Chapter Seven

D orcas had hoped to attract the attention of the Earl of Somerford. Perhaps he would even ask her to dance. In her wildest dreams, she had hoped he would dally with her, perhaps in the garden.

She did not expect anyone else to notice her. After all, no one else ever had. But in this instance, she was wrong. It began with the reaction of Titan, the leader of Mrs. Dove-Lyon's wolf pack who saw her when she went down to show her costume to Mrs. Dove-Lyon. The head wolf was an imposing man—tall, strong, dark-haired, and usually inscrutable.

His eyes focused immediately on her skirts and his hard expression softened. "Camp followers, Mrs. Anderson?"

She turned slowly in a circle, holding her skirt out to show him all the scenes. He whistled. "And your mask?"

It was in the box under her arm. She opened it and showed him.

"Perfect," he said. "Finding joy even in the midst of war, but still, the pain registers. Congratulations, Mrs. Anderson. Your costume…" He paused as if to find the right words. "It moves me," he said. "I have met ladies like those you have pictured on your skirt. I admire them all. More than I can say." He stood to attention and saluted. "Thank you, ma'am, for reminding me of them."

Curtseying seemed to be the most appropriate response.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon arrived at that moment, and Titan faded out of the room in a way that was astonishing for such a large man. "A perfect costume to gather the attention you want," Mrs. Dove-Lyon declared.

Which should have warned her of what to expect. She assumed the lady spoke of Lord Somerford's attention, but when she descended to the ground floor, she was soon surrounded. They were all officers who had served overseas with the army, and all of them had stories of camp followers they had known and respected. Wives, washer-women, nurses, suttlers, ale-wives, and even those whose primary role was to provide sexual comfort to the soldiers they served.

"We soldiers are forgotten now the wars are over," one of them commented. "The ladies were never given a moment's thought even while the wars were on."

She could have had partners for every dance, had she chosen—two for every dance, if such a thing was possible. Scarlett, however, had advised her to keep one or more of her dances free, in case someone came along later whom she wished to favor.

When the former officers vied to fill the dance program one of them cajoled out of the orchestra, she was glad of the advice. "I shall agree to the first four dances," she decreed, "with you, you, you, and you, in that order." She smiled behind the mask at her own imperious tone. "After that, if you still wish, you may find me and ask me."

Who could have believed that Dorcas Anderson, that little mouse, would be so much in demand? Except that, tonight, she was not Dorcas Anderson, but the spirit of the women who had followed the drum and the gentlemen who trailed after her were paying tribute to those women. Though some of them flirted, most wanted only to tell her about the women they had known when they were at war.

She had refused them her name, and so they called her Lady Boudicca, after the famous warrior queen who led the Britons against the Romans.

Dorcas had always loved dancing, even before she was wed when her father would reluctantly allow her to go to village assemblies but only to watch. Vespasian, when they were first married, had delighted to teach her, but as the war progressed he had soon lost interest, while his fellow officers had barely noticed she existed.

She had been as shy as a mouse back in those days.

Noah, too, liked to dance—though the campfire dances of the enlisted men were a far reach from the decorous assemblies of her girlhood or the refined entertainments, however impromptu, of the officers and their ladies.

Since she had been back in England, she had been too busy to go to dances, even if the dances open to such as her were safe for a small lady without a large male escort.

The Masque was a dance beyond her dreams—the costumes, the music, the sense of palpable excitement that filled the air. She had expected to watch from the sidelines, and she would have been content.

To twirl and trip on the floor was wonderful! She spent one dance in one of the quieter rooms with her current partner as he poured out his heart about the women he had met since he returned to England, and how they did not match, in spirit, courage, or character, the women he'd known in Spain. One camp follower, in particular. She was the daughter of a general who had chosen another instead of him and was now living happily and at peace with her husband somewhere in the north of England.

She consoled him as best she could. That was also, in an odd way, pleasant. That night, as the spirit of all camp followers, consoling soldiers was part of her role. She refused those who wished to walk in the garden. She would leave that particular role of some camp followers to those better qualified. When one became insistent, the others bore him away, protesting, and she did not see him again that night.

It was after her sixth dance that she saw Lord Somerford. He was anonymous in full dress uniform and a mask. Just one more tall soldier, but she knew him. Something about the way he held his shoulders and his head.

He bowed when she returned to the corner she had made her own, and she curtseyed in response. "May I beg a dance, Lady Boudicca?" he asked.

Several of those who had been in attendance on her from the beginning protested, but Dorcas said, "I will dance with you, sir."

He made to take her hand, but she shook her head. "I am committed to the highwayman and then to King Richard the Lionhearted," she told him. "My dance with you shall be after that, Lord Officer."

Lord Somerford bowed again, and beneath his full mask, his reply was warm with a smile she could hear but not see. "I shall look forward to it, good lady."

The highwayman was also intent on a sojourn to the garden but desisted when he realized Dorcas would have none of it. He proved to be light on his feet, so she should have enjoyed the dance, but his light-hearted flirting put her in mind of Vespasian, which made her sad.

King Richard asked if he could escort her to the rooms where food was laid out, and they sat at a table for two and feasted on delicacies that the kitchen had been preparing for days. The man had been married, he told her. To a Spanish woman who had died bearing his son while the army was on the march from one battle to another. The baby had died, too.

"I have not been able to speak of her," he said. "My family did not understand. When I told them she had died, my mother said it was for the best. Juana would not have fitted in, she said." He had removed his helmet to have his supper, and she could see the tears in his eyes. He shook them off. "It is time for me to find another wife, she says. But how can I? How can any man marry and lie with his wife knowing he might be condemning her to death and his own child with her?"

"Your mother does not understand," Dorcas agreed, "but of course she wants you to be happy again. You have every right to mourn your wife and your son."

He regarded her with his head on one side. She, too, had removed her mask to eat, and he said, "You were Mad Ves's wife, weren't you? You had his son?"

Dorcas had not heard the nickname in years. "I was. I gave birth to his son, and Stephen and I both lived. But Ves died. Still, I would rather we had wed than not. I suspect your Juana would tell you the same thing if she could."

He gave a reluctant laugh. "My Juana would box my ears and tell me to stop being ridiculous," he admitted. "She believed in Heaven, my Juana. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps she and the little one are waiting for me there."

"Undoubtedly," Dorcas said, taking something of a risk. "You will feel a fool if you arrive in Heaven in forty or fifty years after focusing on mourning and failing to live your life with joy, only to have Juana box your ears."

King Richard chuckled. "Thank you, Lady Boudicca. It has been a privilege to talk to you. I suspect I had better don my helm and go on my way. Lord Officer is standing in the doorway looking impatiently for his turn to benefit from your saintly counsel."

Sure enough, Lord Somerford was there, and when he saw them looking his way, he approached. "My dance, I think," he commented.

"The lady is an angel, Lord Officer," warned King Richard. "There are twenty men here who will remind you of that fact should you think to ignore it."

Rather than bristling at the remark, Lord Somerford bowed respectfully. "Should anyone think to ignore it, I shall stand with the twenty, Your Majesty," he said.

Dorcas did not want Lord Somerford to treat her as if she was an angel. That did not at all suit her plans for the night if something so ephemeral as ‘might' and ‘perhaps' could be called a plan.

However, she could not find the words to object. King Richard, meanwhile, had taken his leave, and Dorcas busied herself tying her mask back over her face.

Once it was in place, she felt much more confident. "I am no angel, my lord," she told Lord Somerford. "I am a flesh and blood woman."

He was looking her over. "Tonight, I think, you are every woman who has ever followed the drum."

"I am," she conceded. "But I am also Dorcas." Then, throwing caution to the wind, she added, "It is Dorcas who wishes to dance with you, Lord Somerford, not Lady Boudicca."

"It is Ben who wishes to dance with you," Lord Somerford said, offering her his arm. "Not Lord Officer. Not even that arrogant over-protective fellow Lord Somerford. Ben, Dorcas."

Dorcas laid her hand on his arm, feeling a thrill right through her body at the firm muscle under her palm. He wanted her to call him "Ben". That was promising, was it not?"

She was enchanting. Ben had arrived late at the Masque and had looked for her immediately but had followed several false leads before he heard a couple of men talking about "Lady Boudicca and her costume". Even once he knew what to look for—something "that makes me remember how much we owed to women when we were on campaign"—he still couldn't find her.

His own fault. He had not expected her to be on the dance floor, but why not? She was a widow, not dead. And Ben could vouch for the fact that she was an attractive woman.

Mind you, the floor was so crowded, it was only by chance he was in the right place to see her as she and her partner ducked and wove and turned through the measures of a quadrille. After that, he had followed her back to what was clearly an accustomed corner, for the gentlemen who greeted her arrival had clearly been waiting for her. He thought he might have missed his chance. He was afraid she might have given away all her dances. But he had approached anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

He won the right to lead her in a dance, and it was a waltz. Had she known that when she granted it to him? But it seemed not, for she looked around at the other dancers taking their positions as couples, and asked, "Is this a waltz? But I have never danced it before! I am sorry, Ben."

"I will teach you," he proposed. "The steps are simple, and you are a graceful dancer. I was watching you earlier."

She shook her head but did not draw back as he led her onto the floor.

"One hand in mine, and the other on my back," he coached, while I put my other hand on your back, like so." He was not a tall man, but he towered over Dorcas. In a crowd of people, it would be his job to protect her and to make sure others did not bump into her or inconvenience her in any way.

Of course, his surge of protective warmth was nothing new. Since Mrs. Dove-Lyon had sent him to rescue her, his heart had insisted she was his to shield and defend.

He felt her shiver at their closeness. He had danced the waltz many times. When matrons and staid parsons tut-tutted about how scandalous it was, he had thought them ridiculous. But then, never before had he danced with Dorcas. To hold her in even so decorous an embrace sent his senses rioting and his animal appetites raging.

As the music started, he both described and demonstrated the steps and counted with her for a complete circuit. Gradually, she relaxed and began to trust herself to his arms, moving as he moved, their bodies in tune.

Ben, though, was more tense as the dance continued. Dear merciful heavens! Waltzing with Dorcas was both Paradise incarnate and a devilish torture! The floor was as full of couples as it could be. Even if he had had any intention of trying some of the more complex moves allowed in the dance, the crowd would have prevented them.

The crowd justified holding Dorcas closer in the turns than would have been allowed in a Society ball, but then this was the Mystère Masque, and many of those waltzing were in as close an embrace as was possible while fully clothed.

Not so Ben and Dorcas. He held her close enough that they brushed together with each movement, but far enough away she was not pressed to the concrete evidence of his state of arousal. Though, if he correctly interpreted the flush of color that showed under the edge of her mask, she was not unaffected.

She was still counting, almost under her breath so that, if he had been farther away, he would not have known. Perhaps his assessment of her blush was wishful thinking—all her attention was clearly on not making a mistake in the dance.

"You are doing very well," he encouraged. "No one would know this is your first waltz."

"I have a good teacher," she told him.

The half-hour of the set spun by in a haze of music, movement, and sweet desire. Then the little orchestra played the last few bars and fell silent, and the couples around them stopped and, with a scattering of applause, broke apart, hugged, laughed, sighed, or otherwise reacted according to their natures.

Ben had drifted to a stop with the last of the music, but he had not released Dorcas. She was looking upward at him, but her mask made it impossible to guess her thoughts. Still, she did not make any move to leave his arms.

"Dorcas, I—" but before he could finish his sentence, they were interrupted by an intent crowd of gentlemen, determined to rescue "their" Lady Boudicca.

"Hands off, Lord Officer," commanded one of them. He was dressed as a pirate and was waving a cutlass of silver-painted wood. "Lady Boudicca has promised the next dance to me."

"May I call on you tomorrow?" Ben said before the pirate or one of the others made good on their promise to drag him away from her.

"The last dance," she said, with equal urgency. "I will save it for you. If you wish."

"I wish," he assured her, and released her to go with the pirate. At least this new dance was a quadrille and not another waltz. That damned Mrs. Dove-Lyon had ordered far too many waltzes!