of laughter, but Lily seemed unperturbed. She drew Cornelia away and introduced her to some women who, seated in chairs round the ballroom, watched the dancers with critical and usually censorious eyes.
Lily was looking magnificent this evening in a gown of pale blue chiffon that swirled out around her feet in copious flounces and matched by a tiara and necklace of turquoises set with diamonds.
There was no one in the ballroom so lovely, Cornelia felt, and was not surprised that, as every dance began, young men hurried to invite her aunt to take the floor with them. It was with ill grace that they found themselves forced to dance with Cornelia instead and, like her first dance with the Duke, they invariably danced in silence as Cornelia had nothing to say.
She noticed, as she moved around the floor, that the Duke had disappeared. He danced with no one else. She caught a glimpse of him once talking to Aunt Lily. They appeared to argue and there was little doubt from the expression on the Duke’s face that he was annoyed.
Yet, to Cornelia’s surprise, a little later, when she was not dancing, he came to her side and asked her to go down to supper with him.
She looked at her aunt before she answered.
“Yes, of course, go with the Duke, Cornelia.”
“Will you not you come with us?” he enquired.
“The Spanish Ambassador is taking me. Run along and enjoy yourselves, my children.”
She was being deliberately provocative, even Cornelia could see that, but why she could not understand. The Duke held out his arm and they joined the procession of notabilities that was winding its way downstairs to the huge panelled dining room on the ground floor.
They sat together at a small side table, the Duke refusing to take a seat at the bigger one where a number of important people had been placed.
Powdered footmen, wearing a heavy livery ornamented with gold braid, brought them champagne and Cornelia sipped a little from her glass. She had drunk champagne before, but somehow it tasted different here in these rich sparkling surroundings, from how it had done at Rosaril when they drank toasts at Christmas or after one of their horses had won a race.
“Do you like London?”
It was the first conversational question that the Duke had addressed to her.
“No.”
She had not meant to speak so vehemently, but somehow the truth was out before she had time to think.
He looked surprised.
“I thought all women enjoyed the balls and gaieties of the Season.”
“I prefer Ireland,” Cornelia replied.
She felt desperately shy of him. Never before had she sat alone at a table with a man. But that was not the only reason.
There was something about the Duke that made her feel different in herself and in some strange way she felt happy, happier than she had been for a long time.
She could not analyse her feelings, she only knew that it was exciting and breathtaking to sit beside him even while she had nothing to say.
Food was brought to them, course after course of delicious and exotic dishes such as Cornelia had never tasted before. Yet she did not taste them now.
The room was filled with gay chattering people, but she did not hear any of them. She could only watch from behind darkened spectacles the man who was sitting at her side and be acutely conscious of his presence.
“What did you do with yourself in Ireland?”
He was making an effort and somehow she must force herself to answer him.
“We bred and trained horses, racehorses mostly.”
“I have a stud too,” the Duke volunteered. “Unfortunately I have not been at all lucky this year, but I hope to win the Ascot Gold Cup with Sir Galahad.”
“Did you breed him yourself?” Cornelia asked.
“No, I bought him two years ago.”
Cornelia wondered what she could say next. If she had been sitting with an Irishman, there would have been so much to talk about. They could have compared notes on what had won at the races this year and the year before. They could have talked about the jockeys and the way certain horses were badly ridden and that there was a suspicion of foul play when Shamrock came romping up for a close finish last month.
But she knew nothing of English owners and English riders and she knew that someone like the Duke did not train his own horses or even buy them himself, so she sat tongue-tied until supper was finished and they went back to the ball.
There were only a few couples dancing as the majority were still downstairs. Lily too was still sitting at the centre table with the Ambassador. Cornelia looked at the Duke a little helplessly and wondering what they should do.
“Shall we sit down?”
He indicated a gilt chair and, when she had seated herself, he sat down beside her.
“You must try to enjoy England,” he began seriously. “You are going to live here and it would be a mistake to think that only Ireland can make you happy.”
Cornelia looked up at him in surprise. She had not expected him to realise that she was unhappy or indeed that she was longing for her home.
“I shall not live here for ever,” she commented, once again speaking the truth before she had time to think.
“I hope we shall be able to persuade you to change your mind,” the Duke said gravely.
“I doubt it.”
The Duke frowned as if her insistence annoyed him and then, as if he made up his mind to something suddenly, he asked,
“May I call on you tomorrow?”
Cornelia looked at him in surprise.
“I suppose so, but surely you should ask Aunt Lily? I have no idea what her plans are.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you told her of my intention to call on you and see you in the afternoon. About three o’clock, I think.”
He spoke rather harshly as if it was an effort for him to enunciate the words and then, as Cornelia did not answer, he rose to his feet, bowed, and leaving her alone, walked across the ballroom floor and down the stairs.
She stared after him. He was different from anyone she had ever known in her life, yet as she watched him go she knew that she wanted him to stay.
She felt a sudden impulse to run after him, to call him back and to talk to him as she had not been able to talk to him at supper.
Fool that she was, she thought, to sit tongue-tied and inarticulate when she had a chance to say so much. Now that she could think, she chided herself for her ungraciousness and her rudeness in saying that she did not like England. How gauche, how ungrateful he must have thought her, a girl who had done nothing and who had seen
