Free Elizabeth Mansfield by The GirlWith the Persian Shawl

nodded and rose from his perch. "May as well. It's too damp out here."
    The two men rose and started back. “Take my advice, Ainsworth," Percy said, clapping Harry on the shoulder, "if you should decide to woo a lady, don't do it with poetry."
     
     

 
    FOURTEEN
     
     
    To everyone's intense relief, the day of the ball dawned crisp and clear. All the men (including their host and Sir Edward, who hadn't joined them the last time) cheerfully went off for their delayed hunt, eager to participate in some manly action and get out of the way of the preparations for the ball. The group included an overjoyed Benjy, who'd been permitted to join them on his promise that he would ask for no other activity than to assist in reloading the firearms.
    Meanwhile, the women, understanding that they should leave the public rooms clear for the staff to prepare for the evening's festivities, remained closeted in their rooms, massaging their faces with cucumber lotion and giving their abigails plenty of time to wash and dress their hair. Thus, the household staff was able to scurry about unimpeded while they prepared for the big event.
    The entire staff was needed for those preparations. Chandeliers had to be lowered and dusted, hundreds of fresh candles had to be pressed into dozens of wall sconces, the furniture in the great hall had to be pushed against the walls and the carpets rolled to clear the center of the room for the dancing, and card tables had to be set up in the small, adjoining rooms. Below stairs, the French cook and his assistants busily rolled dough and minced lamb and boiled barley water and undertook the dozens of other tasks required for preparing a menu of hors d'oeuvres that included truffles cooked in ashes, cabbage flowers with Parmesan cheese, carrots à la béchamel, mushrooms Provençal, lobster salad on crisp orange biscuits, Chinese hermitage, oysters au gratin, croque with pistachio nuts, and little apple soufflés. The evening promised to be grand indeed.
    At eight that night, the house guests, bedecked in their most elaborate finery, assembled for a light dinner. While they dined, the local gentry arrived and assembled in the ballroom. As the dinner guests began their meal, they could hear the musicians, thirty-six of them, tuning up. The sounds added to the excitement in the air.
    Deirdre entered the dining room after everyone else was seated, and the first sight of her caused a chorus of gasps. She was breathtakingly lovely, her cheeks blushing pink, her gleaming hair piled atop her head with a few tendrils left free to curl about her face, and her eyes agleam with joy. In her opal-white brocaded silk gown, with its gauzy silver overdress, she was positively resplendent. Kate had never seen her look so beautiful and so happy.
    Someone who did not seem happy was Benjy. Though dressed to the nines in a shiny new dinner coat and striped waistcoat, he nevertheless kept his head lowered over his plate all through the meal, never smiling at any of the pleasantries being exchanged all around him or offering a word to anyone. After dinner, Kate took him out to the hallway. "What's wrong, Benjy?" she asked. "Did something go amiss at the hunt? Didn't you enjoy it?"
    "The hunt was splendid," he assured her, his face lighting up at the memory. "Harry actually let me shoot. He helped me hold up his rifle and aim for a grouse. And I hit it! Right on the mark!"
    "Well, that certainly was splendid. Then why were you looking so blue-deviled?"
    "Because Grandmama says I may not go to the ball." The excited gleam faded from his eyes. "If my mother were alive, I'm sure she would've let me stay. Grandmama is much too old-fashioned. I must go up to bed, she says. She thinks a fourteen-year-old who hasn't even learned how to dance has no place in a ballroom."
    "She's right, of course," Kate said, nevertheless patting his shoulder sympathetically. "It would be terribly dull for you to stand about on the sidelines, watching the