He moved slightly behind the half-closed velvet curtain. He could see the young woman, but she couldn’t see him. Yes. It was the climbing suffragette. Her hair had been loosened by her tumble when he’d last seen her and instead of a ball gown she’d been clad in smooth, slippery stuff that he could still seem to touch in his hands. Beneath it her flesh had been warm and soft.
He took the covert opportunity to examine her more closely. Her hair was a glossy chestnut colour that reminded him of a horse he’d ridden as a child, when the stables had been full at Beauley Manor. Most of the horses had been sold off now. Her white gown was understated, in contrast with her mother’s, for he presumed the pair to be her parents. Its simplicity showed off her fine complexion that was possibly her best feature.
Yes, she was pretty. Though he might not have remembered her if he hadn’t caught her in his arms.
He grinned to himself.
He’d been uninterested at the ball until he spotted her. The same faces, the same gossip. He couldn’t think why he’d consented to come. But it was preferable to sitting at his desk and going through the family papers and accounts yet again, hoping the numbers would add up differently.
‘Who is that in the alcove opposite?’ he asked.
His mother lifted her lorgnette. ‘I have no idea.’
‘No one we would know,’ said Arabella.
Adam winced. Arabella could sound snobbish and sharp, but he knew that his elder sister often sounded sharp when she was anxious and she was anxious now. She was intelligent, too. She’d guessed the extent of their financial straits, even though he’d shouldered the burden alone. There was no point in alarming them until it was absolutely necessary, though he guessed both Arabella and Jane had some notion. They’d seen him work on the estate accounts night after night, ever since their father died.
‘Wait.’ His mother peered through her eyeglass. ‘She comes from somewhere in the north. Her father is Reginald Coombes. He makes some kind of confectionery. She’s the sole heiress, I believe.’
‘Oh, gosh,’ said Jane. ‘That must be Coombes Chocolates. They’re delicious.’
A sweet heiress. Adam chuckled inwardly. Well, well.
‘She’s wearing a lovely dress,’ Jane said rather wistfully. ‘It’s so much nicer than mine. I’m surprised no one wants to dance with her.’
Jane was wearing a debutante hand-me-down of Arabella’s, bless her heart. A couple of extra inches of white trimming that almost matched had been added at the hem. Arabella wore a gown in a shade of mustard that did nothing for her complexion or thin figure, the unfortunate fabric a bargain buy at the haberdasher’s. She hadn’t attracted many partners, either.
‘You’re a Beaufort,’ his mother said to Jane. ‘It doesn’t matter what you wear.’
‘I think it might, Mama,’ said Jane, with a sigh.
Indeed, being dressed in rags might matter, Adam thought grimly. He dreaded breaking the news of the extent of their diminished means to his mother and sisters. Telling them exactly what was left of the family fortune—precisely nothing—wasn’t something he looked forward to.
Adam studied Reginald Coombes. Short and stout, he possessed the same bright blue eyes as his daughter. The mother, a blonde whose prettiness was almost overwhelmed by her yellow satin and more diamonds than Adam had ever seen on one person, gazed at her husband with obvious affection. It touched him that they seemed happier than many of the other married couples on the dance floor. Indeed, few married couples were dancing together at all. They certainly looked happier than he’d ever seen his own parents. Not that his parents were often together in the years before his father’s demise.
He shunted the memories from his mind.
Adam moved his attention back to the lone figure in the alcove, watched how she straightened her back, stiffening her spine and jutting out her chin, as if daring anyone to pity her for being a wallflower. She appeared to be smiling.
But it must be hard, to sit there alone.
He slid on his gloves.
‘Adam,’ his mother hissed. ‘What are you doing?’
* * *
‘Miss Coombes?’
Violet jumped. In her mind she’d left the ballroom and begun to carry out her plan. She shifted on the gilt-legged chair and widened her knees so her thighs didn’t touch. She couldn’t risk anyone suspecting what she had wrapped like garters around her silk stockings. ‘Yes? Oh! It’s you!’
‘Indeed.’ A pair of midnight eyes found hers. ‘We meet again.’
Violet’s heart gave an unexpected thump. In her dream the night before, her rescuer appeared so impossibly handsome that she scolded herself in the morning. Surely her imagination had run wild. Now he stood in front of her in black-and-white evening attire he was even more attractive than in her dreams. In the dim streetlamp lighting she hadn’t fully taken in the firm set of his clean-shaven jaw, the line of his strong mouth.
On the street after her tumble she’d been surprised that he appeared younger than his commanding voice suggested. He must be about five years older than she, rather than the ten she’d originally thought, perhaps close to thirty years of age, she guessed. The two forked lines between his dark eyebrows made it difficult to gauge. His shoulders were broad in the well-cut tailed jacket, which showed some wear.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’ Violet shifted on her chair again. There was the faintest rustle of silk.
If he heard he made no sign. ‘Nor I you.’
Violet cleared her throat. ‘Actually, I’m glad to see you. I wanted to thank you properly. I ought to have been more grateful to you for...ah...catching me.’
It struck her later what a risk she’d taken. It could have ended very ill indeed if he hadn’t been there.
A phantom of a smile glimmered in his eyes. ‘To catch you was my pleasure.’ He glanced around the ballroom. ‘I didn’t know suffragettes liked dancing.’
‘I haven’t been doing much dancing,’ Violet blurted out, then bit her tongue.
‘Perhaps we might remedy that.’ He bowed low and held out his gloved hand. ‘May I have the honour?’
‘But I don’t know your name.’
‘My apologies.’ He smiled. His teeth were even and white. ‘We haven’t been formally introduced. I know you are Miss Coombes.’
‘Violet Coombes.’
‘Indeed?’ Some comprehension, almost amusement, flared in his expression. ‘I’m Adam Beaufort.’
‘Beaufort. I know your name. Then that means you are... There’s a house...’ Violet tried to simulate the society page in her mind. She’d read something about his family home, she was certain of it.
‘The Beauforts of Beauley Manor. Yes.’ He inclined his head. ‘I recently inherited the estate.’
‘Oh. I see.’ It came back to her now. Their historic estate was in Kent, and the Beauforts were an exceptionally old English family. The kind of society family she’d never expected to welcome the Coombes.
‘If you’re at all concerned about my pedigree,’ he said drily, ‘that’s my mother and my two sisters over there.’
He indicated a group in the alcove opposite. A grey-haired woman, straight-backed, dressed in black, was studying Violet through her lorgnette. Behind her stood a tall, haughty young woman, wearing a mustard-coloured gown. She looked down her nose at Violet. Seated next to the grey-haired woman was a big-boned