gaming, and the coins in use were mainly pennies, thruppences, and sixpences. It didn't appear anyone was likely to lose their all here.
Another room was arranged for rest and conversation and included lavish amounts of food and drink. A great many of the older people were settled there.
A third room was a ballroom, where a trio worked away in one corner, playing cheerful country dances. Despite her determination not to take pleasure in this mission, Amy's toe began to tap. It had been so long since she had attended a dance. She waited for some gentleman to ask her to dance and did not have to wait long.
Heads had turned as they passed through the rooms. People had stared. Amy had always attracted attention, even in the dull clothes she had chosen in the past. Dressed as she was now in a pale pink silk gown with bodice of deep pink satin trimmed with beads, she knew she was unignorable. Especially, she admitted ruefully, as the bodice was fashionably low. It had been Beryl who had insisted on that, and Amy rather wished she hadn't given in. She felt horribly exposed.
But that, or her other endowments, attracted the young men like a blossom attracts bees. They gathered, they hovered. Amy wondered which would prove boldest.
It was a bright-eyed and dashing young man called Charles Nolan. He had fashionable windswept dark hair and too many showy fobs.
"He who hesitates is lost," he quoted cheerfully as he led her into the set.
Amy smiled at him. "Are you usually so quick to act, sir?"
"Of course. I find it serves me well. I am fast making my fortune by means of seeing opportunities and taking them."
He clearly intended this to be a point in his favor, but Amy immediately crossed him off her list of possibilities. Up and coming hopefuls were of no use to her. She had never expected to find her fortune attached to a young man anyway.
Mr. Nolan was succeeded by Mr. Hayport; Mr. Hayport by Mr. Jackson. She was careful to appear amiably feather-headed, for she had settled on that role. Her appearance seemed to lead people to leap to that conclusion anyway, and so she would allow it as gentlemen appeared to be much happier without a challenge to their own intellects.
None of her partners were eligible but Amy enjoyed herself tremendously. Then her conscience began to prick.
This would not do at all. She would never meet the older, richer men while prancing on the dance floor. When the next partner presented, she pleaded exhaustion and asked him to take her to the refreshment room.
He collected wine for them and sat beside her. This gentleman was Peter Cranfield. He was a little older than her previous partners and of a more serious disposition. He did not seem at all put out to be spending his time with her in conversation rather than dancing.
He tactfully made it clear that he came of a very wealthy family, but he also told Amy that he was one of three sons who would inherit the business and their father was still hale and hearty. Amy felt rather sorry for him, for he clearly thought himself a very fine fellow. She hoped this prime article wouldn't precipitately propose.
Amy missed a great deal of Mr. Cranfield's subtle self-advertisement in a fruitless review of a certain disastrous encounter. Even though the result could never have been different, she had wished and wished again that her last moments with Harry Crisp had not been so horrible.
"Well, Peter, you have carried off the prize. I admire such enterprise."
Amy looked up quickly to see an older man by their table. He was a trim man with silver hair, fine bones, and heavy-lidded gray eyes.
Mr. Cranfield rose, rather reluctantly. "Thank you, Uncle. Miss de Lacy, may I make known to you my uncle, Sir Cedric Forbes?" Amy acknowledged the introduction. "And this, Uncle, is Miss Amy de Lacy of Lincolnshire. She is a guest of Mrs. Claybury."
Sir Cedric sat at the table. Despite his age - for he must have been in his fifties - he was still a handsome man and had an air of intelligence and authority.
He immediately took over the steering of the conversation. Not a mention of money now, but talk of the Frost Fair in February and the great snows which had followed; anticipation of the coming festivities and the political implications of peace. Amy enjoyed it tremendously, then began to fear she was appearing