The line went all the way up winding stairs leading to the ballroom. After a time they reached the receiving line at the ballroom entrance. General Slate and his wife greeted them in friendly fashion. The General was balding, with a giant, gray mustache. He pressed Joy’s hand tightly as he welcomed her.
Mrs. Slate, a small woman, in a yellow taffeta gown, gasped at Joy’s tiara. “I’m sure it must have a wonderful history!”
“It was a present from my father, Sir Richard Canby, to my mother,” she said.
“But of course, you are a titled lady yourself,” the woman remembered.
She might have gone on quizzing her but Colin rescued her by suggesting, “Shall we dance?”
He led her out to join the many swirling couples on the brightly lit ballroom. Joy’s heart began to beat faster as they swung about quickly to the lilting waltz music. She was aware that Captain Colin Hill was an expert dancer despite his convalescent state.
The dance ended, and Colin led her to the side of the ballroom where chairs were set out. She sank into one, still breathless from her exertions.
Colin smiled at her. “I can’t speak for you but I was grateful when the dance ended. It was a long waltz and my wounded lung still gives me some troubling moments.”
“You gave no sign of it!”
“I only felt it at the last.”
She eyed him with concern. “You could have told me. I’d gladly have left the floor.”
He shook his head. “You looked too lovely! I couldn’t interrupt it! Not our first dance!”
“Nonsense,” she said. “If at any time in the future you feel unwell you must advise me at once.”
“I shall be all right,” he assured her.
Just then another young officer in a coat of royal blue came to them. He bowed and presented himself. “Captain Charles Winter, at your service, my lady. Colin and I are old comrades. We saw service together in the hills of India.”
Colin, in turn, introduced her to the young man and told him, “She is second in command of Miss Nightingale’s nursing company.”
The redhaired man smiled boyishly. “I have great admiration for nurses. And you are a truly lovely example of the breed. May I dance with you?”
She glanced at Colin. He smiled and said, “Why not? I’m sure you will find Charles expert on the dance floor.”
A moment later she and Charles were doing the mazurka. He was a good dancer and she enjoyed the lively music. When the dance ended he escorted her off the floor.
He said, “You glow more brightly than the diamonds in your tiara.”
She laughed. “Don’t strain yourself offering me compliments. I happen to be twice-widowed and at least ten years your senior.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Are you being honest or kind?”
“I’m known for my frankness, my lady.”
“Then I shall accept your compliment. Thank you!”
He glanced to where Colin was standing and said, “You and Colin make a fine looking pair. But I warn you he is very old. Almost forty! And he bears severe wounds received in battle. Much too old for you, really!”
As they joined Colin, he said, “I have a suspicion that Charles has been telling you uncomplimentary things about me.”
His friend looked amused. “What a silly idea!”
“Yes,” she said tactfully. “We talked of other things.”
She thanked the young officer for the dance and he left them. She turned to Colin and said, “He is amusing.”
“And a fine officer,” Colin said. “He ought to have a real future in the service.” He glanced across the room. “By the way, Colonel Sanger is over there, and free at the moment. I think it the ideal time for you to meet him.”
She became nervous. “I’m not sure I’m ready!”
“Get it over with,” was his suggestion. “You did come here with the main object of meeting him.”
“I know,” she said.
“Let us give it a try,” the young officer said.
They walked the length of the ballroom to a spot near the entrance door. Standing close by it was a stoutish officer, in a red tunic with plenty of gold braid and gold epaulets. He had a moon face and thin, black hair. He wore a small black mustache, and a monocle in his left eye. He had an arrogant air as he gazed at the dancing couples.
Colin presented her to the older man, saying, “Colonel Sanger this is Lady Joy Canby-Layton.”
The moon-faced Colonel removed the monocle from his eye and drawled, “Ah, yes, I have heard about you, my lady. And of your great beauty!”
“You flatter me,” she said tensely.
Colin tactfully excused himself, saying, “I must go and fetch some punch for my lady.”
“Go ahead,” the Colonel said. “The young lady and I shall chat.”
She watched with a feeling of panic as Colin vanished in the crowded ballroom. Trying to be calm, she forced a smile and turned to Colonel Sanger, saying, “So you are the officer representing us at the War Department?”
He slipped his monocle in his eye and squinted at her. “By us, you mean the nursing group under Miss Nightingale?”
“Yes,” she said.
“A distressing matter I’d prefer to talk about to you. I was a friend of your late husband, Sir George.”
Her panic increased, and filling time as she prayed for Colin’s return she told the Colonel, “I do not believe we ever met in the past.”
Sanger leered. “I hardly blame him for keeping you to himself!”
She said, “I understand you also enjoy the gaming table.” She kept looking for Colin to return.
“You are most fortunate,” Colonel Sanger went on. “You look much younger than I know you to be.”
“Really?” Annoyance made her cheeks flame.
“It’s true,” he said, leering at her. “I’m most anxious that we be friends.”
She fought back her anger, knowing it was important that they not quarrel. She said, “I see no reason why we cannot get along.”
“Nor I,” the older man chuckled. “You’re the sort who needs to have a man at her side. The man happens to be Captain Hill at the moment. Perhaps I might be next?”
“You jest!” she said sharply.
He grasped her by the arm as she tried to leave him and in a low, tense voice, quickly said, “You’re my type of woman! I like a girl with some bosom, long legs, and a neat behind!”
She pulled herself free of him and angrily slapped him across the face. His eyeglass dropped out and he stumbled back. His moon-face was purple.
“Damn you for a hussy!” he cried.
Joy turned and saw those who had witnessed the exchange discreetly turn their backs. She sternly marched away from him, looking neither to right nor left.
She heard Colin from behind calling, “Wait! Please!”
She halted and turned as he came up with glasses of punch in his hands. She said, “I’ve had words with Colonel Sanger. I think we should leave.”
“Was it that bad?”
“I slapped his face.”
“I see,” he said with a look of grim resignation. “In that case you can do with this punch.” And he passed her one of the glasses of the ruby liquid.
“I can,” she agreed. And she drank some of the pungent mix. Then she said, “We’d honestly better leave.”
Colin frowned. “What did he say to you?”
“It was personal,” she said wearily. “It’s not important.”
“I can’t agree with you there,” the young Captain said. “I should go to him and challenge him to a duel!”
“No!” she protested. “I look on it as my own fault. We came here to win his favor knowing he’s opposed to Miss Nightingale and the work I’m engaged in. He probably guessed this and so deliberately misbehaved.”
“As a gentleman and an officer he should not have insulted you,” Captain Colin Hill complained.
“Things are bad enough,” she pleaded. “Let us not make them worse. I’ve enjoyed the evening otherwise and it is time to go in any case.”
She persuaded him to leave. Colin was oddly silent on the way back to Berkeley Square, and she was afraid he was in an ugly mood. She worried that he might return to the ball and seek Colonel Sanger out, to quarrel with the repulsive fellow. A duel could end with one of them dead and it could well be Colin. So when they reached her door she suggested he have the carriage wait while he joined her for a drink.
The butler let them in, and she showed Colin into the living room and ordered him a drink before going upstairs to get rid of her cape. When she came down again she found him standing in the gaslit room, staring up at the portrait of her father. He turned to her as she approached, his glass in hand.
“The portrait is a study of your father, is it not?” he asked.
She smiled wistfully at the painting. “Yes. It is very like him.”
“You two were close?”
“Yes. I miss him a great deal.”
His anger seemed to have drained from him as he glanced around. “You have a lovely home.”
“I’m fond of it.”
“May I get you a drink?”
“No,” she said, leading him over to a divan. “I’d rather just sit and talk.”
They sat facing each other. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll talk.”
“Tell me something about yourself.”
“I’m not that interesting,” he said.
“Tell me anyway,” she insisted with a small smile.
“I was born in Devon on a modest estate. I attended public school and Oxford. In due time I married the daughter of the squire of the county. The marriage lasted until her death.”
“You are a widower?”
“I thought you knew.”
“No.”
“I expected you’d have heard of it from someone. After my wife’s death I went into the army. That was some years back.”
“You make yourself sound old.”
“I’m old enough.”
“How old?”
“Older than many of my comrades whom I saw die in battle one place or another. I’m forty-two.”
She said, “You look younger.”
“There are a good many years between us.”
“Not that many.”
He put down his empty glass. “When this business in the Crimea is ended I’d like to take you down to Devon and show you where the family lives. Do you know Devon?”
“Not well.”
“We lived near Drysdale. My brother is still there. The house is located on a cliff with a magnificent view of the ocean.”
“It sounds nice.”
“Devon is a place filled with history,” he said. “The land of Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh. And if I may be allowed a modest boast, we have herds which produce the finest cream in the world!”
“Your brother still lives there?”
“Yes. He has taken over the estate. My mother is alive but blind. My father died some years ago. I also have a sister, Mary. She and I are twins.”
“An identical twin sister?”
“No. We look alike though. She’s a horsewoman and attractive. I’d like you to meet her. She refuses to marry, saying all the young men who come to court her are dull dolts.”
Joy smiled. “One day the right man will come along.”
“I hope so,” Colin said.
“Well, I feel I know something of your family now.”
“I want you to meet them in person.”
“We have journeys to make before that can be possible,” she reminded him.
“True,” he agreed. Then a shadow of anger crossed his handsome face. “I still can’t forgive that swine of a Sanger for insulting you!”
She touched his arm. “Please forget about it. I don’t want you to quarrel with him.”
“How can I ignore what happened?”
“Pretend to know nothing about it.”
“That will be difficult.”
She gave him a gentle look. “Colin, it must be obvious by now. I’ve grown to like you more than I should. You suddenly mean a great deal to me.”
The bronzed man took her hands in his. “And I’ve fallen in love with you.”
He tenderly took her in his arms. As their lips met a log shifted in the fireplace. In that brief moment the glow from the log cast an amber ray across the portrait of her father. Neither of them were aware of this as they caressed each other, but in that brief space the light made her father’s stern face soften and look approving.
Colin asked, “May I send the carriage away?”
She smiled at him gently, traced the scar on his temple with her fingertips and nodded assent. She knew she had found love again and wanted desperately to reach out for it. Above all she wanted to save the handsome Colin from his anger about the night’s events. She feared if she allowed him to leave, he would seek out the repulsive Sanger and challenge him to a duel.
So Colin would stay with her tonight!
Later, in her bedroom, they faced each other naked for the first time. She trembled as if it were her initial experience of love as he took her in his arms. She was touched by the great scar across his chest which marked the wound which had invalided him out of active army duty. His virility was as satisfying as she could wish. Yet their love-making was of a patient, tender variety ending in a joyous climax. They lay back on their pillows, their bodies close in perfect communion.
They had breakfast in her bedroom the next morning. Colin leaned across the small table and lifted her hand to his lips. He said, “You know this changes everything for us.”
“We know we love each other.”
“I would like us to be married before we ship out to the Crimea.”
“We can’t be married,” she said. “It would mean my leaving the nursing company. I can’t let Florence Nightingale down.”
“What about us?”
She pleaded. “Be reasonable. There is nothing to do but wait. I will love you all the better for it.”
He sat back in his chair looking troubled. “One of us could be killed. This is not a picnic we’re going to, it’s a war!”
She rose and went over to him, her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be in the war together. Working in the same area. That will make it easier.”
He stood, “Not for me.”
“I feel exactly as you do. There’s nothing I’d like better than for us to be married this very day. But it’s not possible. So we’ll settle for the next best thing. Meet here nights. Continue to be lovers.”
“That’s not fair to you!”
“I’m not worried about me,” she said quietly. “I’m thinking about us.”
“I want you to be my wife,” he said. “Feel that you are mine alone.”
“I am yours,” she said pressing close to him. “You need never have fears about that.”