Sophia James: Christmas Betrothals

The gown Lillian wore to the Cholmondeley ball was one of her favourites, a white satin dress with wide petticoats looped with tulle flowers. The train was of glacé and moiré silk, the festoons on the edge plain but beautiful. Her hair was entwined with a single strand of diamonds and these were mirrored in the quiet beading on her bodice. She seldom wore much ornamentation, preferring an understated elegance, and virtually always favoured white.

The ball was in full swing when she arrived with her father and aunt after ten; the suites of rooms on the first floor of the town house were opened up to each other and the floor in the long drawing room was polished until it shone. At the top of the chamber sat a substantial orchestra, and within it a group of guests that would have numbered well over four hundred.

‘James Cholmondeley is harking for the renommée of a crush,’ her father murmured as they made their way inside. ‘Let us hope that the champagne, at least, is of good quality.’

‘He must be of the persuasion that it is of benefit to be remembered in London, whether good or ill.’ Her aunt Jean’s voice was louder than Lillian would have liked it. ‘And I do hope that your dress is not hopelessly wrecked in such a crowd, my dear, and that the floor does not mark your satin slippers.’ She looked up as she spoke. ‘At least they have replaced the candles in the chandeliers with globe lamps so we are not to be burned.’

Lillian was not listening to her aunt’s seemingly endless list of complaints. To her the chamber looked beautiful, with its long pale-yellow banners and fresh flowers. The late-blooming roses were particularly lovely, she thought, as she scanned the room.

Was Lucas Clairmont here already? He was taller than a great deal of the other gentlemen present so he might not be too hard to find.

John Wilcox-Rice’s arm on hers made her start. ‘I have been waiting for you to come, Lillian. I thought indeed that you might have been at the MacLay ball in Mayfair.’

‘No, we went to the Manners’s place in Belgrave Square.’

‘I had toyed with the idea of going there myself, but Andrew MacLay is a special friend of mine and I had promised him my patronage.’ A burst of music from the orchestra caught his attention as the instruments were tuned. ‘The quadrille should be beginning soon. May I have the pleasure of escorting you through it?’

Her heart sank at his request, but manners forced her to smile. ‘Of course,’ she said, marking her dance card with his name.

The lead-off dance might give her the chance to look more closely at the patrons of this ball, as the pace of the thing was seldom faster than a walk and Lucas Clairmont as an untitled stranger would not be able to take his place at the top of the ballroom without offending everyone.

Her heart began to beat faster. Would he know of those rules? Would he be aware of such social ostracism should he try to invade a higher set? Lord, the things that had until tonight never worried her began to eat at her composure.

Still as yet she had not seen him, though she supposed a card room to be set up somewhere. She unfurled her fan, enjoying the cool air around her face and hoped that he would not surprise her with his presence.

The quadrille was called almost immediately and Lillian walked to the top of the room, using up some of the small talk that was the first necessity for dancing it as she went.

Holding her skirt out a little, she began the chasser , the sedate tempo of the steps allowing conversation.

‘Are you in London for the whole of the Yule season?’ Wilcox-Rice asked her, and she shook her head.

‘No, we will repair to Fairley in the first week of January and stay down till February. Papa is keen to see how his new horses race and has employed the services of a well-thought-of jockey in his quest to be included in next year’s Derby Day at Epsom. And you?’ Feeling it only polite, she asked him the same question back.

‘Your father asked me down after Twelfth Night. Did he not tell you?’

Lillian shook her head.

‘If you would rather I declined, you just need to say the word.’

She was saved answering by the complicated steps of the dance spiriting her away from him. The elderly gentleman she now faced smiled, but remained silent; taking her lead from him she was glad for the respite.

Luc watched Lillian Davenport from his place behind a colonnade at the foot of the room. He had seen her enter, seen the rush of men surround her asking for a dance and Wilcox-Rice placing his hand across hers to draw her away from them. Her father was there, too; Nat had pointed him out and an older woman whom he presumed was a family member. She seemed to be grumbling about something above her and Luc supposed it must be the lighting. Lillian looked as she always did, unapproachable and elegant. He noticed how the women around her covertly looked over her dress, a shining assortment of shades of white material cascading across a lacy petticoat.

She had worn white every single time he had seen her and the colour mirrored the paleness of her skin and hair. He smiled at his own ruminations. Lord, when had he ever noticed what a woman had worn before? The mirth died a little as he thought about the ramifications of such awareness. With determination he turned away, the quadrille and its ridiculous rules taking up the whole of the upper ballroom. British aristocracy took itself so seriously; in Virginia such unwritten social codes would be laughed about and ignored. Here, however, he did not wish for the bother of making his point. In less than two months he would be on a ship sailing back to America where the nonsensical and exclusive dances of the upper classes in London would be only a memory.

The chatter of voices around him made him turn and Nathaniel introduced two very pretty sisters to him, the elder laying her hand across his arm and showing him a card that she had, the dances named on one side and a few blank spaces that were not filled in with pencil upon the other.

‘I have a polka free still, sir. If you should like to ask me …’

Nat laughed beside him. ‘I have been fending off interested ladies since you arrived, Luc. Do me at least the courtesy of filling your night so that I have no further need of mediation and diplomacy.’

Cornered, Luc assented though it had been a long time since he had learned the steps to the thing. A complicated dance, he remembered, though not as fast as the galop. He wished he had taken better heed of his teacher’s instructions when he had been a lad, and wished also that it might have been Lillian Davenport that he partnered.

The girl’s younger sister thrust her own card at him and he was glad when they finally turned to leave.

Lord, time was beginning to run short and he did not want to be in England any longer than he had to be.

A flash of Lillian caught his eye as she finished with the quadrille and bowed to her partner. Finally it looked as though Wilcox-Rice might depart of his own accord and that he could get at least a little conversation with the most beautiful woman in the room.

But when another man claimed her for the waltz he admitted defeat and moved into the next salon to see what could be had in the way of supper.

The dancing programme was almost halfway through and Lillian was quite exhausted. She had deliberately pencilled in two waltzes with made-up initials just in case Luc Clairmont should show, but by midnight was giving up the hope of seeing him here.

Sir Richard Graham, a man who had pursued her several years earlier and one she had never warmed to, had asked her for the third galop and she had just taken her place in the circle when she felt a strange tingle along the back of her neck.