ENCOUNTER AT A BALL
“Mama, I'm sure this dress is more than enough for such an occasion...” Rubina protested. Recovered from her fever, her first social engagement of the spring descended the moment she was well enough.
Lady Amabel smiled. “Well, I know it's just family – in the main – but still, a new dress would make it more enjoyable, wouldn't it? Besides, it's springtime.”
“Is that a reason for a new dress?” Rubina teased her playfully.
“Of course,” her mother said with an expression of utter seriousness. Her blue eyes shone.
Rubina smiled. Impulsively, she threw her arms around her. She breathed in the scents of flowers and rosewater and felt the sweet steadiness that came with a mother's embrace.
When she leaned back, Lady Amabel was smiling, both eyes damp.
“Now, then. I see no reason why you shouldn't wear the new green velvet. It'll be so becoming with your hair. And I think Mrs. Calders can make it up so quickly you'll not need to worry about it not being ready on time.”
Rubina smiled. “Yes, Mother.”
“Well, then. She'll be needing to measure out the cloth, so we should talk about the pattern she should use.”
“Yes, Mother. I hope I can take it with me when we go to court. Though Marguerite will have some little detail on hers to make it more fashionable than mine will be.”
“Well, maybe. But more fashionable doesn't mean more becoming,” her mother assured her warmly.
Rubina smiled fondly at her. Marguerite, her friend, the daughter of a French count and a Scottish lady, was more often at court than she was, though they had spent a few years together at Buccleigh, when Marguerite was her parents' ward. They were like sisters, but with a bit of friendly rivalry.
“Oh, Mother,” Rubina smiled. “You're just nice to me.”
“No, I'm not,” her mother countered fondly. “Or, no nicer than you are to everyone.”
Rubina impulsively kissed her mother's cheek. Her mother giggled fondly. Arm in arm, smiling fondly, they headed into the solar.
Mrs. Calders, the resident seamstress of Lochlann, was summoned. An old woman with iron-dark hair and a rounded back from bending over her work, she sat in the chair in the solar and listened with a peculiar authority about her.
“And we decided on a “v” waist, with a long train behind. And long sleeves,” Lady Amabel told her.
“Aye,” the woman said, scribbling some lines on parchment with a silver-point. “So summat like your dress, milady? Only in the green?”
“Yes,” Lady Amabel nodded. “Just like that.”
“Yes,” Rubina nodded in return, feeling a frisson of excitement despite herself. She couldn't help it. She imagined what it would be like if he was at the ball. The man from the woods.
It isn't likely.
She sighed and closed her eyes, thinking about him. His pale hair and those eyes. His firm mouth and the way he looked at her with such tenderness. She blushed and shivered deliciously. There was no harm in imagining, after all.
The day of the ball was cold, the last snow still falling. All that week, family had been arriving at Buccleigh. Rubina dressed in her new mint-green velvet gown and went to join her relatives.
“Oh!” Aunt Ettie, her blonde hair graying now, piled elegantly up onto her head, smiled at her, blue eyes kindling as she looked at Rubina in her gown. “You look stunning.”
Rubina blushed. “Thank you, Aunt.”
She felt a little restless that evening, despite the joy of seeing her aunt and uncle and cousins. She found her eyes kept straying to the hall, her heart thumping and her feet wanting to dance. She had told herself to stop being silly – that she knew everyone who would be there – but still a strange excitement seemed to grip her.
Maybe it is that, since meeting that man, I know a little more how it is to feel...as a lass feels for a lad, as my maid Greere would say. She wanted to laugh at herself and she blushed red.
“Well!” Uncle Brodgar chuckled. “You will have to come and see your cousins! They'll be astonished by your beauty, my dear.”
Rubina blushed and smiled, flapping an admonishing hand. “Uncle, stop your teasing.”
“I'm not teasing. Callum! Will! Come and see your cousin.”
Rubina flushed as she found herself facing her cousins. Callum was as handsome as she recalled him, with his dark brown hair lustrous in the flame-light of the torches, his firm, strong-jawed face the exact likeness of his mother's face made manly. She smiled up at him shyly.
“Cousin Callum,” she said. She cleared her throat. She had always been shy of Callum – a distant cousin, it had been that they were expected to marry. Now, seeing him at twenty years old, she felt a little different.
“My fair cousin,” he greeted her. As he kissed her hand gallantly, Rubina was surprised that she didn't feel as she might have expected. There was none of that excited tension she had felt when she met him. The man in the woods.
“I am pleased you are visiting,” she said politely. That much was certainly true. Callum was, she realized with sudden clarity, a dear friend.
“I am too,” he nodded. “So. Have you been on any good rides?”
“No,” she admitted. “Though I have had one or two brushes with danger.”
“You always were a very adventurous rider,” Callum teased gently. “Remember when we went into the woodlands when you were – how old? Not even eight years old?”
She chuckled. “Yes! You and Will taught me to ride astride.”
Callum went red and laughed. “Yes! We were real scalawags, weren't we?”
“Yes,” she grinned.
They both laughed.
The guests were filling the hall – mostly family, but a few of the local gentry. Rubina sniffed and smelled the spicy savor of mulled ale and pies and felt her own stomach rumble. A fire crackled, vast and heating, in the hearth, making it perfectly comfortable to wear only the long-sleeved velvet dress. She heard the music start and suddenly she wished she was dancing.
I do want to dance. But not with Callum. Not yet, anyway.
Callum was a friend. It was fun, she realized, to dance with Callum. Some strange and indiscernible call in her blood did not wish, just then, for fun.
Taking a measure of boiled ale, she looked about the room. The spiced, rich scent worked into her blood and she sighed, feeling the pulse of the drumming move into her soul.
She let herself sway a little to the music and surprised herself by twirling in place, a little dance. She felt her skirt dust against something solid and whirled round, an apology on her lips to whomever she'd bumped into.
“I'm so sorry. I...oh!”
She stared. It was him. It couldn't be. How could it be? Yet it was.
“My lady?”
With his dark blond hair and his long, lean face, it most certainly looked like the man from the woods. His height suggested it, too. When he looked into her eyes, she knew.
“My lord,” she said, giving a low curtsy.
He flushed.
“My lady. I...beg your pardon, but you are...you're familiar.”
She laughed. “You're here!” she said. “It is you! Now, how is it that you come to be here?”
He grinned. Then he bowed low, an extravagant bow. “My lady! You recalled me.”
She blushed. “Of course I did! How could I fail to recognize you?” She laughed and saw him go red.
“I am honored to be remembered so. I, too, would recall you anywhere. You have occupied my dreams.”
Rubina stared at him.
The poor man went pink, as if just realizing how frank he'd been. She smiled as he coughed awkwardly. “My lady. Forgive me! I meant no impudence.”
She interrupted gently. “I heard no impudence: I am honored, my lord.”
The mood of the music changed, becoming lilting and lively again. Rubina tried to stand still, but couldn't resist swaying along with it.
“May I have the honor of a dance?” he said suddenly. He was still flushed and Rubina grinned, curtsying.
“I would be pleased to dance with you.”
It was exactly what she wanted.
She let him take her hand and he led her out onto the dance floor. He bowed and she curtsied. Then, suddenly, they were dancing.
I have never felt so light in all my life. So wonderful.
Rubina closed her eyes as they danced together. Every turn, every gesture, every press of their hands, seemed perfect, part of a dance in which they were two halves that met and glided and parted and met again. She felt the music come alive inside her, a thrumming tone that carried her and wove into her blood, making it heat and warm.
“Whew!” she sighed in appreciation as they stopped, finally, the jig at an end. She curtsied.
His eyes met hers. He bowed and then slowly, deliberately, kissed her hand.
“My lady. You are a wonderful dancer.”
She smiled warmly. “Thank you, sir.” His touch tingled through her blood, warming her all the way to her toes and making her feel giddy and happy as she looked into his eyes once more.
She saw his eyes widen as he noticed the tapestry on the wall behind her. It was the boar, sigil of her father's house. It was a design subtly echoed in the embroidery on her bodice. She saw him notice it and nodded.
“It is my father's badge,” she said. “That of the house of Buccleigh.”
“Oh,” he said. He seemed to have gone pale and Rubina frowned, feeling suddenly as if he had withdrawn a step from her.
“You have a picture of your house's sigil, too?” she asked, to make conversation.
He swallowed hard. He looked awkward.
“My father's house takes the sign of the stag for theirs, milady.”
“Oh!” Rubina smiled, glad to have at least broken the ice momentarily. “A fine emblem.”
“Indeed,” he said shyly. There it was again, that awkwardness! Rubina shifted uncomfortably, wondering what had affected him.
“Come,” she said impulsively, reaching out a hand to take his. “You must meet my cousins. I am sure you would have much to discuss.”
“I...no,” he said hastily. “Forgive me, milady,” he added, seeming desperately uncomfortable. “But I...I would be reluctant to meet the scions of so noble a house unprepared.”
Rubina chuckled, thinking perhaps he teased. The thought of Callum and Will as intimidating anyone was unsupportable! Then she saw, to her amazement, he was earnest.
“Well,” she said, feeling awkward herself now. “Should we dance another measure?” She raised a brow, hopeful.
He nodded. “My lady,” he said intensely, “I would like nothing more in all my life. Truly, I wouldn't.”
She flushed red. His hand took hers and she felt his touch echo down her arm and warm her heart.
“Well, me neither, milord.”
He smiled and they headed back toward the dance floor again.
As they danced and that strange, wondrous thing happened that had happened the first time they danced – that seamless blending, touching and parting that had been so very wonderful – Rubina found her thoughts wandering, confused.
This man is not as high born as I am.
Why else would he truly fear her cousins? Feel discomforted by her sigil? Be so shy? Yet at the same time, he was easily the most exciting, the most handsome, and the most compelling man.
And he saved my life, she thought stubbornly. That had to count for something.
“My lady,” he said, bowing low as the dance came to a sudden end.
“My lord.”
They greeted and parted. As Rubina watched him across the hall, she found herself wondering about her future. He had, in those brief encounters they had, given her more of an idea of what men and women felt for each other than any ever had. Yet, the more closely she observed him, the more it seemed apparent to her that it was not her who was awkward, but him.
He doesn't like me. He probably thinks I'm too big for myself, that I'm arrogant because of the family I have. Maybe that's why he's so distant sometimes.
It was a discomforting thought. One, she had to admit, that sat ill with any other observations. The way he touched her. The way he danced with her, looking into her eyes or watching her with such intensity! The way the slightest touch tingled right inside her belly.
How to make sense of it all?
Rubina sighed. She had no idea.
All she knew in that moment, in a hall filled with music, dance and the scent of spice and perfume oils, was that she had never met anyone in her life who moved her quite as much as he did. For that matter, she had also never met one who confused her more.