Read Online In Distant Fields by Charlotte Bingham - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t you say?’ Partita asked Kitty, viewing the butler, head on one side. ‘He’s so light on his feet Mamma says he should have been a dancing master, not a butler – oh Lordy, here comes Harry.’
    â€˜Don’t you like Harry Wavell?’ Kitty murmured, surprised, as she saw the young man walking towards them.
    â€˜Harry’s all right,’ Partita replied, a little surprised by the question since she had never considered whether she liked or disliked Harry before. ‘No, Harry’s – just, well – Harry, and I do believe he’s going to ask you to dance.’
    Partita laughed lightly as she was at onceconfronted by Taylor, one of the footmen, always known in the servants’ hall as Big Footman.
    â€˜Dance with me, Lady Tita?’
    â€˜Oh, very well, Taylor,’ Partita said, a little glint now lighting up her blue eyes. ‘Just as long as you don’t try steering me into the conservatory as you did last year.’
    â€˜I could ask you to forget about that, Lady Tita!’
    Taking Partita onto the floor, he danced her off into the ever-increasing throng, executing an energetic step that owed nothing to any known dance but which Partita was nevertheless seen to cope with in really quite a skilful manner.
    â€˜More like a large dancing bunny rabbit, wouldn’t you say, Miss Rolfe?’ Harry asked her as he watched them. ‘I do believe that the only time poor Tom Taylor can keep is the one told by a clock.’
    â€˜I suppose you must know all the household,’ Kitty remarked as Harry led her onto the floor.
    â€˜Yes I do, Miss Rolfe, and a right lot they are too,’ Harry stated affectionately. ‘How is your waltz?’
    â€˜I don’t think I’ll let you down. At least I hope not.’
    Harry danced so well that Kitty was disappointed when she was confronted by a determined footman.
    â€˜Keep the last dance for me?’ Harry called, before leaving Kitty to the slow, methodical, but not entirely unrhythmic two-step as performed by the utterly silent six-foot-tall footman.
    â€˜Miss Rolfe?’
    The next request came somewhat surprisingly from Almeric.
    â€˜Lord Almeric. Are you not meant to be dancing with one of the maids perhaps?’
    â€˜Find me one and I might consider it,’ he replied gravely. ‘But at the moment every maid has been taken.’
    Kitty looked round the ballroom. It was true. The only people sitting this dance out were the older guests and the older members of the household. She walked back onto the dance floor, and started to waltz once more.
    â€˜You dance divinely, Miss Rolfe.’
    Kitty smiled, but as they spun past the onlookers to the side of the floor she could not help catching Harry’s eye. He raised his champagne glass to her in acknowledgement as they passed him for the second time, but when they finally stepped off the floor, perhaps realising that Kitty had already captured the attention of the next Duke of Eden, he had vanished from the room.

Chapter Three
Dance Cards
    The New Year was to be seen in, as always, by a ball given by Cecil and Lady Maude Milborne. Everyone at Bauders liked Lady Maude, who was a woman of infinite charm and sweetness. Unfortunately they disliked her husband in equal measure.
    â€˜Sometimes it would seem that one’s friends cannot marry people equally pleasing, and why poor Lady Maude married Cecil Milborne we will never know, I don’t suppose,’ Circe confided to her maid, as she did every year when the subject of the Milborne ball was raised.
    Browne, who was busy sorting through Her Grace’s gowns, looked vague, as she always did when the Duchess confided in her. Only Circe knew that the vaguer Browne looked, the more truly interested she was.
    Circe was not alone in wondering why Maude had married Cecil Milborne, who was neithertitled, handsome, rich nor amusing. Maude also wondered – not all day,