And she remembered Sydnam’s bright and happy look, his laughter-and of course the impromptu speech of thanks he gave from both of them for such an unexpected gathering.

“You may all expect,” he said to much laughter, “that Anne and I will put our heads together over the winter when there is nothing else to do and devise a suitable revenge.”

But there was one part of the reception that was not at all jumbled in with all the other memories.

Music had been wafting from the ballroom all through the tea-or the breakfast, if one wished to humor the duchess. No one seemed to have been paying it much attention. But Joshua, seated close by, must have noticed.

“It was just here that we waltzed for the first time, Freyja,” he said. “Do you remember?”

“How could I forget?” she said. “It was while we waltzed that you begged me to enter into a fake betrothal with you, and before we knew it we were in a marriage together-but not a fake one at all.”

They both laughed.

“And it was here we danced together, Frances,” the Earl of Edgecombe said, “though it was not quite the first time, if you recall.”

“The first time,” Frances said, “was in a cold, dark, empty ballroom with no music.”

“It was heavenly,” the earl said with a grin.

“It would be a shame,” Kit said, “to have an orchestra and the use of one of the most famous ballrooms in the country and not dance. I shall instruct the orchestra to play a waltz. But we must remember that this is a wedding celebration. The bride must dance first. Will you waltz with me, Anne?”

But he was looking, Anne noticed, at Sydnam.

Sydnam stood up.

“Thank you, Kit,” he said firmly, “but if it is not the custom for the bridegroom to be first to dance with his bride, then it ought to be. Anne, will you waltz with me?”

For the merest moment she felt alarm. Everyone had hushed and was listening. They all would doubtless come and watch. She had not done a great deal of dancing herself, except at school, but Sydnam-

But Sydnam could do anything in the world he set his mind to-except perhaps clap his hands.

She smiled at him.

“Yes, I will,” she said.

She did not think it was her imagination that the guests gathered around them let out a sort of collective sigh.

She set her hand on Sydnam’s offered sleeve and he led her into the ballroom. Almost everyone, it seemed to her, followed them and arranged themselves about the perimeter of the room while Kit spoke to the orchestra leader. The children were drawn back too, though most of them ran off into the tearoom to play.

And they waltzed together, Anne and Sydnam, three weeks after their wedding while their wedding guests looked on.

He took her right hand in his left, and she set her left hand on his shoulder. When the music began, they moved rather slowly and rather awkwardly until he smiled at her, drew her hand to rest against his heart, and so invited her to slide her other hand up behind his neck and thus stand closer to him.

After that they moved as one and twirled about to the music until other couples gradually joined them on the floor-Joshua with Lady Hallmere, Kit with Lauren, Frances with Lord Edgecombe, the duchess with the Duke of Bewcastle, the other Bedwyns with their spouses, Sarah with Henry, Susanna with Viscount Whitleaf, and Susan with Matthew.

“Happy?” Sydnam asked against Anne’s ear.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Are you?”

“More than I can say,” he said.

And they smiled at each other, their faces only inches apart.

No, Anne had no difficulty at all in remembering that part of their wedding reception.

She would remember it for the rest of her life.


Anne and Sydnam arrived home atTyGwyn with David on a crisp afternoon in November. But, cold as it was, the sun was shining and Sydnam let the window down impulsively when his coachman stopped to open the gate into the park and informed him that he could continue on alone to the stable and coach house.