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between eighteen and fifty had been asked to stand up; boys significantly younger had rushed at it. Sarah had lost her husband; Beatrice her young beau. Their brother had lost his legs and an arm. It was so hard not to be bitter. Silently the three women had followed the same thought pattern and had arrived at the same conclusion. They didn’t know how to comfort one another; instead they watched the dancers and tried to recapture the party spirit.
    As usual, there were more women than men at the party, and anyway the men’s black evening suits rendered them almost invisible among the women’s shiny, pretty frocks. Girls partnered one another, glad of the exercise and not prepared to start the new year with their backs to the wall. Lydia fought the urge to go and circulate. She couldn’t leave Sarah and Beatrice standing without company. If she did move on, there was little chance they’d be singled out to be spoken to. As a wife she elevated their cluster; alone, the other two women would be surplus.
    Lydia spotted Lawrence across the room at the very moment his eyes searched her out. He was quite tall and extremely distinguished-looking, eminently proper. His hair was thinning, but she didn’t mind that. His sort did tend to go bald prematurely. Perhaps it was the fault of the wigs they’d worn in the Regency period, she joked to herself, refusing to acknowledge that the real reason she liked him balding was that he appeared older than he was. Too old to have been called up, perhaps. Not a draft-dodger. Not that he was. It was just that … Her thoughts were spiky and disloyal; they flashed like fireworks in the sky, startling. Smoke lingered. Thoughts lingered. Thoughts could not be controlled but, thank God, speech and actions could. No one knew her secret thoughts because she was careful not to articulate them.
    She shot him a glance and he understood what she needed in an instant. It was rare for a man to have such a finely tuned sense of social nicety, but Lydia adored his perfect manners and was extremely grateful for his endless resource when it came to small talk. He approached the ladies, kissed their hands, asked after their health and their journey to the party. He told them they looked ravishing and then asked Sarah whether she’d like to dance with him. The widow always got the first offer. She rarely accepted, but Lawrence considered it his duty to remember Arthur every time he attended a dance.
    ‘No, you should dance with your wife,’ Sarah replied gently, but firmly. Lawrence was a sound dancer. He would not land heavily on her feet, as so many men did, but Sarah didn’t like dancing. She never had, much. Obviously, she’d had to dance when it was her season, but she’d been so relieved when she fell in love with Arthur and Arthur fell in love with her, and she’d known she’d no longer be obliged to dance with every man who asked.
    ‘Beatrice, you won’t turn me down, will you?’
    Beatrice knew she ought to. Like her sister, she should redirect the polite and generous man back towards his wife, her friend, but unlike her sister, Beatrice absolutely loved to dance, was quite mad for it, and really couldn’t bear losing an opportunity to be in the arms of a man, if only for the briefest of moments.
    ‘Go ahead,’ Lydia smiled. ‘Sarah and I are going to hunt out the champagne fountain and get refills.’
    Beatrice and Lawrence were almost instantly swallowed by the dancing crowd. Lydia linked her arm through Sarah’s and they started to walk out of the ballroom, into the room where the cocktails were being served.
    ‘That was nice of you,’ commented Sarah.
    ‘Not at all. I can dance with Lawrence whenever I want to. If we danced every dance together we’d have nothing to talk about over breakfast.’ Lydia reached for two fresh glasses of champagne from a passing servant. ‘Did you have a lovely Christmas with the children?’
    ‘Absolutely. My two, Samuel’s three, plus the