Chapter 1:
Chapter 22:
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Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 23
Guests, dancing or standing or sitting, occupied the great hall, a fittingly spacious location for the ball. After a set of two dances, Samantha rejoined Harriet’s aunt in a row of seats against the wall.
Aunt Thirza gave Samantha a strained smile, and her dark brown eyes narrowed. Lacking beauty, she had her brother’s jowls, long face, and dense eyebrows, and her eyes were small and too close together. Her evening gown was dark gray and plain over a stout figure of medium height. She was Mr. Prendregast’s elder sister by two years, and since Samantha’s mother was long since deceased, this aunt of Harriet’s had insisted upon serving as Samantha’s chaperone. Samantha attempted to smile at the woman and considered it no wonder Harriet disliked her aunt’s company and had insisted her father was sufficient chaperone for herself.
Standing beside Aunt Thirza and enduring her haughty silence, Samantha scanned the room and espied Harriet dancing. Samantha wondered how to broach certain sensitive topics about the family, including Aunt Thirza’s presumably nightmarish childhood.
“Do you enjoy balls, Mrs. Prendregast?” Samantha asked. It was the custom for women to retain their surnames when they married.
Knitting her brow, Aunt Thirza turned to eye Samantha, who wondered if she was timid rather than stern. Perhaps she expected her charge to have no interest in her as an individual. “Not especially, but I am doing this for family.”
Samantha smiled. “That is commendable. Not everyone is so kind toward their family members. Indeed, I am not even related to you, and yet you are helping me. Thank you for that.”
Aunt Thirza stared at Samantha. She blinked twice before answering. “It is nothing, Miss Ponsonby. As a close friend of my niece, you should be treated like any other respectable young lady.”
Samantha smiled and mentally chastised herself for making assumptions about this woman. She recalled that Harriet found this aunt severe, so Samantha resolved to tread carefully. “Has your family always been close?”
“Yes, we have always bonded, especially my brothers and sisters and I.”
“Have you been close to your in-laws?” Samantha asked.
Aunt Thirza frowned and stared into the distance. Samantha followed her gaze and espied partners dancing mostly with grace, nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently, the question required some thought. “I cannot say as I am especially close to my in-laws.” She shook her head and turned to peer at Samantha with her beady eyes. “You are full of inquiries this evening, Miss Ponsonby.”
“Please forgive me if I seem too inquisitive, Mrs. Prendregast,” Samantha said. “I have been wondering about a few details about the Prendregast family.”
Aunt Thirza stiffened, standing very still and scowling at Samantha, who began to feel nervous. “What few details would those be, Miss Ponsonby?”
Samantha took a deep breath. “Do you know how Harriet’s mother died?”
Aunt Thirza puffed up and stared at Samantha. “Well! I did not know you wished to ask morbid questions about the family.”
Samantha raised both her palms. “Pray do forgive me, ma’am—I did not mean to be morbid. But nobody talks about her or about her death. I have known Harriet since I was eight years old, and all she has told me is that her mother died when she was a mere infant. I thought nothing of it before I came to Claverton Castle.”
“She is too young to remember her mother.” Aunt Thirza stared into the distance again. “Her mother was a houseguest when she died quite suddenly. Heart failure, I believe it was.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Heart failure in one so young?”
“Well… I have heard that, ah, weak hearts ran in her family. Sometimes I fear Harriet and Reginald may have inherited it.”
“Who told you that weak hearts ran in her family?”
“It… came up in conversation with one of my… family members. Gracious, you ask too many questions, Miss Ponsonby!”
“Please excuse me.” Samantha gulped. “I am often told I am impertinent. Perhaps there is some truth in it, though I mean no malice by it.” She surmised that Aunt Thirza would not supply her with any more information.
The orchestra played in a loft above the screens passage. Still feeling unnerved, Samantha looked up at the minstrels’ gallery and smiled at the musicians in their knee-breeches and black gowns. She lowered her chin and scanned the dancers and those who stood or sat around the edges of the room, many of whom were older members of the gentility and aristocracy.
Samantha’s gaze drifted around the enormous room; she reminded herself that her host would most certainly not have invited Uncle Bradford. Yet he might have unwittingly invited one of Uncle Bradford’s odious friends. Samantha kept drifting her eyes about aimlessly and consciously chose to think about another topic. She wondered if the great hall was terribly cold in winter; now it felt comfortable. She suspected it might become stuffy after more guests arrived.
Periodically she exchanged glances with guests who bowed to her, and she curtseyed to them. Without an introduction, however, she could not speak to these guests. On the first such occasion, she glanced at Aunt Thirza, who was looking away from the bowing guests. She wondered if she was deliberately ignoring them or searching the room for someone.
Knitting her brow, Samantha figured it was too soon to ask Aunt Thirza about Gertrude and Uncle Jonathan. She scanned the room for Harriet, Reginald, and the Montmorencys. She willed Margot to enter the room and walk straight toward her.
Margot, Roland, and the Countess of Starcliffe intended to depart early in the morning; Samantha hoped she could persuade them to prolong their stay. She imagined Margot walking beside her. Samantha bit her lip. Though Mr. Prendregast clearly indicated that the purpose of this ball was for Samantha, and possibly Harriet, to meet their future husbands, she’d prefer the company of old friends, with whom she felt comfortable, such as Margot. Especially Margot.
Samantha wondered at the location of Harriet and Reginald; she’d prefer they, rather than Mr. Prendregast or Harriet’s aunt, introduced her to guests.
A few guests had inserted themselves between Samantha and Aunt Thirza. But seconds later, the older woman’s hand was grasping Samantha’s elbow and squeezing it like a claw. Samantha turned to her and stared. The claw tugged. “Do come here, Miss Ponsonby.”
Samantha allowed Aunt Thirza to lead her to Mr. Prendregast, who stood with several individuals with a grace and dignity of bearing suggesting aristocracy. Their attire was neither too drab nor too ostentatious. Samantha cast a sidelong glance at Mr. Prendregast, the customarily disgruntled and curmudgeonly older man, looking incongruous at this ball. However, she could not expect him to hide in the library all evening.
Samantha raised her eyebrows: she was not accustomed to seeing her host in formal evening garb rather than that of a country sportsman. For once, his dogs didn’t accompany him. Mr. Prendregast seemed absorbed in his elegant companions and didn’t acknowledge her presence, so Samantha scanned the room.
Most of the older men dressed much like Mr. Prendregast in knee-breeches and sober colors, in contrast with young men’s pantaloons, patterned waistcoats, and cutaway coats with slightly puffy sleeves. The women wore silk and net or gauze gowns, and many had towering plumes above their elaborately curled, braided, and piled hair.
Samantha glanced down at her own pale green silk evening gown and lightly touched the primroses in her fair hair. The only other evening gown she had packed was yellow, and she belatedly realized it might have created a better impression. The guests ranged in age between fifteen and eighty. Suppressing a grimace, Samantha hoped her host would not pressure her to marry an octogenarian.
Samantha glanced at Aunt Thirza, who stood quietly apart from her brother and the aristocrats. Samantha turned to Mr. Prendregast. As though sensing Samantha’s eyes on him, he turned to her. “Not to worry, dear, I can introduce you to some fine dancing partners. More importantly, some eligible dancing partners. First, allow me to introduce you to these guests.”
Two of Mr. Prendregast’s companions were young men near Samantha’s age or slightly older. They were both of average height and average looks and had brown hair; they were equally fashionable without the eccentricities of either Reginald or Roland. Curtseying, Samantha fancied that the collies had magically transformed into people. Her host introduced them to her, and before long she had dancing partners for two sets in a row.
With the second dance partner, Samantha began dancing a sedate minuet, and after five minutes she found herself bored whilst her partner, concentrating on his steps, scarcely conversed. With a glance down the line, Samantha observed that she and her partner were the only dancers under the age of fifty.
After one more minuet, her partner led her back to Mr. Prendregast, who stood with a middle-aged gentleman who had been watching them dance. Samantha glanced about in search of Aunt Thirza, yet in vain; perhaps she had found the punch bowl.
Mr. Prendregast turned to Samantha. “Ah, yes… Miss Ponsonby, this is the Marquis of Uppington. My lord, this is Miss Samantha Ponsonby.”
The Marquis bowed low to Samantha. His energy strangely put her ill at ease. She wished to make no make eye contact with him, although she need not look up, for they were close in height. Her heart beat faster than customarily, and she felt without a doubt that something was off about him. It was not his appearance: he was about forty years old and elegantly dressed in gray, and he had an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and gray eyes. His hair was dark brown and shoulder-length.
Uppington’s energy disturbed Samantha, not his appearance. That and his garlic breath, which suggested that he anticipated vampires attending the ball. Admittedly, that was possible; she resisted an urge to scan the room for such creatures. Above all, it was the energy he emanated, that of someone who was sinister, hostile, or demented.
“I have heard so much about you, Miss Ponsonby.” The Marquis’s smile only spread to half his mouth, and she disliked how he narrowed his cold gray eyes.
“What have you heard, my lord?”
“I heard that the Prendregast family is entertaining a great beauty at Claverton Castle, and that she arrived under most peculiar circumstances.” His half-smile seemed a sneer.
The young man with whom Samantha had just danced twirled his quizzing glass, looked from one to the other, and clearly decided, from the Marquis’s intense gaze on Samantha, that he would receive no more attention from either of them. He hastily bowed and turned on his heel. Samantha widened her eyes and began to raise one hand in his direction. “Oh—oh—” Realizing she was behaving like a jobbernoll, she lowered her hand and fluttered her fan.
The Marquis asked Samantha to dance, and she reluctantly agreed.
Though a competent dancer, Samantha cast her eyes down to her feet whilst she danced with the Marquis. Not knowing what to say, she felt confused as to whether he was sarcastic about her alleged beauty or whether he had literally heard those gossiping words and disagreed with them, or whether it was his idea of a compliment.
Discomfited by him, Samantha drifted her line of vision toward the floor and the satin slippers and polished black shoes of surrounding guests. As soon as they made eye contact again, Samantha said, “As you can see, the gossips greatly exaggerated my beauty.”
“Nonsense, Miss Ponsonby. Is that false modesty, or do you truly believe it?”
Samantha pressed her lips together and silently fumed. He need not know that she found his comments disagreeable. The phrase “false modesty” felt like an accusation. She acknowledged that she was somewhat pretty, though she’d always wished she had dark hair. “A great beauty” sounded like exaggeration.
“Do not fear that I shall gossip about you, my dear,” he said.
Samantha sucked in a breath, disgusted that he addressed her in such a forward manner. “It sounds to me as though you already have.” Samantha spun away momentarily.
When she rejoined him, the Marquis said, “Ah, touché!”
“At the very least, you have listened to gossip about me.”
“I find you fascinating material for gossip. Is it true that you arrived here with no chaperone before dawn and were nearly tossed out, mistaken for a begging waif?”