Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [444]
“My acquaintance, Mr. Yi Tien Cho,” Jamie introduced him to a stout young woman in tight yellow satin. “Late of the Celestial Kingdom of China, Madame.”
“Ooh!” The young lady fluttered her fan before her face, impressed. “Really from China? But what an unthinkable distance you must have come! Do let me welcome you to our small island, Mr.—Mr. Cho?” She extended a hand to him, clearly expecting it to be kissed.
Mr. Willoughby bowed deeply, hands in his sleeves, and obligingly said something in Chinese. The young woman looked thrilled. Jamie looked momentarily startled, and then the mask of urbanity dropped back over his face. I saw Mr. Willoughby’s shining black eyes fix on the tips of the lady’s shoes, protruding from under the hem of her dress, and wondered just what he had said to her.
Jamie seized the opportunity—and the lady’s hand—bowing over it with extreme politeness.
“Your servant, Madame,” he said in thickly accented English. “Etienne Alexandre. And might I present to you my wife, Claire?”
“Oh, yes, so pleased to meet you!” The young woman, flushed with excitement, took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m Marcelline Williams; perhaps you’ll be acquainted with my brother, Judah? He owns Twelvetrees—you know, the large coffee plantation? I’ve come to stay with him for the season, and I’m having ever so marvelous a time!”
“No, I’m afraid we don’t know anyone here,” I said apologetically. “We’ve only just arrived ourselves—from Martinique, where my husband’s sugar business is.”
“Oh,” Miss Williams cried, her eyes flying wide open. “But you must allow me to make you acquainted with my particular friends, the Stephenses! I believe they once visited Martinique, and Georgina Stephens is such a charming person—you will like her at once, I promise!”
And that was all there was to it. Within an hour, I had been introduced to dozens of people, and was being carried slowly round the room, eddying from one group to the next, passed hand to hand by the current of introductions launched by Miss Williams.
Across the room, I could see Jamie, standing head and shoulders above his companions, the picture of aristocratic dignity. He was conversing cordially with a group of men, all eager to make the acquaintance of a prosperous businessman who might offer useful contacts with the French sugar trade. I caught his eye once, in passing, and he gave me a brilliant smile and a gallant French bow. I still wondered what in the name of God he thought he was up to, but shrugged mentally. He would tell me when he was ready.
Fergus and Marsali, as usual needing no one’s company but each other’s, were dancing at one end of the floor, her glowing pink face smiling into his. For the sake of the occasion, Fergus had forgone his useful hook, replacing it with a black leather glove filled with bran, pinned to the sleeve of his coat. This rested against the back of Marsali’s gown, a trifle stiff-looking, but not so unnatural as to provoke comment.
I danced past them, revolving sedately in the arms of a short, tubby English planter named Carstairs, who wheezed pleasantries into my bosom, red face streaming sweat.
As for Mr. Willoughby, he was enjoying an unparalleled social triumph, the center of attention of a cluster of ladies who vied with each other in pressing dainties and refreshments on him. His eyes were bright, and a faint flush shone on his sallow cheeks.
Mr. Carstairs deposited me among a group of ladies at the end of the dance, and gallantly went to fetch a cup of claret. I at once returned to the business of the evening, asking the ladies whether they might be familiar with people to whose acquaintance I had been recommended, named Abernathy.
“Abernathy?” Mrs. Hall, a youngish matron, fluttered her fan and looked blank. “No, I cannot say I am acquainted with them. Do they take a great part in society, do you know?”
“Oh, no, Joan!” Her friend, Mrs.