Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

wasted his time: Lucasta never waltzed.
       He had not expected that it would figure amongst the country dances and the boulangers offered to the company in the Bugles' establishment, but Lady Bugle, hopeful that Lady Emborough would bring to her little party her tonnish nephew, had warned the musicians to be prepared to strike up for one, and had told Lucasta that if the Viscount did happen to ask her to dance it with him she might do so.
       'For there can be no objection to your doing so here, my love, amongst our particular friends. In London, of course, the case would be different – until, as I need scarcely remind you, you have been approved by the Patronesses of Almacks; but I should be excessively mortified if any of our guests thought it a dowdy party, and if dear Lady Emborough does bring Lord Desford to it you may depend upon it that he will expect to hear waltzes played, for he is quite one of the Pinks of the Ton, you know!'
       Lord Desford did ask her, saying, as he led her off the floor at the end of the country dance, that he hoped she would stand up with him again, and adding, with his attractive smile: 'Dare I ask you to waltz with me? Or do you frown on the waltz in Hampshire? I wonder if my aunt does? How stupid it was of me not to have asked her! Now, don't, I do beg of you, Miss Bugle, tell me that I've committed a social solecism!'
       She laughed, and said: 'No, indeed you have not! I do waltz, but whether Mama will permit me to do so in public is another matter!'
       'Then I shall instantly ask Mama's permission to waltz with you!' he said.
       This having been granted, he was presently seen twirling round the room with an arm lightly encircling Lucasta's trim waist: a spectacle which Lady Bugle regarded with compla cency, but which was watched by the Viscount's two cousins, and by several other young gentlemen equally enamoured of the Beauty, with no pleasure at all.
       After this, the Viscount did his duty by Miss Windle, and Miss Montsale, and then asked his cousin Emma to stand up with him.
       'For heaven's sake, Ashley, don't ask me to dance, but take me out of this insufferably hot room!' replied Mrs Redgrave, who had inherited much of her mother's forthrightness.
       'With the greatest pleasure on earth, cousin!' he replied, offering his arm. 'I've been uneasily aware for the past halfhour that my shirt-points are beginning to wilt! We will walk over to the doorway, as though we wished to exchange a word with Mortimer, and slip out of the room while the next set is forming. I daresay no one will notice our absence.'
       'I don't care a rush if they do notice it!' declared Mrs Redgrave, vigorously fanning herself. 'People have no business to hold assemblies on such a sultry night as this! They might at least have opened a window!'
       'Oh, they never do!' said Desford. 'Surely you must know, Emma, that it is only imprudent young people who open win dows on even the hottest of nights! Thereby causing their elders to suffer all the ills which, I am assured, arise from sitting in a draught, and exposing themselves to even worse dangers. Mortimer, why are you not doing your duty like a man, instead of lounging there and holding up your nose at the company?'
       'I wasn't!' said Mr Redgrave indignantly. 'The thing is that it's a dashed sight too hot for dancing – and no one thinks anything of it when we old married men don't choose to dance!'
       'Quoth the graybeard!' murmured Desford.
       'Be quiet, wretch!' Emma admonished him. 'I won't have poor Mortimer roasted! Recollect that although he is not so very many years older than you he is much fatter!'
       'There's an archwife for you!' said Mr Redgrave. 'If you take my advice, Des, you'll steer wide of parson's mousetrap!'
       'Thank you, I mean to! The melancholy sight of you living under the cat's foot is enough to make any man beware!'
       Mr Redgrave grinned, but said that Des had hit the