Red Jack's Daughter Read Free Page A

Lord Leith while Lady Grantham glared at the perspiring Sir Selby, who had all unwittingly brought down a funereal atmosphere upon them. Miss Eastwood bowed her head for a moment to acknowledge Lord Leith’s sympathies. In that brief moment Lady Grantham fixed a look of such annoyance on Sir Selby that he began to talk further in a hearty voice that sounded foolish even in his own ears.
    While Sir Selby improvised wildly about battles and sport he had shared in the ranks with his dear “Red Jack,” he became aware that there was once again a great press of people around him. A great many, it appeared, were curious as to what could be holding Lord Leith’s attention for so long. An interested crowd had formed in their vicinity, and even the Incomparable Miss Merriman was now holding court not two paces away. Now, Sir Selby thought as he wound his reminiscences down to a halt, now would be the time for him to haul her off to the dance floor.
    “Miss Eastwood,” Lord Leith said quietly, a moment after Sir Selby had subsided, “the musicians are tuning up again. ”
    Miss Eastwood looked up mutely at Lord Leith. A strange quiet had fallen in their corner of the room. It seemed a fair number of the guests in their vicinity had muted their own conversations and a few were frankly goggling, trying to see whom the lofty Lord Leith was addressing.
    “Never saw her there at all,” one vagrant masculine whisperer complained.
    “Miss Eastwood,” Lord Leith continued, “would you do me the honor of taking this dance with me? It’s not a waltz, so there can be no question of impropriety,” he added to fill the silence Miss Eastwood seemed to have no idea of breaking.
    At length, she spoke. Her voice, though low and husky, was clear enough to carry in the eerie stillness.
    “Lud, no,” Miss Eastwood said abruptly. And then, after a hesitation, “Thank you.”
    She had done what no debutante in three Seasons had achieved. For a moment Lord Leith’s gray eyes opened wide, but he made no other movement for a small space of time. Then, recollecting himself, he bowed and without another word strode off as the voices around them rose to a babble.
    Sir Selby, however, was not struck speechless.
    “Damnation!” he blurted.
    “I think,” said Lady Grantham, who was now truly in several shades of purple, “we shall leave.”
    Miss Eastwood looked about in confusion as she rose to accompany the elder woman. “How else should I have said it?” she asked.
    “As ‘yes,’ ” Lady Grantham said through clenched teeth, “ ‘ Thank you.’ ”

 
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    “The cut direct,” Lady Grantham moaned as she sat upright and held on to the door strap in the swaying carriage. “It only needed that, the cut direct.”
    “But,” Miss Eastwood said softly, sitting across from Lady Grantham and watching her in the glow of the coach lamp with growing consternation, “I truly did not wish to dance with him.”
    “One might have said,” Lady Grantham went on, addressing air, “ ‘Oh, but I cannot, for I’ve hurt my ankle.’ Or one might have claimed one was still in mourning, although that is patently untrue, or one might even have laid claim to dizziness.”
    “Could even have pretended to swoon,” Sir Selby grumbled from his corner of the carriage. “Or one might have claimed fatigue,” Lady Grantham went on, “or declined sweetly and requested a lemonade instead. Or cited the excessive heat, or even”—and here even Lady Grantham’s voice grew a trifle wild—“claimed a prior commitment. But a bald, ‘No, thank you.’ It is beyond comprehension.”
    Miss Eastwood’s pale face grew whiter.
    “Terribly sorry ... I didn’t realize,” she began, but then hesitated, for she did know and was thoroughly ashamed of herself for lying. “The fellow popped up from nowhere. He startled me badly, frightened me, in fact,” she said.
    And so he had. She had spent the interminable evening sitting next to Lady Grantham, scarcely