card?’ Bella shook her head, caught between laughter and dismay. ‘What is this, Gone with the Wind? Georgia won’t believe it when I tell her.’
‘Pansy was supposed to have sent it to you. It has the list of dances in it and a small pencil.’
‘Well she sent me a paper mountain, but I don’t remember a dance card.’
‘Not a problem. There will be spares.’ He turned to his brother. ‘George, would you—?’
‘I’m on it.’ George disappeared into the throng like an eel and returned with the prize.
Richard squiggled his distinctive black R beside several dances and made sure that her other partners were both kind and expert. ‘You can dance with George,’ he instructed, ‘but not in the Duke of Perth, when he goes crazy, or the Irish Rover because he always gets lost.’
George agreed cheerfully. He didn’t seem worried. ‘Everyone has one dance that brings them to their knees. Actually, that’s half the fun of reels – the catastrophes.’
Richard sighed. ‘See what I mean? Dance with him if you must, but watch yourself.’
But it wasn’t George who brought about the disaster. That was all Bella’s own fault.
Her partners, briefed by Richard, got her through the figures by a combination of timely crisp instruction and sheer muscle power. She danced a thing called Postie’s Jig with a gentle-faced, middle-aged man, who was clearly an expert.
‘It’s an interesting dance,’ he told her in a soft Highland accent. ‘Like a piece of paper that keeps being folded in on itself. Two couples dance at the same time, while the other four dancers stand still at the corners and help them round. Very pleasing when it’s well performed. It has balance.’
‘Um, good,’ said Bella doubtfully. She just wanted to scramble through it without falling flat on her face or poking someone’s eye out, but she didn’t tell her kindly partner that.
And they would have been fine, she was sure, if they had joined one of the friendly sets she had been dancing in up until then, where the other dancers were happy to give her an informal push in the right direction. But unfortunately she and her gentle partner were summoned to join the Queen’s set, in which Lady Pansy was also dancing. And Lady Pansy tried to help by shouting instructions at Bella across the set. Sometimes these conflicted with her partner’s. It was a nightmare, with Bella turning right when she should have gone left, blundering too far down the set, grabbing the hand of the wrong man when they came to turn in the middle … And then real disaster struck. They were dancing in the middle of the set, towards the Queen and her partner, in full regimentals. One couple had to make an arch; one had to go under it.
‘If you’re going up the set, you put your arms up,’ her kind partner whispered.
But Bella had no idea which direction was up. She thought she felt a tug and started to raise her arm, but Lady Pansy, standing at the top left-hand corner of the set, frowned and shook her head. So Bella snatched her hand back again – just as the Queen and her soldier lowered their heads to come through the arch they were expecting.
Well, Bella recovered but not fast enough. The Queen’s priceless tiara slid over one ear and started to fall.
It lasted only a moment, less than a bar of music. Bella tried to look over her shoulder but her partner forced her to dance on. So did everyone else, including the Queen, who for the rest of the dance held her tiara in place with the hand that she should have been giving to other dancers. Lady Pansy looked as if she would cry.
Afterwards everyone apologised. The Highlander was mortified, he could not understand it, nothing like that had ever happened to him on the dance floor before. He begged the Queen’s pardon again and again. Bella felt like a murderer.
Queen Jane, of course, could not have been nicer. ‘These things happen, Henry. It’s not the end of the world.’ And to Bella, ‘My dear, it couldn’t matter less. Postie is always fast and furious. At least no one was hurt.’
Which didn’t make Bella feel any better.
Prince George, when he heard, went into mourning. ‘You knocked Mother’s crown off and I missed it? Not even a photograph, since Father went and banned phones! Bugger, life’s unfair.’
The Queen re-attached her tiara and they danced for an hour and a half. Then dinner was served,