Such would my evening be so structured, and such explained much of my irritation with these functions.
My only comfort was that as a widow, I would not be subjected to these confinements.
Or so I thought.
Ashmore tapped me upon the bare shoulder with a bit of card stock. Taking a deep breath earned me a nose full of the fragrance of wilting and crushed flowers—chief among them lilies, which forced within me a fierce need to sneeze.
My mother had favored the flower. I tended to itch when in its presence.
“Your dance card,” Ashmore murmured in my ear.
Piers reached across me to pluck it from my tutor, and very firmly tied the pale blue ribbon about my gloved wrist.
The delicate color looked obscene against the mourning black of my elbow-length gloves.
My eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
The earl chuckled. “Oh, very much so,” he replied, and in full view of the ladies and gentlemen about us, he placed one hand upon his heart, bent at the waist, and said most jovially, “Might I have the courtesy of a dance?”
What word had not spread by our entry took wing the moment I set black-slippered foot upon the ballroom floor. A round with the new Lord Compton was one thing—perhaps the most compassionate might forgive the young earl a turn with his elder brother’s widow. And perhaps the kindest of attendees might understand a young widow’s invitation to dance with the man who had been her ward, as Ashmore followed suit.
However, thanks to said earl’s meddling, my jaunts upon the dance floor did not cease there. Friend after friend of the bloody lord approached me, placed their names on my dance card when I was otherwise attended, and made no secret of their great enjoyment of this lark.
What did men have to fear from a gossip mill run by ladies?
By the fourth dance, I was utterly humiliated.
By the sixth, well-heeled ladies and gentlemen took to avoiding the floor. The master of the house looked fit to pull his close-cropped hair right out.
By the time Piers claimed for himself a second dance, quite rudely cutting out one of his own friends—a duke’s third son, who took it with forced grace—I was furious.
“What the devil is this about?” I demanded, all but hissing it lest I be overheard.
“You wished to make a splash,” he replied, utterly unruffled by the gossip I could feel raging around us. I opened my mouth to contest this, despite its truth, but he smiled most courteously and added in low, nonchalant tones, “Upon this pass, look to your left. Just a glance.”
I obeyed. As Piers took me around a bend—thank Fanny for all her interminable teachings regarding Society dances—I slipped a glance to my left.
Clad in the vivid orange taken from her surname, as vibrant a color as I could never be allowed to wear, Lady Sarah Elizabeth Persimmon, daughter of an earl, stood as cold and composed as any marble statue. Her skin was porcelain, cunningly rouged so none might take offense, with strong features sculpted by her aristocratic breeding. Her wealth of black hair was so lustrous that its artful pinning allowed for a single flower—white and large—to grace its folds.
She was a pillar of propriety, a beauty who had only just come out last year and whose hand was diligently pursued by gentlemen of wealth and means.
She also tended towards a certain hedonistic proclivity that I doubted few here knew of. Despite her attendance upon Lady Northampton’s salon—a bevy of ladies and matrons who styled themselves the Ladies of Admirable Mores and Behaviors—I knew that she relished things both dark and violent.
A regular wolf in the protective folds of the marchioness’s flock.
Her vivid blue eyes sparked with something I could only designate as hatred. The sight nearly forced a stumble.
I caught myself, for Piers was not quite so gifted at masking such things as his brother had been. My gaze snapped back. “I did not know she would be here.”
“And she did not know I would bring you, dear lady, to her engagement gala.”
My jaw dropped open, only to shut again with a click as he chuckled. “You asked for those who might favor the Veil with patronage,” he murmured, navigating me with skill across the floor. “You know as well as I where herinterests lie.”
I could not fault him that one. Although, that he’d sprung it as a surprise upon me irked me mightily. “You are utterly beyond the pale,” I informed him, giving the slap a gracious warmth.
He could not stop laughing, though it did not muddle his ability to keep pace with the music. “Rest assured, dear sister, Lady Sarah Elizabeth is every bit discomfited as you are.”
“Small favors,” I managed between clenched teeth.
As we crossed once more in the wide, graceful steps of the dance, I sneaked a second look.
She was gone.
“No doubt off to complain to her salon,” Piers noted.
“Doesn’t your mother oversee that salon?” I asked archly.
His grip did not tighten at my hand nor my waist, but I would be a fool to ignore the sharp glint in teeth and eye as he smiled down at me. “That she does.”
Anger remained, though it tempered within me to something rather more resigned. “You’re bored, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.” With this noncommittal answer, the music—and the dance—came to an end. He bowed, as he must, and I curtsied. “Where shall I escort you?” the earl asked, as expected of manners in the ballroom.
I surveyed the gathering, noting that only a handful of dancers stepped again onto the floor. No wonder Lady Sarah Elizabeth had been so furious. On the one hand, all secrets aside, this was meant to be her evening. Talk should have centered around whatever gentleman her father had pressed into service, plans for her nuptials, and other such delights.
Instead, gossip very obviously centered around me; the madman’s daughter, the unfortunate widow gallivanting about, flying in the face of her late husband.
And most notably that my escort was said late husband’s younger brother.
If I listened hard enough, I had precious little doubt that some whispers would ask if I had my sights set upon him.
The very notion galled.
“The terrace,” I said, clipped to the quick.
Once I stepped off the floor, more couples deigned to step in—with such regal frigidity that I had little doubt I was to be cut off in as polite a manner as possible.
None had the stomach for a cut direct. None, of course, but the earl’s own mother.
It was almost enough to laugh over, though I managed to avoid such an obvious mark of unhinged mental state. Sweat dampened my nape, and there were far too many eyes upon me to gain any sense of peace in the crush. Though I had been meant to play the role of bait, I worried now that I would never sense trouble coming with so much of my attention entrapped by the stares upon me.
“Smile,” the earl whispered, fingers at my elbow.
I watched a matron’s eyes widen at the apparent intimacy of the gesture.
My face flamed. “Stop feeding the gossips,” I hissed back.
He would not let go of my arm, and I did not fight this very much, for it allowed others to part before us as he escorted me to the large open windows marking the terrace doors. “Isn’t that what you wished?”
I gave him a fulminating glare disguised as a toothy smile. Decidedly too cheerful for the black I wore. “You’re a pest, Piers.”
A woman gasped to my left.
I flinched as the earl’s chuckles filled my ear. “Familiarly calling me by my given name,” he chided. “How scandalous.”
I bit my tongue and said nothing as we forged through the throng. At long last, we spilled out into the cooler air, and the much less populated terrace. It was a wide stone affair, as made fashionable in London estates, with enough room for guests to stroll. Lanterns affixed to decorative posts allowed for light, though not so bright as within.
I took a deep breath of clearer air.
Chapter Ninete
en
A figure detached from the trellis, and a glint of copper gave name to the voice as it came. “Have you made quite the stir?” my tutor asked dryly.
“Quite,” I replied in kind.
“Indubitably,” Piers added, with such smugness that I turned a speculative stare upon him. He met my eyes with innocuous curiosity. “What is it?”
“You.”
“What of me?”
“You did all that a’purpose,” I accused, but kept my voice down lest it carry to the others upon the terrace.
Ashmore’s breath huffed. “Took you long enough to realize.”
“Now, wait—”
“No,” I cut in, hands going to my corseted waist. I thrust my chin out. “You’re planning. ’Tis written all over your face. What are you—” When it hit me, it did so with the force of a cosh. Without thinking of how uncouth the gesture was, I allowed my hand to flatten over my face. “You rotter,” I hissed. “You manipulative bastard.”
I did not have to see his expression to know that Lord Piers would not take insult from such things. In truth, his voice was mostly laugh as he protested, “What did I do?”
Ashmore sighed deeply, clapping the earl on his shoulder as though they were longtime mates. “I warned you.”
“You’re shedding your mother’s efforts to marry you off, aren’t you?” I demanded.
A perfect hit. I watched my words score a flinch—not of guilt, but of sheer horror at the prospect. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far,” he hedged.
I only barely caught myself from smacking my closed fan against his chest—an overly familiar blunder that would no doubt be the death of any reputation I had left. Such flirtatious gestures were meant to sow interest, not do harm.
Of course, it wasn’t myreputation I worried for. Acts of intimacy with his brother’s widow would no doubt cause a number of matrons to reassess his candidacy for marriage—at least for a small time. The wealth and prestige of a marquess was nothing to forget, after all, but if Piers stacked enough concerns upon his own reputation?
Deucedly clever, wasn’t he?
So, fine. I’d refrain from hitting him with my fan deliberately—if only out of spite. “I refuse,” I announced, turning my back upon him with a swirl of black skirts.
Piers did not seem overly concerned. “I have no intentions of pursuing you, dear sister,” he said, but quietly so as not to be overheard.
“Probably best,” Ashmore added dryly. “One late earl is regretful enough.”
This earned a wince of my own, and a turn to protest, but Piers was nodding in knowing acknowledgement.
It was rather more flippant than his memory deserved, but in the end, who was I to judge how each of us handled our burdens? Piers was always the wicked one, and Ashmore scathingly sharp.
I let them both be. The beasts.
For all the pressure forced upon me, the eyes and gossip and judgment, in that moment, I was able to take a full breath. It did not shake as I let it out again.
Perhaps it was all this goading that gave me a familiar grip to hold. Such was my kinship with these gentlemen.
Such was their apparent ease with me.
I forced a smile at them both. For the sake of the mission I’d been assigned, if nothing else. “Well, we shall make no waves out here,” I said. “What say we—”
A splash of bold color filled the entry behind Piers. “Here you are.” The husky tones of the lady I’d come to despise had lost none of their lovely sophistication. Lady Sarah Elizabeth was as elegant as ever, even without the salon that gathered around her.
Out of habit, I scanned the throng behind her, searching for the marchioness that she so fawned over. While I did not expect Lady Northampton to show her face at an engagement gala, part of me wondered if there was another shoe meant to drop somewhere else this night.
My relief came short-lived, followed quickly by curiosity. Why had the lady come out directly?
“Lady Sarah Elizabeth,” Piers said by way of proper greeting, sketching a bow. “Your fiancé is a very lucky man.”
“My lady,” Ashmore echoed, also bowing.
She ignored them both, with all the arrogance of a lady whose marriage prospects placed her above that of a mere marquess’s son.
Or she was rather too focused upon me—the wart in her engagement celebration.
To spite her, I studied her with all the regal expectation of the countess I was forced to be. “Lady Sarah Elizabeth,” I said, not a compliment in itself. However, by so doing, I did enforce the mores to which she publicly ascribed.
With Piers here, as well as those who walked the terrace around us, she had only one choice.
The lady dipped into a curtsy just barelyshy of insult. “Lady Compton,” she said between clenched teeth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
A bit of laughter crept out from a small knot of young ladies across the terrace. I watched our hostess’s gaze flick to them, then return to me with all the glitter of malice sharpened by the dash of pride tested.
“I have come to celebrate your forthcoming nuptials,” I lied, saccharine sweet and loud enough to be heard doing it. “Your prospective groom is sure to be quite…surprised with his bride.”
Her lush black lashes narrowed in furious regard.
Of course, I made no overt reference to her antics below the drift. That would be so far fetched as to be laughable, for all that both of us knew it to be true. The only thing that separated us was that she was a creature of malice.
I was one of habit, and when that was stripped from me, of a fierce drive for independence.
I would not play at the cruel villainess for pleasure, as she did.
Up here, surrounded by the glitter of the gala, by the tittering of the girls as the master of the house came forth to ask them to step inside for a turn on the floor, it seemed surreal to picture the lady as I knew her.
All I had to do was close my eyes, and I recalled the sheer enjoyment upon her patrician features as she drew Black Lily’s blood, demanded that the sweet cry for her.
A few moments later, and my friend had lain, empty and still, upon the floor. Osoba had killed her, but it was this so-called lady that had hurt her first.
The fine hinges of my fan bent under my closed fist.
Ashmore’s hand came to rest at the small of my back. Though I could not feel the warmth of it through the many layers of my formal attire, I felt the pressure.
I trembled.
Lady Sarah Elizabeth’s smile was a forced thing, calculated to the extreme. “Walk with me, my lady.”
It was not so much a request, but because it would allow me the opportunity to shed this manic fury growing within me, I swept aside my voluminous skirts and obeyed.
I was aware of Ashmore and Piers walking some paces away, following with care, but not so close as to provide discourtesy.
Were we truly companions, the lady would take my arm in hers. She did not.
Nor was I inclined to allow it.
We moved further into the terrace, which was rather emptier than it had been. The cool air felt delightful upon my skin, and the faint shine of the moon above touched us with a hint of silver. Clouds masked it often, but the lanterns remained strong. They frolicked and danced over us in leaps of gold.
“You have some great gall,” said the lady amiably at my side.
I favored her with a smile of utter arrogance. “Yes, I do.”
She furnished upon me a delighted curve of her own. “I so despise you,” she said sweetly, voice to a murmur.
“Rest assured,” I replied in kind, “the feeling is mutual.”
“Excellent.” Her pace remained languorous as we approached the balustrade. “And what are your intentions?”
“Why, my lady,” I replied with such innocence that I watched her smile cramp. “Whatever do you mean?”
She halted by the rail, a wide stone affair that was common to such open terraces, and faced me direct. “Do not playact the
virginal maiden with me,” she hissed, venom replacing spun sugar.
Despite myself, despite the presence of my escorts affording a close but courteous privacy, I shuddered under the force of it.
Whatever I had done to earn her rage, it seethed within her.
My snobbishness faded. If my stays would have allowed it, I suspect I might have slumped.
I was tired.
No, this was not strong enough a word. Truth be told, all at once, I was exhausted.
This world, this finely shaped prison with its elaborate bars and complex demands, was not mine. It drained me to walk the steps I had once known by heart.
I had no patience left for it. Perhaps, in the end, all such desire to belong had been buried with my late husband. Anything left was simply echoes—scars that came from lessons hard learned.
Would Fanny ever understand?
I would ask her. And if she did not, then I would ask her forgiveness.
As for this farce between Lady Sarah Elizabeth and I, there was no more patience left. I was done with it.
“What will you do?” I asked, losing all shred of warmth. The candor of my approach took her aback, for her eyebrows winged upward and her mouth pursed. “Will you claim that you saw me upon that stage, Peashoot?”
I’d learned the pet name from Lady Rutledge, who was companionable with the lady’s mother. My use of it earned me a vicious glower.
I afforded her no opportunity to retort.
Regardless of my intention—irrespective of all the years I’d spent behaving this way, speaking that way, avoiding such scenes because it was expected of me—I no longer cared.
None here was family. None save perhaps Lord Piers, and he was rake enough to walk between worlds without fault nor fail. Ashmore cared less for the Society he’d abandoned than I. He could easily travel again, should it come to it.
I cut the lady off with a simple flick of my blackgloved fingers. “Do tell them,” I said flatly, “and I shall ensure that more powerful sources know all about your behaviors below.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I leaned forward so that it seemed to onlookers that we might be putting our heads together to gossip. She held her ground, pride paramount, and I lowered my voice to a malevolent whisper, “Try me, and I’ll ensure your fiancé’s family has you examined before the wedding day.”
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