“Thank you for keeping the girls.”
“It’s my pleasure, Sam. You know that. If I’d had children, I’d have wanted girls as smart and sassy as these two imps.”
The girls looked back. “I wish we could go, too,” Lucy said wistfully. Something in her expression flickered and changed, and Angie predicted that she would be more interested the next time clothing and fashion were topics of discussion.
Angie tilted her head and her brow puckered. She had a feeling she had just witnessed a landmark step on the journey to womanhood. Oddly, her first thought was for Laura. It should have been Laura whose beauty and finery raised longing in her daughter’s heart. And Laura should have been the one to observe and recognize this significant moment.
“There are many balls and late suppers ahead for you,” Angie promised softly. “Your time will come.”
“Me, too,” Daisy said brightly. “After my operation.”
“Yes. You, too.” Angie did not let her gaze drop to Daisy’s twisted foot.
Sam lifted her evening cape from the back of the chair and dropped it lightly around her shoulders. “Well, Mrs. Holland. Now that we have universal approval, shall we go?” He extended his arm and Angie hesitated then wrapped her glove around his sleeve.
“If there’s cake, please bring us some,” Daisy called before Molly closed the back door.
They looked at each other and laughed, then Sam touched his fingertips to her cheek. “This is your first grown-up party, isn’t it?”
“You always surprise me,” she whispered, her throat suddenly tight and hot. “This will be the only formal event I’ve attended without my father as escort and chaperon. So, yes, I suppose you could say that tonight is my first grown-up party.”
“I thought so.” Leading her forward, he opened the front door and stepped back with a broad smile.
“Sam!” Her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes widened. “Is that a carriage? For us?” The liveried driver saw her step forward and touched his fingers to his cap. “But . . .” she turned back to Sam. “Can we afford a carriage? And we’re only going six blocks.” She twisted her hands together. “This really isn’t sensible. Renting a carriage must be outrageously expensive.”
He placed a finger across her lips. “Listen to me. I bartered a day’s work for this finery.” He touched his cutaway. “But Angie, an occasional extravagance like the carriage is as necessary as paying bills and saving. It’s the occasional extravagance that makes life worth living. Without an extravagance here and there along the way, life is just a drudgery. And sometimes an event is special enough that it will become a memory. I want the memory of your first real party to be everything it can be. You’ve waited a long time for tonight.”
“Oh Sam.” She looked up, blinking hard and searching his eyes. “You told me once that you don’t often see things from another person’s viewpoint. That isn’t true.” Oh heavens. She was going to embarrass herself by getting teary. Why was it that she never cried when the sky fell on her but usually turned weepy over a compliment or a kindness?
Sam raised an eyebrow when he saw the moisture glistening behind her lashes. “Tears? That’s not what I had in mind for tonight. This reminds me. I have a question of the utmost importance that requires an immediate answer.”
“What is it?” she asked, fumbling in her bag for her handkerchief.
He looked from side to side, up and down the street, then leaned in to whisper, his breath warm in her ear, “Do you think anyone will suspect that I’m wearing pink underwear?”
“What?” Her head jerked up and the threat of tears vanished in a burst of helpless laughter.
“Because if they do, my manhood will never recover from such a blow.” Taking her arm, he led her out the door and toward the carriage. “I’ll have to leave the county in disgrace.”
“Sam Holland, sometimes you are just the most amazing—” He handed her into the carriage and swung into the seat beside her.
“You’re evading the question.” A grin hovered at his lips. His eyes sparkled in the twilight.
He had turned her mood around, and Angie decided he was right. This was not the time to worry about the evening’s expense. What was done was done. And Angie had dreamed of a night like tonight for so many years, had tried to imagine a party she could attend on the arm of a man who was not a relative, had longed for the time when no one would gaze at her with pity as they had when she left a party early with her parents.