A Christmas Waltz Read online

  Marta did not know what to say, and then the music ended without either of them having noticed the changing music. The other couples began leaving the floor, but they held their dance positions a few seconds longer. He met her eye and smiled in a way that she felt closed off from, despite the intimacy they had shared throughout the dance. Was he being brave regarding his heart not being broken? Would he not burden her with his regrets of having lost Miss Beeton’s affections? Or was it as he said, and he was not grieving? For all the connection she felt to him, she did not know how to press for more information than he would give her. She did not want to sound like an annoying child.

  “Thank you, Marta, for the dance and the compassion. I fear I needed both very much.”

  He stepped back, pulling them out of formation and coming beside her so that she could take his arm. She stared at him instead. “Walk with me in the garden, David. Let us keep talking.”

  David shook his head and did not meet her eye as he began to lead her from the floor. “They will be bringing the Yule log in soon. We need to be here for the lighting.”

  The disappointment cut through her, but she tried not to let it show. When they reached the edge of the floor, he bowed over her hand and kissed it as he had when he’d asked her for the dance earlier in the evening. When he straightened, he met her eye.

  “Will you come to London this spring, David? I want very much to see you there.” This would be her third season, and her parents had put her on notice that she would not get another. There had been a few men paying her attention last season whom she expected would renew their interest. It felt presumptive to expect David to become one of those men, but he did like her. Or at least she thought he did. Hoped. If he would come to London to see her, then she would know for certain.

  “I will come,” he said.

  “Will you really?” she asked in a soft voice.

  He held her eyes. “I will.”

  She bounced slightly on the balls of her feet. “Well, then, happy Christmas, D’Artagnan.”

  He chuckled. “Happy Christmas, Marta.”

  Fourth

  David

  “I wasn’t sure if you would hold the waltz this year,” David said once they were dancing, as fluid and perfectly in step as always. “Congratulations on your engagement.” He hoped his smile looked sincere and did not show any of the disappointment he had no right to feel.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking past him without a smile. He’d noticed a lack of energy when he’d signed her card earlier in the evening—she hadn’t narrowed her eyes or admonished him in any way, though he’d prepared himself to receive her complaints. When they had handed off with one another during one of the sets, he’d felt the same flatness about her. A brief glance had passed between them, but she did not hold his eyes. Was she feeling under the weather? Or was she angry with him? He would not bring up London, and though part of him hoped she wouldn’t, some other part wanted to discuss it.

  He waited an adequate time for her to direct the conversation. In his experience women usually liked to share details of such happy events as becoming engaged to a wealthy man of influence, and David had expected that to be the topic of their exchange for the length of this dance. When she didn’t say anything, he removed the polite-society tone from his voice and dropped it lower, though no one could have heard it at its normal level. He wanted her to know he was asking a personal question, with the expectation of a personal—and honest—answer. “Are you all right, Marta?”

  Her eyes snapped to his, and though he did not like to be the target of the irritation he saw there, he appreciated that she had set aside the façade. “Why did you not come to London?”

  He paused too long, prompting her to speak again before he could answer.

  “And tell me the truth, David, the way you once promised you always would. You said you would come.”

  The truth. He’d expected more anger than hurt. The hurt was more difficult to confront. Yet he wanted to confront it, knock down the wall between them, air out his grievances, so to speak.

  David took a breath. “I did come to London.”

  Her pretty lips parted as her eyes went wide. “Why did you not seek me out?”

  “I did seek you out.”

  She furrowed her brow in confusion, and he spoke before she could ask another question, while leading her around another couple. She followed his lead so well—a perfect partner. At least for one waltz a year.

  “My family is connected to the Weatherbys,” he began, looking past her. “And I managed to get away from Salisbury and procure an invitation to their daughter’s coming-out ball in April, which Norman had told me you would be attending. I thought to surprise you, and so I went, but . . . I’m afraid my confidence failed me when the time came to make my way across the room.”

  “You were there?” she said softly. “You were there and you did not come to me?”

  “You were rather . . . distracted, I daresay.” He met her eyes and held the look. “I believe the term I have heard used is ‘holding court’; there were four young men flirting with you simultaneously, and you managing to flirt with each of them in turn.” He remembered the scene easily enough, her simpering and giggling and asking this man to get her a glass of punch while asking another if he thought the color of her gown—blue—looked well with her eyes. The moment had reminded him about exactly what he hated about the London season—the posturing, the posing, the games. It also made her seem very much the child he’d met the first time they danced. The men buzzing around her were young and heedless, making him feel old and every color of foolish to have come in the first place. He’d had no desire to compete, and so he had found Norman, asked that he not tell Marta that he had been in attendance, and headed for Brighton the next day, where the society was more to his liking.

  Marta’s cheeks flushed, but her eyes narrowed. “You would have meant more to me than any of them.”

  “Would I?” He spun them quickly and took a breath. It had not been his intention to argue, but he had come this far. Why retreat just as the battle commenced? “I am not the type of man to elbow my way to the front of a gaggling crowd paying you homage.” The harshness of his own words surprised him—was he that upset? He’d encouraged her to meet people and enjoy society—why had he not expected her to be so good at those things? And why was he taking it upon himself to punish her for it? “I did not mean to say it like that, but let us say that I realized in that moment that you and I are different people. You vie for attention while I prefer a quieter life, with people who truly matter.” He’d meant to soften his words, not hammer them further. Perhaps he was more upset about London than he’d admitted even to himself.

  “People who matter?” she repeated sharply. “Who would those people be, David? Your grandfather. Perhaps your sister once a year.”

  He stiffened, and the apology he’d been forming slid away.

  “Exactly my point,” she said when he did not respond. “You are lonely and isolated and have not stepped out of your comfort zone a single step, have you? Do not cast judgement on me for making the most of the place where I found myself when you have done nothing with yours.”

  He bit back the defensive response by reminding himself that he had started the argument by judging her behavior. He led them through a few steps, then took a breath and met her eyes again, determined to make this better, not worse. “I have actually moved from my comfort zone a great deal, Marta. I went to London, but when I realized that was not to be, I went on to Brighton and renewed some acquaintances there. Your advice from last year had stayed with me, and then seeing my grandfather go weeks between any contact outside of his home reminded me of what I did not want to become. But I will never be the petting type for any woman, least of all one who has her pick, which it seems you have exercised in having accepted a proposal of marriage from Mr. Henderson.”

  She blinked fast and looked away as the passion slowly drained away, just as his lingering a
nger had a few moments before.

  When she didn’t answer for several seconds, he spoke again. “Forgive me for being so abrupt tonight, Marta. I had wanted us to have a nice waltz and have not acted my part.”

  “You are right,” she said, the fire completely out. “I held my court and cued my dancers, and now I am stuck in the steps.”

  His hand tightened on her waist as he realized that she was sincere. “What do you mean?”

  She continued to look away, her face and neck tight as they glided across the floor without a single shudder to their steps.

  He tightened his hand even more. “Marta?”

  She looked at him, and he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “I fear I am making the biggest mistake of my life.” She clamped her mouth closed and shut her eyes. He waited her out, and after a few seconds she opened her eyes to look at him once more. He steered them toward the inside of the floor, where fewer people would pay them attention.

  “What happened?” he asked in a tone so low he wondered whether she’d heard it or simply read his lips as he’d said it.

  She took a shaky breath. “It was my third season, and my family was pressing me to make a decision. Mr. Henderson had been attentive throughout the entire season and had a good situation. As soon as I encouraged him, he made an offer that my parents were taken with. The last of my friends were either engaged or leaving London, and I felt that he admired me, so I accepted the proposal. He came to a dinner my parents hosted to make the announcement and then left London a few days following.” She paused and swallowed. “I have not seen or spoken to him since.”

  “You have not spoken to him since he made an offer?” David asked. Last summer?

  She nodded. “He has communicated with my father on the particulars of the wedding, which will take place in his parish in Sussex, but it has been nearly six months since I’ve been in his company, and he has written me only twice in all that time—two short letters that could have been written to anyone at all. I wrote him every week for months, then finally stopped out of the need to preserve what was left of my dignity. I fear he cares nothing for me, David, that I am a transaction he is procuring and nothing more.” She blinked quickly and directed her gaze at the knot of his cravat.

  “Surely he is attending to business, so that when you are married he might have more time with you.” The thought of her married to someone else made his stomach tight, the same sensation he’d felt as he’d watched her laughing and posing amid the young bucks at the Weatherby ball last spring. Had Mr. Henderson been one of those men? David found himself in a divided position—concerned over her situation and yet wanting to reassure her.

  “That is what my sisters have said.” She looked up, a shadow of desperation in her eyes. “It seems reasonable to you, then? Would you attend to business instead of attending to your intended?”

  Never, he thought, and yet even their honesty pact did not leave room for him to say as much to her now. She was engaged; it was a legally binding contract, and for him to say anything that would interfere would be wrong and wasted. He pushed aside his feelings for her, undeveloped and unfocused as they were, and concentrated on what she needed from him right now. What could he say that would best serve her needs? “My only sister, Sophie, was sponsored for her season by my father’s aunt—Grandfather’s sister—who was tyrannical about her making a match as quickly as possible. Sophie was seventeen years old and accepted the first suit that was made to her. She then felt much like you do now, until they were married and setting up house together. That is when they truly came to know one another, and love grew between them. She is expecting their third child now.” Sophie had given him plenty of advice over the years on how to go about his own match, and it felt only right to share her counsel. “Two people committed to each other and the institution of marriage itself is enough to begin the journey, Marta. And you felt it was the right choice in the beginning, did you not?”

  She nodded. “I did feel right about it at the start. He was much admired by the other girls in Town. I daresay they were quite envious of his attention to me.”

  It sounded juvenile to take other women’s impressions as such a triumph, but David had never assumed he was privy to how women thought. “Mr. Henderson was very attentive at some point, then.”

  She nodded again, and the lines of her shoulders softened slightly. David pushed away the image of an unfaced man leaning in to kiss her softly on those full, pink lips he found himself staring at. He looked back to her eyes, not letting his thoughts go down a road he ought not to take. A little voice in his head took that moment to tell him that he’d had his chance. If he’d stayed in London, sought her out in a different setting than the ball, something could have grown between them. Instead, he’d let his own lack of confidence and personal judgement bar the way for them to know each other better. He’d felt a fool when he’d watched her amid her admirers; now he felt the bigger fool for having given up over such a petty scene. These were thoughts for another time, however. Right now she was looking at him, seeking advice and needing reassurance.

  “I believe in your ability to have made a good decision and find the joy you are meant to find in this match,” he said. “Trust yourself, Marta.”

  The music was rising to crescendo, and he tightened his grip on her waist when he realized that this could be their last dance. Next Christmas she would be a married woman and may very well arrive at this ball on the arm of her husband. It took a great deal of determination to smile through these realizations. Though David had added more socializing to his life this last year, there was something about his connection with Marta that he had not found elsewhere. He lamented that not only was she now out of reach, but they would lose the connection they had shared to this point, because she would be a married woman. He swallowed his sorrow and looked for something else he might say to encourage her. “I think Mr. Henderson a very lucky man, Marta.”

  She smiled sadly as they came to a stop and the dance ended. “I really wish I had known you were in London, David. I have wanted more than one Christmas dance every year to try and understand the connection I feel toward you—have always felt. Do you feel it too?”

  It took all his moral character not to reach out and touch her face. “If I did I would certainly never confess it to an engaged woman.”

  They dropped their hand positions but remained facing one another on the floor. Her fear and confusion and . . . wanting reached for him, wrapped around him like ribbon. He surprised himself by taking a step toward her and dropping his voice. “For what it’s worth, Marta, I very much wish I’d handled London differently. I regret, deeply, that I did not take the opportunity to spend time with you there.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and he wished he’d kept these words to himself; they were not helpful to either of them.

  “Marta?”

  They started and looked at her mother, who had approached unnoticed and now looked between them as though trying to read their expressions. “We have been waiting for you to join us.” There was ice in her words, and she gave David a pointed look as he stepped back from Marta. David bowed in recognition of Mrs. Connell’s silent counsel.

  “Yes, Mama,” Marta said as she dropped a shallow curtsey to answer the niceties. Such things came so easily to her now. “Happy Christmas, Mr. Woodbury,” she said as she began to walk away, not looking at him, which was probably best for all the rawness they had just shared.

  David stood where he was. By the time he spoke, her mother had her arm and she was too far away to hear his words. “Happy Christmas, Miss Connell. I am sorry.”

  Fifth

  Marta

  Marta swallowed when she saw David enter the ballroom. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scents of melting candles and evergreen boughs used to decorate the room. It was the smells and the buffet of Christmas treats and the gold and red décor that kept her from forgetting the season entirely. It did not feel like Christmas, so much that she hadn’t dared to
hope David would attend. With everything else feeling so offset, it only made sense that he would be part of the disappointment. But he was here, and it made her feel both joyful and conspicuous. When David’s eyes met hers from the opposite side of the room, he dipped his head in a nod and smiled. She placed a hand on her rounded belly and then looked at the floor so as not to see his reaction. Last Christmas she’d been an anxious bride-to-be. Now she was a nervous soon-to-be mother. She was no more ready for this change in role than she’d been for the last one. Life had begun to move so fast that she often felt as though a milestone had passed her by before she’d had a chance to see it at all.

  When she looked up again, David was turned away, speaking to Pauly. What did he think of her? Would he talk to her? Was their friendship at an end now that she was a married woman?

  To keep from watching him too intently, she turned to join the circle of ladies beside her, who were deep in the sort of conversation that sprung up at events like this where the attendees only ever saw each other here. There was always a great deal of catching up to be done, and as this was her fifth year of attendance, she was part of this matronly group. She had little doubt that once she walked away, she would be the one they were discussing, but she’d been a part of womanly circles long enough now to expect as much.

  Greggory hadn’t come to the Yuletide Ball . . . or any other event they’d been invited to as a couple since their wedding last February. He did not like socializing—he was similar to David’s grandfather in that—and though it embarrassed her to always arrive alone, she had realized after a few months that she did not necessarily wish for his company either. She did wish for a husband who wanted to enter a room with her on his arm, who wanted to meet her friends and become acquainted with her family. That was not the sort of husband she had chosen, however. The insecurity she’d been feeling at last year’s ball had not abated, despite a wedding and a shared home and a child on the way. Did her new husband love her? Did he even like her? Why had he married her? Would their relationship improve once the baby came? How much hope was reasonable to extend toward that possibility, when her hope that marriage would be joyful had come to so little? She shook her head to dislodge that particular road of thought, well-worn and heavy as it was. She was here, in Winchester, celebrating Christmas with family and friends.