intricate. “I’ll never master that,” she murmured, half to herself.
“Of course you will.” Grey raised his voice to be heard over the music. “It merely requires practice. Personally, I dislike the minuet. All that mincing looks silly, even if you do consider the ‘marionette’ look of the arms to be graceful. But alas, every society ball has a minuet or two, so you must learn to dance it.”
“Clearly it requires a certain lightness of foot that I lack.”
He eyed her skeptically. “Somehow I can’t believe that. Any woman who can trip down a hill in skirts without falling, as you did yesterday in pursuit of your dogs, possesses all the lightness of foot necessary to dance a minuet.”
She did not want to remember what happened yesterday. “Well, your brother and sister clearly possess it. They’re doing the steps without even a stumble—and still managing to argue.”
“You must forgive the twins for their rudeness—they barely tolerate each other at the best of times.”
“That surprises me. I would have expected twins to be more easy together. You know, feel more of a connection.”
“At one time, they did.”
Noticing the edge in his voice, she slanted a glance at him. “What changed between them?”
He shrugged. “From what Mother has said, I gather that things changed after Thorn returned to England when he came of age. He wanted Gwyn to come with him, but she refused.”
“Why?” Beatrice asked.
He shifted to look at her, searching her face as if trying to decide how much to say. “Gwyn had a beau, some officer, whom she was sure would marry her eventually. Then something happened between them. The end result was she jilted him, apparently because of something Thorn said.” He observed her a bit too closely. “You know how brothers are.”
Oh, dear, this was probably Grey’s oblique way of trying to get her to speak about Joshua. “I do, indeed.”
When she said no more, Grey went on with a frown. “After that, she couldn’t forgive Thorn for meddling in her affairs. She won’t say exactly what happened, Thorn won’t even acknowledge his part in it, and Mother doesn’t know. So, here they stand, always at odds.”
“I sympathize,” she muttered, thinking of Joshua.
“How so? Do you and your brother not get along?”
“Not since Joshua returned from the war,” she admitted reluctantly. “We . . . don’t know how to be around each other anymore.”
“Ah. I can understand that.” He watched the twins. “I feel much the same about my siblings. When you’re apart for a long time, you—” A thin smile crossed his lips. “Discover that you’ve found different interests and formed independent opinions, and now you’re practically strangers.”
She shot him a smile of pure relief. Grey understood exactly what she was feeling. How lovely to find someone who did. “He’s not even the same person anymore. The Joshua I knew before the war was quiet and contemplative. He liked nothing so much as a good book and a glass of wine . . . or a long walk in the woods. Then Grandpapa bought him a commission, he was wounded on the Continent, and—”
“He changed.”
She nodded. “Dramatically. He became temperamental—melancholy one moment, angry the next. It’s hard to explain. I so want him to be how he used to be.”
A bitter laugh escaped Grey. “Battle alters people, and such a change is generally permanent.”
“How would you know?” Beatrice cast him a hard stare. “You’ve never been to war.”
He gazed blindly ahead. “There are more kinds of battle than those fought in wars.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but at that moment, the music ended.
Her aunt burst into applause, forcing Beatrice and Grey to do the same.
“Well, Miss Wolfe?” Thornstock said, coming to stand in front of Beatrice. “Who’s the better dancer? Me or Gwyn?”
“You are both very accomplished, truly. I couldn’t possibly—I mean—”
“Ignore my idiot brother,” Grey said. “He’s just being an arse. Thorn has never worried about anyone else’s opinion of him. None of us do, I’m afraid. It’s a family trait.” He arched an eyebrow at his half brother. “And Thorn is the worst.”
As if to prove Grey’s point, Thornstock burst into laughter. “Grey is right—I don’t need a judge of my abilities to know that I proved Gwyn wrong.” With a taunting glance back to where Gwyn was rolling her eyes, he held out his hand to Beatrice. “And I’ll prove it again. Come dance with me.”
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Beatrice responded, “I don’t know the steps. I’ve never even seen