Dancing in Red (a Wear Black novella) Read Free Page B

ring for a meal and someone would deliver it.
It was a dream.
    Nellie saw Bertie perhaps twice a week,
and she made sure she was worth every visit. She made herself read the papers
so she could stay current on the news and the gossip and have plenty of topics
with which to converse with the prince. He seemed to appreciate her attempts to
amuse, even outside of the bedchamber, because he always came to her looking tired
and depressed but went away cheered. After each visit she would receive a gift,
and it would be something bright and beautiful. Like her.
    The most recent gift was something
fairly simple, and she thought it the best yet. It was a vibrant shawl, woven
of the softest and finest silk she’d ever seen and touched—not that there had
been that much—and embroidered with finely worked miniature flowers on the
edges. She could honestly tell him he’d given her the most beautiful, soft, and
warm garment she had ever seen in her life. It cheered her up just looking at
it. She hoped that Bertie had something that cheered him up in the same way.
And maybe that was her. Who knew?
    Right now, she was wearing it as her own
personal talisman. In the midst of this sumptuous party, filled with
beautifully dressed English, the shawl made her feel as though she belonged.
No, better than that, the shawl made her feel worthy.
    But she was still bored. She never would
have thought it. Surrounded by money and power, and even fitting in—to a
certain degree—she was bored.
    “There’s only so many of these crushes
that one can attend before ennui sets in, wouldn’t you say?” she heard a voice
behind her remark. The accent was familiar, unique amid the sea of
self-important and overly eloquent odd turns of phrase that the English toffs
reveled in.
    She turned to see a man a little older
than she was, hair as red as any she’d seen in the heart of Kildare, eyes
twinkling as brightly as the stars above, but dressed in evening kit like the
English toffs. She liked him instantly. “I do, sir,” she said. “Not many I’ve
been to, but they blend into each other, sadly enough.”
    He laughed. “And sadly enough we
continue to attend, hoping for something new and wonderful to present itself.
So here you are. I am Dr. Cian O’Connor, my lady,” he said, bowing over her
gloved hand. “If someone were here to introduce us, I would scruple to find
him, but since no one here knows me and I know no one, I must take it upon
myself to do the honors.”
    It was on the tip of Nellie’s tongue to
ask how he was here if he knew no one, but she never got to ask, for he went on
without pause. “I understand you are the other Irish in these waters. I hope if
nothing else, you found the musical performance charming.”
    “It is,” she said, still trying to catch
up with the man’s patter. “I am Miss—“
    “Nellie Clifton. Of Dublin,” he said.
“Do you miss Abbey Street and Raglan Road, Miss Clifton?”
    At the names of familiar avenues of
Dublin, she laughed. “At times like these, very much,” she confessed. “But
London has its charms.”
    “That it does. If you have the
opportunity, madame, you should travel the Continent,” he said. “There are so
many places to be explored and studied for dreamers like us.”
    She smiled and tilted her head. “One
place at a time,” she said. “And I am young yet.”
    “So you are. If you find yourself
desiring to leave the demi monde , madame, come find me,” he said, that
twinkle in his eye sharpening. “You’re meant for better things, and I can point
you in the right direction.” He looked beyond her shoulder, bowed again, and
said, “Pleased to have made your acquaintance.”
    She looked over her shoulder to see what
had taken the Irishman’s attention and before she had turned back, he had
disappeared into the crowd. She was disappointed; she had missed the Irish lilt
more than she had imagined.
    Just then, over her shoulder, she heard,
“Miss Clifton?” Randall