Rivals and Revels (A Regency Romance)

7. The First Dance

Mabel danced with the persistence that did credit to British ladies. She danced before breakfast. She danced well into the lengthening summer nights. She danced from the moment her head touched the pillow and her eyes closed and until dawn's first glow. And then she climbed out of bed and danced again.

"Stop fretting. You will be passable for Lancashire," Hazel said as they ascended the steps to the brightly lit Chesterton Manor.

"Pooh, you are inventing things." The butterflies filled her stomach with the fluttering of the papery wings.

"Wait!" Hazel hooked her by the elbow. "Did you use any blush at all?"

Before Mabel could remember, Hazel pinched her cheeks, then leaned back to inspect the result. "That's better. You looked ready for funerals, not a ball."

"I feel like the worst fool."

Hazel fanned her. "You will make two if you swoon into my arms. Merciful Heavens, breathe! Mother is coming right behind us."

The ballroom, lit by a legion of candles, swallowed them and two dozen other hopeful young ladies in pale pink and blue dresses, with thread, lace and taffeta covering every bit of them that was possible to cover without becoming garish.

"This is too grand," she whispered at the same time as Hazel exclaimed, "How magnificent!"

Mabel's eyes travelled down her blue dress. It had white puffed sleeves and silver trim and embroidery. She used to be of the opinion it suited her well, but amidst the others, it faded to drab.

"I should have begged for one of your dresses," she told Hazel.

Hazel quirked one brow up. "Something less blue, less bluestocking or less of both?"

"I shouldn't have mentioned this." The floor shone with the golden gleam of the reflected candlelight. She nearly picked up her skirts and tapped it with the toe of her shoe to make sure it was hardwood, not glass.

"Mabel, Mabel, what good is taking you to the ball, if you would stare at the floors. Look, there comes Lady Catherine, the mother of--"

"I know who Lady Catherine is," Mabel snapped, her eyes fastening to a pleasant, if heavy-set lady of middle years, impeccably fashionable, and accompanied by an equally pleasant companion in widow's blacks and slightly lopsided bonnet. "But how do you know it is her?"

Hazel didn't deign to respond and anyway, they had caught up to some acquaintances. Mabel plastered a smile to her lips, said 'yes, indeed' to everything. But her vapid mood vanished the moment anyone mentioned Chestertons.

Cordelia, the eldest of Lady Catherine's children, was showing the inclination to the same shape, and, seemingly, to anemia as well. She sprawled on a loveseat in a dress that had more lace than style. Its ivory waves washed out her cheeks and mousy hair colour even more, but the eyes repeated the striking shade of her brother's. Their blue glow alternatively kept her husband fastened to her side, and sent him to fetch a panoplie of things she required: salts, and wine, and the handkerchiefs. But she spoke very kindly to everyone, apologizing for her ill health and sharing London's gossip, mostly the lurid tales about Lord Byron.

Next was the young Lord Chesterton. However, he didn't look young at all, leaning heavily on hiss cane to hobble around the ballroom.

Mabel looked from the poor man to Cordelia, who couldn't have been much past thirty. 

"I've heard that Lorrd Chesterton--the new Lord Chesterton--inherited the title very young," she said, hoping to stir the flow of gossip into the channel floating her ship. "However, I am doubting my memory."