The Society Catch. Louise Allen
in his arms. Who or what had so overset her? he wondered, conscious of a chivalrous urge to land whoever it was a facer for his pains.
‘Thank you, Colonel, but I think I must owe that to you. Do you have the opportunity to attend many dances whilst you are with the army?’ Joanna realised she must take every opportunity to converse, as while they were talking she could be expected to look into his face. She tried to garner every impression, commit each detail to memory: the darkness of his lashes, the small mole just in front of his left ear, the way his mouth quirked when he was amused, that scent of Russian Leather again…
He swept her round a tight corner, catching her in close to avoid another couple who were making erratic progress down the floor. Joanna was very aware of the heat of his body as she was suddenly pressed against him, then they were dancing once more with the conventional distance between them.
‘Dances?’ He had been considering her question. ‘Surprisingly, yes. We take whatever opportunities present themselves, and as not a few officers have their wives with them whenever circumstances allow—and certainly when we were wintering in Portugal—there is often an impromptu ball.’
‘And the Duke encourages such activities, I believe?’ Joanna asked. As they whirled through another ambitious turn she caught a glimpse of her mama’s face, a look of surprise upon it. She felt wonderfully light-headed. This was reality, the music would never stop. Giles would never leave her.
‘Yes. Wellington enjoys a party and he thinks it does us good,’ Giles smiled reminiscently.
‘His family, he calls his officers, does he not?’
‘You know a lot about old Nosey, Miss Fulgrave. Are you another of his ardent admirers? I have never known such a man—unless it were that fellow Byron—for attracting the adulation of the ladies. None of the rest of us ever stood a chance of the lightest flirtation while Wellington was around.’
‘Why, no, not in that way, for I have never seen him.’ Better not to think of Giles wanting to flirt. ‘But he is a fine tactician, is he not?’
She saw she had taken Giles aback, for he gave her a quizzical look. ‘Indeed, yes, but that is a question I would have expected from Master William, not from a young lady.’
‘I take an interest, that is all,’ she said lightly, wishing she dared ask about his life with his regiment, but knowing she could never keep the conversation impersonal.
And then, with a flourish of strings, the music came to an end, Giles released her and they were clapping politely and walking off the floor. Joanna felt as though the places where his hands had touched her must be branded on her skin, it felt so sensitive. Her hands began to tremble again.
‘Miss Fulgrave, might I hope that the next dance is free on your card?’ It was Freddie Sutton looking hopeful. ‘And now that I know you have changed your mind about waltzing tonight, may I also hope for one a little later?’
‘Miss Fulgrave.’ Giles Gregory was bowing to her, nodding to Freddie. ‘Sutton.’ He smiled at her, and she read a look of reassurance in his eyes and guessed that she must be looking better. ‘Thank you for the dance.’
Then he was gone, swallowed up in the crowd. She looked after him, catching a glimpse of the back of his head and slowly realising that with the ending of that dance the entire purpose for which she had been living for the past three years, and her every hope for the future, had crumbled into dust.
‘Thank you, Lord Sutton.’ She turned back to him, her smile glittering. ‘I would love to dance the next waltz with you, but just now what I would really like is a glass of champagne.’
To the chagrin and rising dismay of her mama, to the censure of the flock of chaperons and to the horrified and jealous admiration of her friends, Joanna proceeded to stand up for every waltz and most of the other dances as well. She did refuse some, but only to drink three more glasses of champagne, to be escorted into supper by Lord Maxton, a hardened rake and fortune hunter, and to crown the evening by being discovered by the Dowager Countess of Wigham alone with Mr Paul Hadrell on the terrace.
‘I felt I must tell you at once,’ that formidable matron informed an appalled Mrs Fulgrave, who had been looking anxiously for her daughter for the past fifteen minutes. ‘I could not believe my eyes at first,’ she continued, barely managing to conceal her enjoyment at having found the paragon of deportment engaged in such an activity with one of the worst male flirts in town. ‘I am sure I do not have to tell you, Mrs Fulgrave, that Mr Hadrell is the last man I would want a daughter of mine to be alone with!’
This final observation was addressed to Mrs Fulgrave’s retreating back, for Joanna’s harassed mother lost no time in hurrying to the doors that led to the terrace. It had never occurred to her for a moment that Joanna might be out there, but there indeed she was, leaning against the balustrade in the moonlight, laughing up at the saturnine Mr Hadrell, who was standing far too close and, even as Mrs Fulgrave approached, was leaning down to—
‘Joanna!’ Her errant daughter moved away from her beau with her usual grace and no appearance of guilt. He, however, took one look at her chaperon’s expression and took himself off with a bow and an insouciant,
‘Your servant, Miss Fulgrave. Mrs Fulgrave, ma’am!’
‘Joanna!’ Emily Fulgrave repeated, in the voice of a woman who could not believe what she was seeing. ‘What is the meaning of this? You have been flirting, waltzing—and, to crown it all, I find you out here with such a man! And to make things even worse, I was told where I could find you, and with whom, by Lady Wigham.’
Joanna shrugged, a pretty movement of her white shoulders. ‘I was bored.’
‘Bored!’ Mrs Fulgrave peered at her in the half-light. ‘Are you sickening for something, Joanna? First your obstinacy this morning, now this…’
‘Sickening? Oh, yes, I expect I am, but there’s no cure for it,’ she said lightly. She did indeed feel very odd. The aching pain of Giles’s loss was there somewhere, deep down where she did not have to look at it yet, but on top of the pain was a rather queasy sense of excitement, the beginnings of a dreadful headache and the feeling that absolutely nothing would ever matter again.
Her mother took her arm in a less than sympathetic grip and began to walk firmly towards the door. ‘We are going home this minute.’
‘I cannot, Mama,’ Joanna said. ‘I am dancing the next waltz with—’
‘No one. Home, my girl,’ Emily said grimly, ‘and straight to bed.’
The dreadful headache was there, waiting for her the next morning when she awoke, as was the hideous emptiness where all her plans had once been. It was as though the walls of a house had vanished, leaving the furniture standing around pointlessly in space.
Joanna rubbed her aching head, realising shakily that she must be suffering from the after-effects of too much champagne. How much had she drunk? Hazily she counted five glasses. Could she have possibly drunk that much? She could recall being marched firmly from the ball with her mama’s excuses to their friends ringing in her ears. ‘The heat, I am afraid, it has brought on such a migraine.’ But the carriage ride home was a blur, with only the faintest memory of being lectured, scolded and sent upstairs the moment they arrived home.
Oh, her head hurt so! Where was Mary with her morning chocolate? The door opened to reveal her mama, a tea cup in her hand.
‘So you are awake, are you?’ she observed grimly as her heavy-eyed daughter struggled to sit up against the pillows. ‘I have brought you some tea, I thought it might be better for you than chocolate.’ She put the cup into Joanna’s hands and went to fling the curtains wide, ignoring the yelp of anguish from the bed as the light flooded into the room. ‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself, Joanna?’
‘Have you said anything to Papa?’ Joanna drank the tea gratefully. Her mouth felt like the soles of her shoes and her stomach revolted at the faint smell of breakfast cooking that the opening door had allowed into