take their place in Society, young ladies, young ladies!’
How Cornelia loathed those expressions! She did not want to be a young lady, she only wanted to be a child again, a child at Rosaril, riding the horses, running with the dogs and coming back to the house to laugh and joke with Papa and Mama until it was time for bed.
How happy they had been, how perfectly completely happy until that terrible accident. Even now Cornelia shied away from the memory of it. It was something dark and terrible in her life. Dearest, green and lovely Rosaril, she could think of nothing else and yet Papa had spoken so often of the gaieties and excitements of London.
“I really want to see the lights of Piccadilly Circus again,” he would say with a yearning note in his voice. “I want to stroll into The Empire and listen to the show and I want to go to Romano’s, have supper with a Gaiety Girl, and then, if I am feeling respectable, I will put in an appearance at one of the balls and see how lovely the ladies are looking.”
“Tell us about it, tell us just who you would meet, Papa,” Cornelia would beg and her mother would lean back in the-chair, smiling while they listened to his reminiscences of the London Season and the gaieties that could be enjoyed by a popular young man-about-town.
‘This is the sort of ball Papa went to,’ Cornelia thought suddenly and awoke to the fact that Lily was stepping forward to curtsey to the King.
With a feeling of stupefaction she heard Lily speak her own name and then she too was curtseying a little awkwardly, her knees suddenly weak and. trembling.
“So you have only just arrived from Ireland,” the King said kindly in his thick guttural voice, but with the charm that had gained him the friendship of all Europe. “I remember your father and I was sorry to hear of the accident that ended his life.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cornelia managed to stammer before, with a smile of approval at Lily, His Majesty passed on.
The orchestra was playing a waltz and, as Lily and Cornelia moved back a little to leave the room for the dancers, Cornelia saw a tall man wending his way towards them through the gyrating couples.
She recognised him instantly. He was the man she had seen in the phaeton as she and her uncle were driving down Upper Grosvenor Street. Strangely enough she had thought of him many times since that moment when she had watched him master his horses and heard her uncle swear at the sight of him.
Why he should remain in her mind she had no idea and yet now, as he came towards them, she had a strange sensation of inevitability.
She was aware that her aunt was turning her head as if in search of someone and she wondered if she was looking for Uncle George whom she could see far away at the end of the ballroom talking with two elderly men.
The dark young man had reached their side.
“Drogo.” Lily spoke his name softly.
“Will you dance with me?”
“No, of course not!”
Cornelia wondered why she should refuse his invitation and, as she looked and listened, standing a little in the background, Lily turned towards her,
“This is Cornelia or perhaps I should be formal and introduce you properly. Cornelia let me present the Duke of Roehampton – Miss Cornelia Bedlington.”
There was something mocking in her aunt’s voice, something else that Cornelia did not understand. She held out her hand and the Duke took it for a brief instant in his.
“You may dance with Cornelia,” Lily said.
And it was an order.
“Will you dance with me later?” the Duke asked her.
“No,” Lily replied.
They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes. For a second they were both very still, until with an effort Lily turned away, opening her fan and fanning her face as if she suddenly felt stifled.
“May I have this dance?”
The Duke was bowing to Cornelia.
She inclined her head and he put his arm round her waist and then swung her out onto the floor. He danced well and Cornelia was thankful that she was light and that she knew what to do. Those times that she had danced with Papa in the drawing room at Rosaril, while Mamma played the piano, were a necessity now.
“I hate women who dance badly,” Papa had said impatiently when she had been unable to follow his steps.
It was more difficult to dance in a crowded ballroom than on a strip of parquet by a bow window, but it was much more exciting.
Cornelia glanced up at the Duke through her spectacles. There was something aloof and detached in his expression as if his thoughts were far away.
And then, as she looked at him, as she realised how close they were together and felt his hand clasping hers through the thin kid of her white glove, her heart seemed to beat more quickly and she felt a sudden strange sensation in her throat
For a moment she thought that she must be giddy and yet her head felt clear enough and there was a lightness and exhilaration in her body such as she had never known before.
How good-looking he was, she thought. The way his hair grew back from his forehead was so distinguished and the squareness of his chin made her certain that he was a decisive person. There was also a pride and dignity about him that reminded her of her father.
He too had been proud and, even when he had been gay and irresponsible, his air of good breeding had never been lost or forgotten. The Duke was not gay, Cornelia thought, but she liked his seriousness.
They danced in silence and, when the waltz came to an end, they walked, still without speaking, back to where Lily stood in the centre of a group of people laughing and talking.
“Thank you,” the Duke bowed to Cornelia and then he turned and walked away.
“Did you enjoy your dance, Cornelia?”
There was a smile on Lily’s lips, but it was forced and her blue eyes were hard.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Well, it is not everyone who can say that the first dance they ever danced in London was with the most eligible bachelor in England. You are a very lucky girl,” Lily said tartly.
“He would not have danced with me ‒ if you had not told him to,” Cornelia replied and wondered why it hurt her to say the words.
“Why does your niece wear darkened spectacles?” someone asked.
It was Lady Russell, a petulant beauty with a reputation of speaking her mind, however discomforting, to other people.
“She injured her eyes out hunting,” Lily replied. “Nothing serious, but she tells me that she has been ordered to keep them on for the next few months. So tiresome for the poor child. But then I always did think that hunting was a dangerous sport.”
“That is only because you don’t hunt yourself, Lily, not foxes at any rate.”
