“Let me at least come upstairs with you,” she said, “and then see you on your way after you have changed.”
“No, no.” He looked around him again, obviously anxious to be gone. “You stay here, Jude. I want to slip away unnoticed. I’ll pay Effingham first as soon as I can, and then I’ll pay him back in a different way for what he said about my sister.” He bent his head and pecked her on the cheek.
She watched him go in some dismay and with a strong sense of foreboding. He obviously owed a great deal of money to a great many people, and now their number included Horace—obviously for a far larger sum than thirty pounds. Yet he was dashing off furtively in the middle of the night, convinced that at last he had found a way to make his fortune quickly and rid himself of debt. He was surely only going to dig himself a deeper grave.
And in the process completely ruin his family.
It was with a heavy heart that she returned to the ballroom. Even the prospect of dancing the last set with Lord Rannulf Bedwyn failed to cheer her.
She was to be further disappointed within a few minutes.
“Judith,” her grandmother said, taking her hand and squeezing it, “my dear Sarah is not feeling at all the thing. It is too drafty in here with the doors and windows open, I daresay, and too noisy. Perhaps you would fetch Lord Rannulf.”
“There really is no need to fuss, Gertrude,” Lady Beamish said. “I feel better already since you fanned my face.”
But looking at her, Judith could see that the old lady’s always-pale complexion had a gray tinge and her always-correct posture was drooping somewhat.
“You are weary, ma’am,” she said, “and it is no wonder. It is after midnight already. I shall certainly fetch Lord Rannulf.”
It proved unnecessary. He came even as Judith started to look around for him in the milling crowd between sets. He bent over his grandmother’s chair and took one of her hands in his.
“You are tired, Grandmama?” he asked, such gentleness in his face and voice that it felt to Judith that her heart turned over. “So am I, I must confess. I shall have the carriage brought around immediately.”
“Nonsense!” she said. “I have never left a ball early in my life. Besides, there are two sets left and two young ladies to whom you have committed your time.”
“I have not engaged anyone for the next set,” he said, “and Miss Law was to be my partner for the last one. I am sure she will excuse me.”
“Indeed I will,” Judith assured them both.
Lady Beamish looked at her, her eyes still sharp despite her obvious weariness.
“Thank you, Miss Law,” she said. “You are both gracious and kind. Very well, then, Rannulf, you may call the carriage. Gertrude, my dear, I am going to have to abandon you.”
Judith’s grandmother chuckled. “I have scarcely known how to keep my own eyes open for the last half hour,” she said. “After the next set is over, I will have Judith help me to my room, if she will be so good.
Then she can return for the last set if she wishes. It has been a thoroughly pleasant evening, has it not?”
“Miss Law,” Lord Rannulf said, “would you care to help me find a servant to take a message to the stables?”
Someone of his rank and demeanor had no difficulty in finding and attracting the attention of a servant, of course. The message was sent in no time at all. Judith used the opportunity to ask the same servant to send Tillie up to her grandmother’s room. But Lord Rannulf had wished to speak with her privately. They stood outside the ballroom, on almost the exact spot where she had stood with Branwell just a short while earlier. He clasped his hands at his back and leaned a little toward her.
“I am sorrier than I can say,” he said, “about the last set.”
“But we are not children,” she said, smiling, “to have a tantrum whenever we are deprived of an expected treat.”
“Perhaps you are a saint, Judith,” he said, his eyes narrowing with the old mockery. “I am not. I could throw a tantrum in the middle of the ballroom right now, lying on my back, drumming my heels on the wooden floor, punching my fists in the air, and cursing most foully.”
She burst into delighted laughter, and he tipped his head to one side and pursed his lips.
“You were created for laughter and happiness,” he said. “May I call on you tomorrow morning?”
Whatever for?
“I am sure everyone would be delighted,” she said.
He regarded her with steady eyes, mockery still lurking in their depths.
“You are being deliberately obtuse,” he said. “I asked if I might call upon you , Judith.”
He could mean only one thing, surely. But he had asked before—in a manner she had found offensive—and she had answered quite firmly in the negative. But that had been two weeks ago. Much had happened since. Much had changed, though perhaps nothing more than her own opinion of him. His of her could not have changed much, could it? She was still the impoverished daughter of a never wealthy but now impoverished country clergyman, while he was still the son of a duke and second in line to the title.
“If you wish.” She found that she was whispering, but he heard her.
He made her a deep bow, and they returned together to the ballroom, where he helped his grandmother to her feet, tucked her arm protectively through his, led her toward Aunt Effingham, whose tall hair plumes nodded with stiff graciousness, and then out of the ballroom.
Judith sat down in the chair Lady Beamish had just vacated and wondered if the rest of the night would be long enough in which to digest all that had happened this evening.
“Do not worry, Judith, my love,” her grandmother said, setting one plump hand over both hers in her lap and patting them. “I have no intention of leaving the ballroom before the last bar of music has died away.
But I did not want Sarah to feel that she was abandoning me. I fear she is quite ill and has been for some time past, though she will never talk of her health.”
And so after all Judith danced the final set—with Lord Braithwaite again—though she would have far preferred to retire to her own room. Upsetting thoughts of Branwell churned about in her head with anxious, euphoric ones about tomorrow morning’s visit, while at the same time she had to smile and respond to Lord Braithwaite’s mildly flirtatious conversation.
A full-blown ball that did not finish until after one o’clock in the morning was rare in the country. Many of the outside guests left even before the final set ended. None of them lingered long afterward. Neither did the orchestra. Only the family, the houseguests, and a few servants were left in the ballroom when a small commotion was heard outside the doors.
Tillie’s voice could be heard raised above the softer, haughtier tones of the butler.
“But I have to talk to her now ,” Tillie was saying, obviously agitated over something. “I have waited long enough. Perhaps too long.”
The butler argued, but Judith’s grandmother, who had just got to her feet and was leaning on Judith’s arm, looked toward the doors in some surprise.
“Tillie?” she called. “Whatever is the matter? Come in here, do.”
Everyone stopped to watch and listen as Tillie hurried into the ballroom, wringing her hands, her face distraught.
“It is your jewels, ma’am,” she cried.
“What about them?” Uncle George asked, exerting himself.
“Gone!” Tillie announced in tones a tragic heroine might have envied. “All gone. The box was open and upside down on the floor in your dressing room, ma’am, when I got there, and there is not a sign of a single piece except what you are wearing on your person.”
“Nonsense, Tillie,” Horace said, stepping up beside his father. “I daresay they were spilled earlier in Step-grandmama’s hurry to be ready in time for the ball and you piled them into a drawer to be put away properly later. You have simply forgotten.”
Tillie gathered together her dignity. “I would not have done any such thing, sir,” she said. “I would not have spilled the box, and if I had , I would have stayed until every piece was picked up and put back where it belonged.”