Shades of Charity
The evening of the charity ball had arrived, and all of the sparkling members of Antiguan society were present. Jane was surprised by how disproportionately white men were represented. While there were white women, there were not so many as Jane had expected, and many of the gentlemen had brought elegant young women of colour with them instead. If she had met them in London, Jane might have mistaken some of them for Italian.
As the lines of dancers formed down the centre of the ballroom, surrounded by pillars of ice, Jane and Vincent stood to the side and watched. She had offered to loan Nkiruka a dress for the occasion, but the older woman had declined, preferring to stay at the great house. Vincent looked very much as if he wished he could have stayed with her. The early part of the evening had been spent with different benefactors praising the glamural. Vincent, never easy in a crowd, had retreated into his usual taciturn self and let Jane speak to most of the patrons. The presentation of a new glamural was always difficult for him. He so hated being at the centre of attention under any circumstances, and he preferred that people be transported by the work and not think of the effort that went into it.
An elderly Scottish couple had been complimenting them for some minutes now. Even Jane had been reduced to merely nodding and smiling in response to the barrage of flattery. She came back to attention when the gentleman said, “… of course, now that I see the glamural, I cannot resent your having Imogene for the past month.”
“She is very accomplished.” Saying that Imogene had been with them the entire month was a bit much, as she had only been able to attend for two hours a week. “I only wish we could have had more of her time.”
He laughed, slapping his belly. “More of her time! That is rich. I tell you, I wish we could have a second just like her, too. We missed her for the weeks she was with you. Missed her indeed. More of her time! Ha!”
As he chuckled, Jane shifted to glance at Vincent. He had a small line between his brows. This was the most conspicuous, but not the only, conversation of this nature. She wanted to question the man further but did not want to get Imogene in trouble if she had been using the glamural as an excuse to have a day of leisure. “Well, it was very kind of you.”
The orchestra played the opening refrain for “Lord Nelson’s Hornpipe” and offered a welcome reprieve from the string of awkward conversations. It was an easy thing to encourage the gentleman and his lady to join the couples standing up to dance.
When they had stepped away, Jane turned to Vincent. “Does it seem to you as if several of our glamourists may have misrepresented how often they were with us?”
“Given the conditions I have seen, I cannot hold a grudge against them.”
“Nor I.” She gave a little laugh. “I suppose that explains why I did not know who Tamar was. Likely she never worked for us.”
“I find myself not terribly disturbed by this.” With his hands tucked behind his back and with his dark coat and elegantly fitted breeches, Vincent cut a fine figure.
Jane sighed. He did have such well-formed calves. If only she could convince him to wear formal attire more often.
“You disagree?” he asked.
“No, I was only thinking how well you looked this evening.”
He snorted. “By ‘well,’ I presume you mean sunburnt?”
“It does not harm your appearance. But, I was rather thinking of—”
“Mr. Hamilton, sir!” Mr. Ransford approached with Mrs. Ransford close by his side. He wore a kilt beneath his formal coat and rolled a bit as he walked. “I must congratulate you, sir, on a triumph. My wife tells me that you are the Prince Regent’s glamourist! I had no idea when we met. None. I would expect a namby-pamby man, not a pugilist such as yourself. Eh? Eh?” He held up his hands and mimed boxing. “And you did all this, to boot?”
“Very little, in truth, and none at all this last week. Your wife was in charge of the snow curtain, for instance.” Vincent put his hand behind Jane’s back. “My wife, who is also the Prince Regent’s glamourist, had charge of the project, but given her condition, the bulk of the work was actually done by a group of accomplished local glamourists.”
“The column by the entrance has their names written upon it.” Though Jane had requested that those slaves who had worked on the glamural be allowed to attend the ball, none of the owners who had been willing to loan them for the project seemed to be able to spare them for this particular evening.