The Ball at Versailles by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel [Steel, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Felicity was at the same table as Caroline, and four other American girls with their escorts. Felicity could see her parents at a nearby table where Araminta was due to sit with them, but her seat was vacant. When the first dance with the escorts was announced, Felicity couldn’t find hers anywhere. He had vanished immediately after the presentation without a word to her. She glimpsed him once in the distance during cocktail hour, and he hadn’t shown up yet at the dinner table. The meal was about to begin after the first two dances.

“Where’s your date?” Caroline asked her in a whisper. Felicity had been left looking abandoned and regal as soon as the father-daughter dance was over.

“I have absolutely no idea,” she admitted, feeling lost, as Caroline left the table with Willie Brockhall, who was very gallant when Caroline admitted that she still wasn’t feeling well. The evening had been hard for her, she could barely manage to get through the presentation and now the dancing and the meal. The long evening had been planned for young women in search of husbands, not for pregnant women with morning sickness, she thought, and she was trying to be polite to Willie and a good sport, no matter how ill she felt. She’d had cramps in her back and lower abdomen all night, which she thought was probably from throwing up with such force that it wracked her entire body.

Felicity watched Caroline dance away with Willie to a lovely foxtrot. The band was playing the best dance music she had ever heard. They even played some of Frank Sinatra’s songs, and some of Dean Martin’s. She loved to dance and felt foolish and conspicuous with no partner. She was about to sit down alone at her table, next to Pierre Villier’s empty chair, when someone touched her arm and she turned to see who it was, hopefully Pierre returning for the escort’s dance. The young man she found herself facing looked as though he’d gotten dressed in the dark. He had a wild mane of curly red hair that formed a bush around his head. He had warm brown eyes, and a cautious smile. He was wearing black tie instead of white tie and tails, since he wasn’t an escort, and his tie was crooked.

“I’m sorry. My sister is one of the debutantes tonight, Francoise Trudot, maybe you met her. She has red hair like me. I’m Raphael, I know Pierre Villiers is your escort. I went to school with him. He spends more time drinking in the bushes with his friends at parties like this than on the dance floor. It’s a shame for you to miss this dance, and the music is so good. Would you like to dance with me?” he asked, and she hesitated. She wasn’t sure what the rules were about substituting escorts, but the official part of the evening was over, and it was free-form from now on. And she did want to dance.

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