“Does it match your expectations?” asked Daniel. He leaned on his pommel and surveyed the area, as the carriages rolled to a halt a little way ahead of them.

“Indeed it does; in fact it surpasses them. It is a long time since I have seen anywhere quite so pretty.”

He dismounted in one easy movement and then held out his arms to her.

She was about to refuse his help when she saw that the grooms were busy and, without a mounting block, she knew she would need his assistance. As she slid from her horse she felt a tingling sensation as his hands closed around her waist, and then it was gone as her feet touched the ground and his hands relinquished their hold on her. She felt the loss of it, and to cover her emotion she looked around for her niece. She saw that Caroline was fascinating a young man nearby.

Daniel, seeing where her gaze tended, offered her his arm. “If you are thinking of playing chaperone, it will be less noticeable with two,” he said invitingly.

She laughed. “My niece is rather headstrong, and I would rather she did not know I am keeping watch over her. She is likely to resent it,” she admitted, taking his arm. “She believes herself to be in love with a young man at home, but she is volatile, so that she could easily end up compromising some other poor young man if she takes a sudden fancy to him! I wonder whom she is with now? Do you know him?”

At that moment the young man turned round and Daniel gave an exclamation of surprise. “Why, it’s my nephew, James! I wonder what he is doing here?” He added with a sigh, “He is in some scrape, no doubt, and wants me to get him out of it.”

James, hearing his name, looked towards them and coloured.

“Will you excuse me?” said Daniel.

Annabelle watched him go with regret, but she was reminded that every cloud has a silver lining when she was joined by Caroline who, having lost her companion, sought out her aunt.

“You seem happy,” said Annabelle.

“I am. I was just talking to James—”

“James?” asked Annabelle. “Isn’t it a little early to be calling him James? You have only just met him.”

Caroline gave a despairing sigh, as if to say, Aunt Annabelle, you are so behind the times.

“He happened to be in the neighbourhood,” Caroline went on. “Hearing that his uncle was staying close by, he came to pay his respects. Ah! They have finished talking. I must not monopolize you, Aunt Annabelle. I am sure there are some old people here you would like to talk to.” And so saying, she returned to her new swain.

Annabelle watched her go.

To her dismay, she saw that Daniel, having spoken to his nephew, seemed to be about to leave. He was walking towards the horses with a resolute air. Annabelle experienced the same sinking feeling she had felt the last time he had left a house party at which she had been present. But this time she quickly rallied, for she had been half expecting it ever since she arrived.

And then suddenly he stopped. He hesitated, as if he were wrestling with himself, then he turned and walked towards her with a serious look on his face.

“Annabelle,” he said, taking her hands. “My fool of a nephew has managed to entangle himself with an opera dancer who is threatening all kinds of things if he doesn’t marry her. He has not the age or experience to deal with her and I have, so I am on my way to London at once. I have no right to speak to you, but today’s leave-taking has reminded me of another one, a year ago, when I would have asked you to marry me, had not my brother’s sudden death called me away from you.

“I thought it was only a temporary separation, since I intended to seek you out and propose to you once I was free to think of myself again. But circumstances changed so radically that I could not, in all honour, speak. You see, I had to settle my brother’s many debts and so I was a great deal poorer than when we had first met, whilst you had inherited a fortune and so you were a great deal richer.

“I set out to mend my fortunes, so that I would be able to offer you my hand honourably. But when I met you by chance in the inn, fate stepped in. I have no right to ask you to wait for me, but I cannot let my chance slip away again. You see, I love you, Annabelle. I have loved you for a very long time. So I ask you, though I have no right to do so, will you wait for me?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

His face fell.

“It might take years for you to restore your fortune,” she said, smiling, “by which time I will be in my dotage, if my niece is to be believed. So I rather think we should seize our youth whilst we can and marry without delay!”

He laughed and squeezed her hands. “Your niece is a very wise girl,” he said. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly. “I have been wanting to do that again for a very long time,” he said.

“And I have been wanting you to,” she replied.

In answer, he kissed her again.

They would have continued thus for the rest of the afternoon had they not been interrupted by a startled cry and then a gasp of horror.

Annabelle, surfacing from Daniel’s embrace, saw Caroline standing there.

“Aunt! I wondered where you were! I wanted to tell you it was time to go, but I see now that I have arrived not a moment too soon to rescue you from this … this seducer!” She grabbed Annabelle’s wrist and pulled her away from Daniel, glaring at him all the while.

“My dear girl …” began Annabelle.

“I assure you, my intentions are honourable!” said Daniel to Caroline. “Your aunt has very kindly consented to become my wife.”

Caroline let out a cry of horror. “No! Aunt Annabelle! Say it is not true!”

“I am afraid it is,” said Annabelle.

“But at your age! You will be a laughing stock!” said Caroline in horror. Then her face fell and she added tragically, “But of course, now that you have been compromised, you can do nothing else. And perhaps it is a good thing after all. You will be thirty soon and will need a companion for your twilight years.” She smiled bravely. “I am very happy for you, after all.”

“That is very generous of you,” said Annabelle with a twinkle in her eye. “To make you feel better, I hope you will consent to be my bridesmaid.”

“Oh, yes!” said Caroline, brightening at once. “I will need a new dress, new shoes …”

“Yes, you will need all those things, and have them, too. And then, perhaps, you will invite me to be the matron of honour at your own wedding to Able, which must surely soon follow mine.”

Caroline looked at her in astonishment. “My dear Aunt, what can you be talking about? I am not going to marry Able. Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“I rather thought you were in love with him.”

“How absurd! Of course not. A slight infatuation, perhaps, contracted when I was only sixteen. But I am older and a great deal wiser now. I am going to marry James!”

Cynders and Ashe

Elizabeth Boyle

One

London — 1815

“You expect my daughter to wear that gown?” Lady Fitzsimon’s acid tones carried to every corner of the elegant dress shop on Bond Street.

“My Lady, it is exactly the gown you ordered,” Madame Delaflote replied. Used as she was to the fits and fleeting fancies of London ladies, she took Lady Fitzsimon’s protests in her stride.

Either the lady was doing this to get her bill lowered — which would never happen, for Madame Delaflote never gave up a shilling that could possibly be wrung from a client — or she was just being aristocratic merely because she could.

In that case, Madame Delaflote had naught to do but wait her out.

From behind the curtain that separated the showroom from the workroom, Miss Ella Cynders flinched with each protest as if she were being flogged. For the dress was her creation, her finest — if she was inclined to boast — but she knew that it had been a risk making it for Lady Fitzsimon’s daughter.

“The Ashe Ball is tonight, Madame!” Lady Fitzsimon was saying. Ella glanced out and found the matron waving her invitation about for all to see. Invitations to the Ashe Ball were so coveted, so limited, that most who held one kept it carefully guarded. For without that printed invitation, one could not enter. Proof of this being demonstrated at the moment by her ladyship, who was keeping hers on her person, never far from sight, and, better yet, close at hand to flaunt over those who hadn’t been invited. “My daughter cannot go in that!”

Ella watched the lady point at the dress her daughter was modelling as if it were made of rags — when nothing could be further from the truth. The fair green silk, embroidered with silver thread and adorned with thousands of seed pearls, was an artistic triumph. Ella and the two other assistants, Martha and Hazel, had all but worn their fingers to the bone to get the gown ready in time.

It was a fairy-tale dress destined for an unforgettable night.

“My good lady,” Madame Delaflote said, “your daughter shines like the rarest jewel in that gown. Lord Ashe won’t be able to take his eyes off her.”

“Of course he won’t — she looks naked in it,” the lady declared.

Not exactly naked, Ella would have told her, but the illusion was there. As if she were a woodland nymph stepping from her hidden grove. Sleeveless and cut low in the front, the dress clung to the wearer as if it were a second skin.

“That gown is ruinous! Why, she looks—” Lady Fitzsimon’s hands fluttered about as she searched for the right words.

From behind the curtain, the three assistants finished her sentence for her.