Page 8 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

He flushed as if he wished he could take back these words, then raised his chin as if Fenella had reprimanded him. “There aren’t any proper snakes here. Nothing like a cobra or a python. Pythons can be feet and feet long. They can crush a goat.”

“How?”

“They wrap their coils around them and squeeze.” John closed his hands into fists, demonstrating.

He meant her to shudder, Fenella thought. She disappointed him. “And where do they do this crushing?”

“What?”

“Where do pythons live?”

“In Asia and Africa. When I’m older, I’m going to visit my uncle in India and see the snake charmers.”

John spoke like a boy who was often contradicted. Fenella decided then and there that she wouldn’t. “Well, we may be short on snakes, but we do have cats and dogs and horses. Do you like to ride?”

The servant had left the carriage and was hovering behind the boy. “This is Wrayle,” John said. “He’s my minder.”

“Now, Master Sherrington.” The man glanced at Fenella as if to enlist her in a furtive cause. “I’m afraid Master Sherrington’s health is delicate. He will require a south-facing bedchamber, with tight shutters, and a restricted diet, with hot milk at bedtime.”

The boy seemed to deflate, like a creature resigned to oppression. He also looked as if he was made of whipcord and steel, and not the least bit delicate.

“I’ll introduce you to our housekeeper,” said Fenella to Wrayle. “She’ll see that you have what you need.”But perhaps not everything you want, she added silently.

He smiled like a man who had established his dominance. Fenella decided she didn’t like him. She vowed to have a talk with the housekeeper before Wrayle reached her with his list of demands.

* * *

Wrayle was part of the reason that Fenella took her nephew along that evening to a gathering at the house of a local baronet. Sir Cyril and Lady Prouse loved to entertain, and they didn’t let the fact that their children were all married and settled elsewhere stop them from inviting young people to gather for a bit of music and dancing. Lady Prouse said that nothing cheered her like watching youngsters enjoy themselves. In a somewhat isolated neighborhood without local assemblies, the Prouse home was a lively social hub.

Fenella hadn’t accepted one of their invitations for a while. Caring for her father and his estate took much of her time, but the truth was she hadn’t been as active in neighborhood society since Arabella’s death. That event, and its aftermath, had cast a pall. But that was clearing, and anyhow she had John to think of now.

The Prouses lived nearby. Their evening wouldn’t run too late, and beyond thwarting Wrayle, Fenella thought John would enjoy the jovial atmosphere. There would certainly be plenty of young people present. Not as young as he, admittedly. But she wasn’t going to mind that.

At this point in her thought processes, Fenella realized that she wanted to go for her own sake. Gaiety had been missing from her life recently. She was ready for a dose of Lady Prouse’s shrewd good humor. And so she put on one of her favorite gowns, bundled John into the carriage, and set out for the baronet’s.

They were among the first arrivals, but this was not an occasion for the fashionably late. Others entered soon enough, all of them friends or acquaintances. Fenella found John a comfortable perch and a plate of cakes and went to talk to her neighbors. Those who evinced an opinion seemed glad to see her. More were concentrated on their own enjoyment. A reminder, Fenella thought, not to exaggerate one’s own importance.

A wry smile still lingered on her lips when Roger entered the spacious drawing room. She was surprised to see him. He had been mingling in society even less over this past year. But the conventional mourning period, for his wife and his father, was over. He certainly had as much right as she to attend. Fenella turned away to speak to Mrs. Cheeve, the vicar’s wife, who had also just arrived with her husband.

The musicians in the corner struck up. Permanent employees of the Prouses, they included, as always, a piper, even though the bagpipe didn’t really fit with many of the usual dances. As well as the fact that the baronet and his wife weren’t the least bit Scottish. Fenella had asked them about this once. Sir Cyril’s gaze had gone distant as he declared, “It’s just such a magnificent sound, is it not?”

Now, accompanied by its eerie strains, Lady Prouse bore down on Fenella, took her arm, and turned her around. “There, you two dance,” she said, pushing her toward Roger.

Before either of them could react, she’d moved on, putting other couples together based entirely on proximity, as far as Fenella could judge. She meant nothing in particular by these pairings, except to set the dance moving.

Facing Roger, Fenella wondered what she ought to do. They hadn’t danced together since she came back from Scotland. Their past, and then a pile of complicating circumstances, had made it unwise.

The bagpipe shrilled, signaling a Highland reel. Fenella’s foot tapped. She wasn’t the awkward girl who’d been thrown at him five years ago. And she felt like dancing. She extended her hands.

Roger took them. They laced their fingers together, standing very close, and then they joined the others in moving forward and back, hopping and turning in the steps of the dance.

His hands were sure and powerful. He swung her around with practiced skill. She’d forgotten that he was a fine, athletic dancer, Fenella thought. Or, she’d just avoided thinking about it.

They hadn’t touched in ages, certainly not since she’d returned from Scotland, and that had been best. She had no doubt about it. But before that, there had been occasions. She suddenly realized that the first of them had been here in this very room. It must be, yes, eight years ago.

Lady Prouse had organized a dancing class to help prepare her daughter Prudence for a London season, and she’d invited all the local young people, even those like Fenella who were not remotely out. Lady Prouse had wanted enough couples to make up sets, and there weren’t a great many to choose from in the neighborhood. And so, although she was only fifteen, Fenella had wangled permission to go. She’d argued that the occasion was very informal and strictly chaperoned. Her mother had been ill at the time and had given in to her arguments. And so she’d come here, to this very spot, a pathetically gawky girl with unrealistic expectations. The draperies and furnishings looked just the same.

And then when Lady Prouse had to leave the room to attend to some household crisis, her daughter had cajoled the musicians into playing a waltz. Many of the boys, coerced into attending by their mothers, had been longing for a way to rebel, and they added their voices to hers. The musicians were persuaded, couples quickly came together, and Roger had been somehow left out, with only Fenella unpartnered.

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