Past her amazed parents. Past the girl from riding lessons, goggle-eyed. To Violet they became a blur. She could have danced for ever as he swept her across the floor, sending the other couples scattering in their wake.
All too soon the music ended. The final crescendo shattered in a crash of cymbals. He broke their gaze, let her go.
Violet put her glove to her racing heartbeat. ‘Oh!’
Adam Beaufort, too, seemed to need to regain his breath. He bowed, but not before she’d glimpsed the dart of a smile. ‘Perhaps you’d like some air, Miss Coombes. The balcony? I know you enjoy them.’
She laughed. ‘Yes. The balcony. Please.’
As they passed a waiter Adam seized two glasses of champagne and led her through the French doors on to the empty balcony that overlooked the rear garden. She sensed eyes from the ballroom burning into her back. She raised her chin.
‘Thank you.’ Gratefully she grasped the stem of the glass he offered her and drank deeply. She was tempted to drain it. Instead she put the cool glass to her burning cheeks.
He, too, drank, surveying her over the rim. ‘Your dancing lessons have been effective.’
‘My lessons never taught me to dance like that,’ she said frankly. ‘It was wonderful. Thank you.’
He shrugged. ‘There are certain skills in life that must be mastered.’
‘Surely dancing is a pleasure, not a skill,’ she protested.
One corner of his mouth curved. ‘Most of life’s pleasures become more pleasurable with greater skill, Miss Coombes.’
Violet removed the glass from her cheeks and stared out into the garden. Music wafted from inside the ballroom. Tiers of stone steps flowed down into a rolling lawn. Pale moonlight shone. Her breath began to return to her lungs, but she still felt as if she were spinning. With her free hand she clutched the edge of the balcony. The balustrade was made of stone rather than cast iron, in thick pillars. Below was a sheer drop into a huge rhododendron bush.
Adam Beaufort raised an eyebrow. ‘Assessing your descent?’
Violet laughed. ‘No. I promised you I wouldn’t climb any more balconies.’
Though she hadn’t promised anything else. Her thighs brushed together, reminding her of her plan.
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ He lounged against a pillar, sending his face into shadow.
‘Tell me. What made you do it? Climb, I mean.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
He shook his head. ‘Enlighten me.’
‘It was for the Cause. I intended to drape a women’s suffrage banner over the front of the gentleman’s club as a protest,’ she explained. ‘You must know how long women have been fighting to be granted the vote. The women’s colours are purple, green and white, you see. I sew the banners myself. Unfortunately I lost that one,’ she added regretfully.
He fell silent for a moment, took another draught of champagne. ‘Is it the first banner you’ve hung?’
‘No. I’ve hung others.’ And it wouldn’t be the last.
‘What’s your reasoning behind such an action?’
‘Wouldn’t any woman want to be treated as an equal?’ she asked passionately. ‘We’re treated as children who don’t know their own minds. Why shouldn’t we have the vote, take a role in choosing the government of our own country? Deeds, not words. That’s what we need now, for the Cause.’
‘You’re quite convincing, Miss Coombes,’ he drawled.
She clenched her fist around the champagne glass. ‘You’re mocking me.’
‘Not at all. Who can’t admire such conviction? How did you become involved in...the Cause?’
‘I’m only involved in a small way. I’m not a member of any organisation. I act alone. I’m just trying to do my part.’
‘Do your parents know what you’re doing?’
Violet sighed and shook her head.
He raised a brow. ‘I take it they wouldn’t approve.’
‘It’s a secret,’ she said rapidly. ‘I must ask you not to betray my confidence.’
‘You have my promise. I, too, keep my word.’
Violet let out a sigh of relief. Somehow she knew he told her the truth, even if in the shadow of the pillar his expression was unreadable.
‘There’s more to it, isn’t there?’ he asked.
Violet’s hand clenched on her glass. ‘I’m sorry?’
His teeth gleamed. ‘I suspect you have a more personal reason for your passion for the Cause.’
‘How did you know?’ she gasped.
He shrugged. ‘Human nature.’
She took a sip of champagne.
‘I do have a reason,’ she said at last. ‘You may know of my father’s business. Coombes Chocolates.’
At his nod she went on.
‘My father is a self-made man. He started the business and built it up from nothing. It’s gone from a small enterprise to a national name. Thousands of people work for him now in the chocolate factory and many more thousands enjoy our wares. Why, someone is probably biting into a Coombes Floral Cream right now.’
‘Indeed,’ Adam Beaufort drawled.
Violet took a deep breath.
‘I want to follow my father into the business,’ she said rapidly. It was the first time she ever said it aloud. ‘I have so many ideas, so many plans. Times are changing, a new century is here. There are new ways of doing things. Opportunities for social reform, for new methods. If women are given the vote...’
‘It might make it easier for you to become a woman of business.’
He’d grasped it immediately.
She nodded.
‘I’ve always admired my father and what he’s achieved. The people in there don’t see it,’ she added with a jerk of her head towards the French doors.
‘Surely you exaggerate.’
‘Not at all. We should have stayed in Manchester where we belong, not tried to be part of London society,’ she said fervently. ‘It means so much to my papa, but they look down on him, despise him. Who knows? Perhaps you do, too.’
Startling her, he stepped out of the shadow of the pillar.
‘My father was a drunkard, Miss Coombes, who lost
