Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(96)

He was given no choice in the matter. She was standing before him, the blacksmith’s daughter, grinning mischievously, her hand outstretched for his. The other couples had all turned their heads to watch. The fiddlers were waiting to begin playing. Devlin, it seemed, was about to learn to waltz. Which did not bode well for tomorrow evening. Nothing boded well for tomorrow evening actually. Gwyneth had informed him on the way here that Sir Ifor had sent a notice of their betrothal to the morning papers in London and expected that it would be published on Monday. He had also had a word with Colonel Wexford in Boscombe this afternoon, sworn him to secrecy, and asked him in his capacity as master of ceremonies at the assembly to make the announcement there.

Not that Devlin wanted to keep the betrothal a secret. Why would he? He and Gwyneth would be married soon, and actually it could not be soon enough for him. And they would be married here. It was just that . . . Well. He did not want anyone to know. Sometimes trying to understand oneself was impossible.

And they waltzed. All of them, without any great mishap except for a few minor collisions and a screech from someone as her partner trod upon her foot. They performed the steps slowly and deliberately at first, and moved more or less in a straight line along Sidney’s barn, then with a bit more speed and a few modest twirls. Then the music was added, and they all somehow kept their feet beneath them and followed the rhythm and kept in time with both the fiddles and their partners. There was laughter, some of it a little self-conscious, as no one was accustomed to dancing face-to-face with the same partner for more than a few seconds at a time. And there was enjoyment.

Devlin wondered if he would waltz with Gwyneth at the assembly tomorrow. She knew the steps already, of course, and danced them gracefully with his cousin, who was smiling appreciatively at her and saying something to make her laugh.

And was that . . . jealousy he was feeling? Possessiveness?

“I tried to persuade Cameron to come tonight,” Sally said. “But he seems to think waltzing would be an affront to his manhood. Men can be so foolish. I am glad you are more enlightened. And may I say how happy I am you have brought Stephanie and even persuaded Philippa to come? Maybe things will improve at Ravenswood now you are home. And maybe I talk too much. I am sorry.”

“I will do my best,” he told her.

It was all he could do.

Philippa was smiling uncertainly at Sidney Johnson. Stephanie was giggling. Gwyneth was laughing.

Maybe . . .

Maybe there really was such a thing as happiness. Even if only in brief bursts.





Chapter Twenty-Four





Ben was leaning on the paddock fence. Owen was exercising his horse again inside.

“He could take the horse out into the park for a ride,” Ben said when Devlin came up beside him. “But he does not want to admit he is terrified.”

“For the horse?” Devlin said. “I suppose he was riding neck or nothing when it happened.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Ben agreed. “But he was seventeen. What would you expect? He has learned a lesson, anyway, and both he and the horse have survived it.”

Owen was not going to take the horse with him when he left for Oxford on Monday. He was probably feeling more melancholy over that than over saying goodbye to his family. He was accustomed to going off to school for a few months at a time, after all.

“You are looking a bit naked this morning,” Devlin said. “No knapsack? No Joy?”

“Her aunts have her up in the west turret room,” Ben said. “They are pointing out to her every landmark within a five-mile radius, and she is pointing too and supplying the commentary, though no one can understand more than one word in ten of it. I believe I have an ingenious daughter who is inventing her own language. They had started a game before I left that involved a great deal of squealing and jumping on and off furniture. When I asked if I should stay, Joy had one perfectly intelligible word for me: Go. So I went.”

“Feeling aggrieved and neglected.” Devlin grinned at him.

“I have to find a good nurse for her before we move home,” Ben said. “Someone of mature years who will play with her when I cannot. I have to get her a dog too. And probably a cat. What has happened to Pippa?”

“She learned to waltz last evening,” Devlin told him.

“Ah,” Ben said. “Well, that explains everything.”

“Ben?” Devlin squinted off to the hills in the distance. “Was there ever a letter from . . . our father?”

“Yes,” his brother said. “Once.”

“Addressed to you?”

“One to me,” Ben said. “One to you. Less than two months later news came that he was dead.”

Devlin did not ask why his letter had not been delivered to him. He would have refused to take it or have torn it to shreds, its seal unbroken. But he was feeling a bit now as though there were an iron band about his chest, squeezing off the beating of his heart.

“What did you do with mine?” he asked.

“Kept it. It is in a drawer in my room with all the others,” Ben told him.

Despite everything else he had needed to carry, especially after the death of his wife, Ben had kept all the old letters?

“I’ll go and fetch it,” Ben said, and turned away.

Owen rode up to the fence for a chat. He was excited at the prospect of university life, he admitted when Devlin asked.