His wife, wearing a hideous headful of plumes, beamed and nodded at his side.

No London hostess would be entirely pleased, Ben thought when everyone had arrived and the orchestra members were busy tuning their instruments. The gathering could hardly be called a grand squeeze. Nevertheless, the ballroom was pleasingly crowded and everyone would have s.p.a.ce to dance, while those who sat or stood on the sidelines would have a clear view of the dancing.

And the first set was forming.

Bevan led out Mrs. Morris, while a young man Ben did not know led out Samantha. She stood in the line of ladies, smiling across at her partner. She was to have her wish at last, then, Ben thought a little wistfully.

I want to dance, she had once told him, a world of yearning in her voice. She had been dressed in her heavy, ill-fitting blacks at the time and standing in the gloomy, darkened sitting room of Bramble Hall. A long time ago-a lifetime.

Ben watched her perform a series of lively country dances over the next hour. Meanwhile, he did not skulk in his corner. He got to his feet a few times and moved about, exchanging greetings with people he had met in Fisherman's Bridge early in the summer and comments with his fellow guests.

He would wait until tomorrow, he decided. Or the day after. Would she be returning to her cottage? Perhaps he would call on her there. Tonight's setting, though wondrously festive, even romantic, was quite unsuited to him. He fought a return of the old frustration with his condition.

He was laughing over a story the landlord of the inn had just told him when someone touched his sleeve. He turned, and there she was.

"Ben," she said.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" He smiled at her and tried to look as if he was. Well, it was not difficult, was it? On a certain level he was enjoying himself. He liked this place and these people.

"Come and sit with me," she said. "The next dance is a waltz."

"You do not want to dance it?" he asked her.

She shook her head slightly and turned to lead the way to a deep alcove at one end of the ballroom. It was the mirror image of the orchestra alcove at the other end, though without the dais. Heavy velvet curtains had been pulled across it, though they had been looped back tonight so that anyone sitting within-there was a long velvet couch there-could watch the dancing. But no one was there.

She sat on the couch, and he seated himself beside her and propped his canes against the arm.

"Is this the first time you have danced?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Do you remember what you once said to me about dancing?" he asked her.

She nodded. "And I remember what you said to me."

Ah. He had told her he wanted to dance too.

"I meant," he said, "that I wanted to run free. Now I ride free in my chair."

She smiled at him. "But you were talking about dancing," she said.

The orchestra struck an opening chord, and the lilting music of the waltz filled the ballroom. Soon couples were twirling past the alcove.

"I always thought," she told him, "that the waltz was the most romantic of dances."

"But you do not want to dance it tonight?"

"Oh, I do," she said. "I want to dance it with you."

He laughed softly. "Perhaps," he said, "we can close our eyes and imagine it. Like rising above the rain clouds in our hot air balloon."

She wanted to waltz with him, he thought.

"Stand up, Ben." She got to her feet.

He gathered his canes and stood. Did she imagine he could dance? She took the canes from him, just as she had done with one of them when he had stepped into the sea with her, he remembered, and set them aside.

"Put your right arm about me," she said.

He set it about her waist and took her hand in his. She did not set her other hand on his shoulder but about his own waist to support him, and she gazed into his eyes, laughter and perhaps anxiety in her own.

Good Lord, she was serious.

And they waltzed.

They danced one whole turn about the alcove while it seemed the music became part of them and her eyes lost both the laughter and the anxiety and they simply gazed at each other and into each other.

Reality was still reality, of course. They did not, as they might have done in a fairy tale, suddenly waltz out from the alcove to twirl all about the ballroom while everyone else watched in wonder. But ... they had danced. They had waltzed. Together.

Something drew Ben's glance upward. A sprig of mistletoe hung from the ceiling at the very center of the alcove.

"Ah," he murmured to her while he could still stand. "And for this I do not even have to beg permission. Christmas has handed me its own special permit."

He kissed her, wrapping both arms about her waist while she twined her own about his neck. And then they smiled at each other, and for the moment he felt invincible. But only for a moment.

"If I do not sit down immediately or sooner," he told her, "someone is going to have to scoop me up from the floor and bear me ignominiously hence."

And then they were sitting side by side again, their shoulders touching, hand in hand, their fingers laced. And they were both laughing as she tipped her head sideways to set her cheek against his shoulder.

"That was probably the shortest, most ungainly waltz ever danced," he said.

"And that was perhaps the shortest, most glorious kiss ever enjoyed beneath the mistletoe," she said.

He rested his cheek briefly against her dark curls. "I loved you before I left here in the summer, Samantha," he said. "I did not mean to fall in love with you. It did not seem quite fair when I came with you to protect you. But it happened anyway. And my feelings have not changed."

"Oh, you provoking man," she said after several moments of silence between them while the waltz proceeded in the ballroom beyond their little haven. "How dare you stop there. You cannot stop there, Ben."

He turned his head and grinned down at her. "I was giving you the chance to stop me if you did not want me to embarra.s.s myself further," he said.

"Oh, no," she said. "I want you to embarra.s.s yourself."

"Wretch," he said. "Will you marry me?"

He heard her swallow.

"Hmm," she said, her voice a little higher-pitched than usual. "Let me see. I will have to think about this."

"Right," he said. "I will go away for another six months while you do so."

She laughed softly and lifted her head so that she could turn her face to his. Her eyes were shining, he could see in the light of the chandeliers beyond the alcove. Shining with unshed tears.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

They gazed at each other for a few moments, and then they were in each other's arms again and laughing-oh, yes, and shedding more than a tear apiece too.

"I love you," she said, her breath warm against his ear. "Oh, Ben, I have missed you. I have missed you so very much."

He drew back his head and smiled at her.

Samantha. His love.

Ah, the wonder of it.

"Am I forgiven?" he asked her.

She raised her eyebrows.

"For ripping up at you the day we met," he said, "and swearing most foully. You never said I was."

"I will think about it," she told him, and laughed.

24.

They considered waiting for a more clement time of year, but neither wanted to put off their wedding until June or July or even May. They considered Kenelston as a venue, but it had not really been Ben's home since childhood despite the fact that he owned it, and it never would be home now.

They settled upon Wales at the end of January, specifically upon the church in Fisherman's Bridge, with the Reverend Jenkins officiating. Samantha, after insisting that she would leave for her wedding from her cottage, realized that she had hurt her grandfather though he did not say so, and changed her mind. She would marry from the big house with her grandfather to accompany her and give her away. Ben would move to the village inn on the eve of the wedding. A grand wedding breakfast would be held in the ballroom at Cartref.

It was the very worst time of the year in which to expect guests to travel from any distance, but invitations were sent out anyway.

Beatrice and Gramley were the first to reply. They would come, though Beatrice reported that her husband was now quite sure his brother-in-law had taken leave of his senses. A letter came from Calvin the next day. He and Julia would also be coming. After that, while the banns were already being read at the village church, a steady stream of replies were delivered, all but one of them acceptances. Amazingly, all the Survivors were going to venture into the darkest bowels of Wales-Flavian's description-to attend Ben's nuptials. The exception was, of course, Vincent, whose wife was close to her time of confinement.

I will not leave Sophie, he had written, though she has urged me not to miss your wedding, Ben.

It was obvious that his wife had written the letter for him, for there followed a brief message in parentheses: (Vincent is more nervous than I am about the coming event, Sir Benedict. It would be cruel for me to try insisting that he go to Wales when he is so anxious for my sake. You will come here in March, though, for the annual gathering of the Survivors' Club, will you not, even though you will be so recently married? And you will bring Lady Harper with you? Please? I so very much want to meet all of Vincent's friends.) On a separate sheet of paper, enclosed with the letter, was a charcoal drawing-a very fine caricature indeed-of a man who bore a remarkable resemblance to Vince, pacing with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back, droplets of sweat falling from his brow, and generally looking very worried indeed while a little mouse in one corner gazed kindly up at him.

"I am so sorry," Ben said, taking Samantha's hand in his as they sat together on the couch in her sitting room at the cottage one afternoon a week before the wedding. "All the outside guests will be mine."

"Ah," she said, "but all the inside guests will be mine, you see. All my friends and neighbors will be about me on what I expect to be the happiest day of my life. And Grandpapa will be there to give me into your keeping."

He squeezed her hand.

"Besides," she said, turning her head so that he could see that her eyes were twinkling, "I had a very civil letter from Matilda today."

"You did?" His eyebrows rose in some surprise.

"Indeed," she said. "She congratulated me upon having snared a very eligible husband for the second time despite my origins."

"Your shady Gypsy past?"

"That," she said, "and the fact that my grandfather is in coal. It does sound very murky and dusty, does it not? She hopes-no, she fervently hopes and prays-that I have learned my lesson and will not lead you a merry dance as I did her poor dear Matthew."

"No!"

"All very civil," she said. "Though she did sink just a little into spite at the end, Ben. She took leave to give it as her opinion that it would be no less than you deserve if I do lead you a dance, since you appear to be the type of man who believes it quite unexceptionable to ride out with a widow when she is in deepest mourning."

"We deserve each other, then?" he asked her.

"It would appear so," she said with a sigh. "Oh, she is not, by the way, coming to our wedding. Neither are the Earl and Countess of Heathmoor. I was rather surprised by that announcement, since my letter to them was merely to explain that I will be remarrying and was in no way an invitation."

The next day Samantha was surprised by another letter. The Reverend John Saul, her half brother, was pleased to hear that she had settled well in Wales and was happy there with her mother's people. He felt it inc.u.mbent upon himself to honor his late father by attending the wedding of the daughter of whom his parent had been so obviously fond. His dear wife would not be accompanying him.

Samantha, alone in her book room when she read the letter, unabashedly wept over it, its stiff pomposity notwithstanding.

"I will have an outside guest of my own," she said, thrusting the letter into Ben's hand when he drove over from Cartref with her grandfather during the afternoon.

And she turned and wept all over again in her grandfather's arms while he patted her back and read the letter over Ben's shoulder.

The preparations for the wedding were all made. All that remained was to await the arrival of those who would be traveling from England during one of the potentially most inclement months of the year. They would all acquire cricked necks, Ben remarked on one occasion, if they gazed skyward much more than they did. It was a cold month, and the wind, which blew almost constantly, was what Mrs. Price called a lazy wind.

"It can't be bothered to swerve around you," she explained. "It just blows straight through."

But the sky remained blue much of the time, and when there were clouds, they were high and unthreatening. There was no snow. There rarely was in this part of Wales, but the key word was rarely. They would all have relaxed a bit more, perhaps, if it had been never. Snow was not the only threat, of course. Rain could be just as bad or worse. It did not take a great deal of it to turn the roads to mud and sometimes to quagmires. And rain was common in this part of the world, especially at this time of year.

But the weather held.

And the guests began to arrive.

All the guests from England stayed at Cartref at Mr. Bevan's insistence, though Ben removed to the inn a little earlier than planned to make room for them all. Calvin, who was to be his best man, came there the evening before the wedding to stay with him.

All the Survivors came with him just for the evening, to the great pleasure of the landlord and the equal consternation of his wife, who had discovered not only that the lady and all the gentlemen were t.i.tled, which was bad enough, but that one of them was actually a duke.

"And there is only that much," she whispered to her husband even though they were in the kitchen and two closed doors stood between them and the gathered company, "between a duke and a king." She held her forefinger a quarter of an inch from her thumb.

George Crabbe, Duke of Stanbrook, meanwhile was asking Ben about his wheeled chair. "It seems a sensible notion," he said, "but you have always been quite adamantly set against using one."

"I have nothing more to prove," Ben told him. "I can and do walk. I have danced. Now I can be sensible and move around as fast as any other man."