Sheri Cobb South by The Weaver Takes a Wife

Brundy, an unexpected pleasure,” she said, gliding toward him with both hands outstretched. “Does your wife not accompany you?”
    “Er, no,” replied Mr. Brundy as he rose to bow over her hands.
    “Do sit down,” she urged, sinking gracefully onto the sofa opposite. “David left but moments ago. He will be sorry he missed you.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t share ‘is regrets, me lady,” Mr. Brundy confessed. “To own the truth, I ‘ad ‘opes of seeing you alone to discuss, er, business of a personal nature.”
    “Indeed?” Emily remembered Lord David’s misgivings about his friend’s marriage, and her hackles rose. She did not know Mr. Brundy well, but she liked him enough to wish him happy in his marriage—particularly since his unhappiness would make Lord David doubly wary of that blessed institution.
    Mr. Brundy cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Lady Randall, I wonder if you would be so obliging as to teach me ‘ow to dance?”
    Emily, having learned a small part of Mr. Brundy’s past from Lord David, found something so poignant in the simple request that her sympathies were instantly aroused. Still, one did not learn the complex figures of the quadrille in a day.
    “I should certainly be willing to try, Mr. Brundy,” she began cautiously, “but you must be aware that some of the more difficult steps may take months to master.”
    “Then I guess we’d best get started right away, ‘adn’t we?” replied Mr. Brundy, much cheered.
    Such enthusiasm proved too contagious to resist, and Lady Randall soon found herself caught up in the spirit of the enterprise. Deeming the green saloon too small for their purposes, she led him to the music room at the rear of the house, and here they took their positions in the center of the floor.
    “It is a great pity we have no one to play the pianoforte for us, but we shall do just as well by counting aloud. You stand here, Mr. Brundy, and I, as your partner, will stand here,” she instructed him. “Take my hand like so, and step forward and back, forward and back. Very good! Now, reverse.”
    Mr. Brundy obediently followed her instructions, but as they remained a proper arm’s length apart at all times, he was at last moved to mutter, “They weren’t doing it like this.”
    “ ‘They,’ Mr. Brundy?”
    “ ‘elen and Waverly.”
    Enlightenment dawned in Emily’s dark eyes. She, too, had seen Lady Helen waltzing with Lord Waverly, and thought how elegant the earl had appeared, clasping his tall and slender partner in his arms—a far cry indeed from the man Lady Helen had married. What she had not known was that Mr. Brundy had also been watching—and that he was very much in love with his wife. Emily, reflecting wistfully that Lord David had never shown the least sign of jealousy at seeing her waltz with other men, could not but be moved.
    “You must be referring to the waltz,” Emily said gently. “Would you like to learn how?”
    “If any man is going to ‘old me wife in such a way,” he said with great deliberation, “it’s going to be me.”
    “ ‘Tis quite simple, really. Take my right hand with your left, and place your right hand at my waist.”
    “I—I can’t,” protested her embarrassed partner, taking an awkward step backwards.
    “Of course you can, Mr. Brundy! People do it all the time.”
    “But David—”
    “David will not object, believe me,” Emily said with a hint of regret. “Just pretend I am Lady Helen. You do want to waltz with her, do you not?”
    His resolution thus fortified, Mr. Brundy took his partner in a stiff embrace.
    “That’s the way,” she said approvingly. “Now, begin: one, two, three, one, two three—very good, Mr. Brundy! We shall have you waltzing at Almack’s in no time.”
    “Almack’s?” echoed Mr. Brundy, careful not to lose his count.
    “Almack’s Assembly Rooms, on King Street,” Emily explained. “A very select establishment where one may go of a Wednesday night