John offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Jane acquiesced, and John propelled her into the dining room. The cousins had already emptied the sack and now sifted through its contents with much hilarity.
“A lump of coal—that’s for you, Thomas.” His oldest brother threw it at him, and Thomas caught it good-naturedly.
“Excellent fielding,” John said. “Do you all still play cricket?”
“We do,” Thomas said, and the cousins went off on a long aside about cricket games past and present.
Lord Merrickson roared at them to cease, though without rancor. Lady Merrickson greeted John and Captain Ingram with a warm smile. John took on the cross-eyed, smitten look he always wore in front of Jane’s mother. Jane did not believe him in love with her mother, exactly, but awed by her. Many gentlemen were.
Captain Ingram, on the other hand, was deferential and polite to Lady Merrickson, as was her due, but nothing more.
As Ingram moved back to Jane, she noted that his greatcoat was gone—taken by one of the footmen. His uniform beneath, the deep blue of a cavalryman, held the warmth of his body.
He leaned to her. “Do they ever let you insert a word?” he asked quietly.
Jane tried not to shiver at his voice’s low rumble. “On occasion,” she said. “I play a fine game of cricket myself. Or used to. As John said, I am much too prim and proper now.”
“No, she ain’t,” the middle Randolph cousin, Marcus, proclaimed. “Just this summer she hiked up her petticoats and took up the bat.”
“A pity I missed it,” John said loudly. “We ought to scare up a team of ladies at camp, Ingram. Officers wives versus …”
Marcus and Thomas burst out laughing, and the oldest cousin, Digby, looked aghast. “I say, old chap. Not in front of Jane.”
“Your pardon, Jane.” John looked anything but sorry. He was unusually merry tonight. Perhaps he’d imbibed a quantity of brandy to stave off the cold of the journey.
“I am not offended,” Jane answered. “But my mother might be.”
Lady Merrickson was not at all, Jane knew, but the admonition made John flush. “Er …” he spluttered.
“Whisky!” Digby snatched up the bottle and held it high. “Thank you, John. All is forgiven. Marcus, fetch the glasses. Mr. MacDonald, the black bun is for you, I think.”
Grandfather snatched up the cake wrapped in muslin and held it to his nose. “A fine one. Like me old mum used to bake.”
Grandfather’s “old mum” had a cook to do her baking, so Jane had been told. His family had lived well in the Highlands before the ’45.
Outside, the piper Grandfather had hired began to drone, the noise of the pipes wrapping around the house.
“What the devil is that?” John demanded.
“I believe they are bagpipes,” Captain Ingram said. His mild tone made Jane want to laugh. “You have heard them in the Highland regiments.”
“Not like that. Phew, what a racket.”
Grandfather scowled at him. “Ye wouldn’t know good piping from a frog croaking, lad. There are fiddlers and drummers waiting in the ballroom. Off we go.”
The cousins, with whisky and glasses, pounded out of the dining room and along the hall to the ballroom in the back of the house. John escorted Jane, hurrying her to the entertainment, while Captain Ingram politely walked with Grandfather. The terrace windows in the ballroom framed the bonfires burning merrily a mile or so away.
Three musicians waited, two with fiddles, one with a drum. They struck up a Scottish tune as the family entered, blending with the piper outside.
Guest who’d been staying at the house and those arriving now that the First-Footer ritual was done swarmed around them. They were neighbors and old friends of the family, and soon laughter and chatter filled the room.
Grandfather spoke a few moments with Captain Ingram, then he threw off his shawl and cane and jigged to the drums and fiddles, cheered on by Jane’s cousins and John. Ingram, politely accepting a whisky Digby had thrust at him, watched with interest.
“I am not certain this was the welcome you expected,” Jane said when she drifted near him again.
“It will do.” Ingram looked down at her, his gray eyes holding fire. “Is every New Year like this for you?”
“I am afraid so,” Jane answered. “Grandfather insists.”
“He enjoys it, I’d say.”
Grandfather kicked up his heels, a move that made him totter, but young Thomas caught him, and the two locked arms and whirled away.
“He does indeed.” Some considered Jane’s grandfather a foolish old man, but he had more life in him than many insipid young aristocrats she met during the London Season.
The music changed to that of a country dance, and couples formed into lines, ladies facing gentlemen. John immediately went to a young lady who was the daughter of Jane’s family’s oldest friends and led her out.
“Lady Jane?” Ingram offered his arm. “I am an indifferent dancer, but I will make the attempt.”
Jane did not like the way her heart fluttered at the sight of Captain Ingram’s hard arm, outlined by the tight sleeve of his coat. Jane was as good as betrothed—she should not have to worry about her heart fluttering again.
Out of nowhere, Jane felt cheated. Grandfather’s stories of his courtship with her grandmother, filled with passion and romance, flitted through her mind. The two had been very much in love, had run away together to the dismay of both families, and then defied them all and lived happily ever after. For one intense moment, Jane wanted that.
Such a foolish idea. Better to marry the son of a neighbor everyone approved of. Prudence and wisdom lined the path to true happiness.
Jane gazed at Captain Ingram, inwardly shaking more than she had the first time she’d fallen from a horse. Flying through the air, not knowing where she’d land, had both terrified and exhilarated her.
“I do not wish to dance,” she said. Captain Ingram’s expression turned to disappointment, but Jane put her hand on his sleeve. “Shall we walk out to the bonfires instead?”
The longing in his eyes was unmistakable. The captain had no wish to be shut up in a hot ballroom with people he didn’t know. Jane had no wish to be here either.
Freedom beckoned.
Captain Ingram studied Jane a moment, then he nodded in resolve. “I would enjoy that, yes.”
Jane led him from the ballroom, her heart pounding, wondering, as she had that day she’d been flung from her mare’s back, if her landing would be rough or splendid.
CHAPTER 3
As much as he wished to, Spencer could not simply rush into the night alone with Lady Jane. Such a thing was not done. Lady Jane bade two footmen, who fetched Jane’s and Spencer’s wraps, to bundle up and accompany them with lanterns. The lads, eager to be out, set forth, guiding the way into the darkness.
Five people actually tramped to the bonfires, because the youngest of the cousins, Thomas, joined them at the last minute.
“You’re saving me,” Thomas told Spencer as he fell into step with them. “Aunt Isobel wants me standing up with debutantes, as though I’d propose to one tomorrow. I ain’t marrying for a long while, never fear. I want to join the army, like you.”