis and Andrew Lennox and their partners. There was no sign of Jack.
“Miss Farleigh, may I present my son as a desirable partner? He…he is a little out of practice, but I’m sure you will not mind that.” The well-modulated voice broke.
Kate turned, then stopped dead. Her prospective partner stood very still, smiling in her general direction, his hand resting on the arm of a middle-aged woman.
Kate’s face crumpled. It was too much. All this unexpected kindness. All this support. And now this.
It was Oliver Greenwood. Oliver Greenwood, whom she had first met as a terrified young lieutenant at Torres Vedras, with blood gushing all over his face. She had visited him several times since she had come to London, but he was the last person she’d expected to see at a ball. Oliver Greenwood was blind.
“Miss Farleigh, I would be most honoured if you would stand up with me,” said Oliver Greenwood, bowing in her direction.
Kate glanced at Mrs Greenwood. His mother’s face was working with emotion. She nodded at Kate, her eyes filled with tears.
Kate curtseyed. “The honour would be all mine,” she whispered through a mist of tears, and took her place.
Immediately they were surrounded as others joined the set. Francis, Tubby, Andrew Lennox and others, unknown to Kate, some whose faces were vaguely familiar to her, others who were clearly friends of Oliver Greenwood. And their partners, girls for the most part unknown to Kate, girls who smiled encouragingly at her and nodded their heads.
Somehow they got through the dance, Oliver being gently steered in the right direction by his fellow officers, and Kate too, for by this time she was completely blinded by her tears.
And by the time it finished she was not the only person with wet eyes.
“May I escort you to your guardian, Miss Farleigh?” said Oliver Greenwood.
“Not yet, young Greenwood,” a bluff voice boomed heartily from behind them. “I want to talk to this young lady.”
“Sir!” All the young officers snapped instantly to attention, Oliver Greenwood included.
Kate turned. Jack and a man in a plain, neat, dark blue coat were approaching her—a smallish, thin man, whose blue eyes twinkled at her from over one of the most famous noses in all Europe.
“My Lord!” she gasped, and sank into a curtsey.
