Death of an Adept

"Ximena, my dear, I am so glad you could join us tonight. And Adam darling, your timing couldn't have been more perfect - the dancing's just picking up momentum. I won't spoil your surprise by saying anything else just now - I'll let you choose your time and place - but do have some champagne and come in and mingle."

As the front door opened behind them to admit another couple, she reluctantly excused herself and went with her husband to greet them, leaving Adam and his ladies to help themselves to champagne and head on into the crowded drawing room. The music was coming from a large conservatory beyond, turned into a ballroom for the occasion, and they could see couples whirling in the patterns of a boisterous reel.

Heading vaguely in that direction, and waylaid several times by friends and professional colleagues come to be introduced to his striking companion, Adam managed to spot the Lovats early on, chatting amiably with one of Peregrine's recent clients near the doorway to the conservatory. Meanwhile, Philippa's attentions were claimed by an emeritus lecturer in neurology, likewise a former student of Jung, with whom she'd enjoyed a long-standing and comfortable flirtation.

As the neurologist whisked Philippa off to catch up on old times, Adam continued to work his way through the crowded room, Ximena at his side, caught up in the festive atmosphere. Eventually Peregrine noticed them and wound up his conversation, steering his wife over to join the new arrivals. Lovat being a sept of Clan Fraser, he was wearing a kilt in the brown hunting sett of his Fraser tartan, topped off by a bottle-green Montrose doublet. Julia's gown was a softer shade of moss-green, its scooped neckline and skirt flounced with double tiers of creamy lace - a stunning foil to her fair skin and red-gold hair.

"Hello, Julia," Adam said, kissing her on both cheeks. "You're looking radiant tonight. I'd like you to meet Ximena Lockhart. Peregrine, I believe you and Ximena met when she was last in Scotland."

"We did, indeed," Peregrine replied, as his wife smiled and extended her hand.

"Hello, Ximena," Julia said. "I'm very pleased to meet you at last. Would it be terribly trite of me to say that Peregrine has told me so much about you?"

"It was all gross exaggeration, I can assure you - both the good and the bad," Ximena replied with a smile. "Hello, Peregrine. It's good to see you again."

"And you," Peregrine said, bending over her hand with a grin and a courtly bow. "A usually reliable source tells me you may be here to stay."

An answering smile touched Ximena's lips as she drew Peregrine closer to kiss him on the cheek. "Knowing your source," she whispered, with a sidelong glance at Adam, "I'd say he's impeccably reliable. But please don't quote me on that until later tonight."

"My lips are sealed until you say otherwise," Peregrine promised. "Cross my heart." He made a crossing motion on the breast of his doublet. "Just don't make us wait too long," he added plaintively.

Laughing, the four of them drifted toward the conservatory, where the bandleader was inviting couples to take their places for Gay Gordons. As Julia seized Peregrine's hand and drew him toward the dance floor, assuring Ximena that the dance was not hard to follow, the wife of one of Adam's fellow opera supporters came bustling up to kiss him on both cheeks.

"Adam, my dear, I thought it was you! You Perthshire men always manage to cut such a dash, in your white waistcoats and white ties! What a splendid affectation! Come dance Gay Gordons with us! We need more couples. Don't worry, my dear, this one's easy," she added to Ximena, at her look of bewilderment. "Adam's a fine dancer. He'll talk you through it."

Chuckling his agreement, Adam led Ximena onto the dance floor, murmuring a quick sketch of the form of the dance as they took a place behind Peregrine and Julia, their left hands joined and right hands clasped behind Ximena's right shoulder. Perhaps twenty couples had lined up in a counterclockwise circle around the room by the time the music started.

After the opening chord, with its attendant bows and curtsies, the dance began with eight marching steps forward, turning after the first four to continue backward, then eight steps back, again with the pivot halfway through. Then Adam turned Ximena under his left arm for four bars while he executed a Highland setting step - and swept her into his arms for four bars of polka before they began the process all over again.

Ximena caught on quickly, and soon was executing her part of the dance with as much style as anyone else, laughing breathlessly by the time she and Adam exchanged bows at the closing chord. Beside them, a flushed and somewhat perturbed Julia drew up to inspect a rip in the hem of her lace flounce, where she had caught her heel toward the end of the dance.

"Oh, dear!" she murmured. "I was afraid I felt that tear. I knew I should have brought proper ghillies for dancing."