by Erica Ridley
Either the baron had never bothered to read Heath’s notes requesting an audience, or Father did not care to dignify the requests with a response.
Heath held his head high, taking care to appear as stoic as ever. One day, things would change. He would simply have to become even more perfect in every way.
So perfect even his busy, important father could not fail to notice him.
Chapter 16
Nora was poised to enter a fancy Society ball for the second time in her life. The first time, she had been terrified of being singled out. This time, she was amused to watch from the background.
Lady Roundtree and her footmen were arguing with the hostess and her footmen. Was it better to carry the baroness in her wheeled chair up the exterior steps and down the interior steps into the ballroom so that she could follow the same path as the rest of the announced guests?
Or would the far more logical and easier solution of simply wheeling her round the garden path and entering through the rear terrace door humiliate them all by circumventing established norms?
It was exactly the sort of ridiculous ton quandary that Nora could have sketched a dozen humorous caricatures about.
She shook her head as the estate’s head housekeeper joined the fray to suggest adding a special carpet from the garden through the terrace so that a wheeled entrance would have just as much importance and cachet as the traditional descent down the wide staircase.
Nora stopped listening.
London was not for her. When she went back home, she would find some other way. Be a night shift maid-of-all-work at the vicarage if she had to. She wouldn’t risk her sketches hurting someone she cared about again. Not when all she had ever wished to do with her art was bring other people joy.
With an aggravated sigh, Lady Roundtree sent a frustrated look over her shoulder at Nora. “What do you think, Miss Winfield?”
Nora wasn’t going to be formally announced one way or the other, and as a paid companion she didn’t imagine her opinion in the matter held sway. But the baroness had asked, so there was no choice but to answer.
She cleared her throat. “I believe a baroness of your importance and stature among a community of your peers would not require the artifice of a hastily added carpet. You shall impose a grand figure just by entering from as beautiful a backdrop as this garden.”
All the various maids, footmen, and others stared at her in a moment of shocked silence before turning their backs and talking over each other at once.
Nora clearly had not grasped the significance and delicacy of an invited guest entering a room containing other invited guests.
Lady Roundtree waved both gloved hands to shush everyone. “Miss Winfield is right. We are wasting unnecessary time. Wheel me through the garden.”
In surprise, Nora fell into step behind the footmen. Given the lengths everyone was willing to go to ensure each arrival at the ball received the gravitas it deserved, she was surprised that common sense had won out. That she had been listened to.
For the hundredth time, she wished her brother was there to experience this upside-down looking-glass world with her. She would have loved for him to meet Lady Roundtree, to see the same unforgettable sights, to share the same experiences. But Carter would be lucky to ever leave the confines of their village.
Without the income from the caricatures, there would scarcely be enough money to snatch a few hours’ sleep each night. What she’d earned so far had already been spent on her grandparents’ health. This was to be her last Society ball. The baroness was much improved. Things would soon go starkly back to normal.
If anything would ever be “normal” again.
She wondered if she would ever stop missing Mr. Grenville.
“Come along,” Lady Roundtree barked over her shoulder.
Nora hurried to catch up.
Because the hostess’s butler could not be in two places at once, the lady of the house stationed the underbutler at the head of the stairs to manage the growing queue. The primary butler accompanied their entourage around the side of the house and through the terrace door to announce their unconventional guests.
As soon as the crew was properly poised outside the garden doors, the butler took his position just inside the threshold and bellowed, “Lady Roundtree!”
And companion, Nora added in her head.
She followed the footmen as they pushed the baroness around the refreshment table to the rear of the ballroom where all the other matrons, spinsters, and wallflowers sat and watched.
Nora took her place among them. She wondered if Mr. Grenville would be here tonight.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought. She couldn’t help it. All she could think about was what it would be like to dance with him, to feel the warmth of his strong arms, to know the taste of his kiss. If it were up to Nora… She tried to block the sensuous images from her mind.
Impossible. She could not let this go any further than stolen kisses, and yet she couldn’t walk away. He meant far too much to her now.
But kisses were all it could ever be.
Her best hope for maintaining her sanity in this untenable situation was to treat every moment with him as if it were light and meaningless. Ensure neither of them took their illfated attraction too far.
Pretending their relationship didn’t matter was the only way she would be able to keep her emotions in check when it was time to go back home.
But oh, how she wished country girls from sheep farms really could marry someone as wonderful as him. In a universe where her connection with Mr. Grenville would not have to be relegated to the shadows…
“Mabel, what a stunning bonnet,” a passing lady said to the baroness. “And that beautiful gown. I trust your broken leg has not impeded your modiste in the slightest?”
“On the contrary.” Lady Roundtree lifted her nose. “Being confined to this chair has given me more time to shop the fashion plates. I won’t know what to do when the splints come off a week from Saturday.”
A week from Saturday.
Nora’s stomach hollowed, then her chest filled with hope. She would miss Lady Roundtree, and she could not bear the thought of never seeing Mr. Grenville again, but her family needed her now more than ever. She had to go home. Nora would probably never leave them again.
As for Mr. Grenville… Her heart ached at losing him. She might not be able to see a future between them, but nor could she bear to imagine the rest of her life without him.
“Lady Roundtree!” exclaimed another fine lady. “How is your leg?”
“Close to perfection,” the baroness replied.
No one ever asked about Lord Roundtree. They took it as a matter of course that his life and his wife’s would have no point in common.
No one but Nora seemed to be astonished at the countless ton unions in which the husband and wife were practically strangers despite years of marriage.
She dreamed of something more.
Nora deeply appreciated that her grandparents still loved each other and her. She was grateful that her few memories of her own parents were that they loved each other and their children very much. Someday, she might find a match like theirs. Back home, a loving marriage was a reasonable expectation.
She frowned. Shouldn’t the same be true everywhere? Lady Roundtree deserved better than a husband who did not appreciate her. All women deserved more.
“It looks like the Duke and Duchess of Ravenwood are leading the waltz,” whispered one of the wallflowers.
“Aren’t they magical together?” breathed another in reply.
For as much as Nora sometimes believed she disliked everything about the ton, their high-flown pretensions and exaggerated self-worth and mindless consumption, she could not help but imagine what it might be like to belong. To be one of them. To dance with her husband in a way that others would refer to as magical.
The wallflowers continued to whisper.
“Tonight’s invitation was a work of art,
wouldn’t you say?” asked one.
“Handwritten by the duchess herself,” her friend replied. “I positively adore her calligraphy.”
Of course it was.
If the dapper gentlemen and fine ladies seemed superior to Nora, it was for good reason. They were right to deem her unworthy. Nora wouldn’t be able to read an invitation even if someone sent her one. She’d be too nervous to ever coax the letters into staying put on the page.
“I wish Mr. Grenville were here,” lamented one of the wallflowers. “He’s always the first to ask me to dance.”
“So true,” her friend said wistfully. “One’s dance card never feels complete without his name on it.”
Jealousy licked through Nora like wildfire. She clamped her arms over her stomach to cover its somersaults.
She wasn’t the only one to recognize what a stupendous catch Mr. Grenville would be. These wallflowers where the lowliest young ladies of their station, and far above Nora’s league. She looked away. Mr. Grenville was mad to waste even a moment with her, however clandestinely.
It was good she would be leaving soon. At any point, he was going to wake up and choose someone better. Someone like any other unmarried lady here.
Her pulse skittered in panic. The thought of Mr. Grenville courting the kind of girl a man of his class deserved was a punch to the solar plexus. But it wasn’t news.
She was in love.
Her breath caught. Nora’s topsy-turvy insides weren’t garden-variety jealousy of higher class ladies, but rather a soul-consuming desperation at the thought of being without Mr. Grenville forever. Her heart wasn’t just inextricably involved.
It was about to be summarily broken.
“Did you hear Mr. Grenville is on the hunt for a baroness?” whispered one of the young ladies to the others.
“I’m right here,” quipped her companion. “He’s found me.”
“He’s not here, you ninny,” said another. “And if he were, I would be first in line.”
Nora bit her tongue, uncertain whether to be sad or glad that he was absent from tonight’s ball. She wouldn’t be able to speak with him anyway, and watching him dance with a future bride would be more than she could bear.
Her heart jumped as she wondered what it might be like to peer in the looking-glass and see reflected the sort of woman Mr. Grenville could take as a bride.
What would Nora do, if she were a debutante like the others? Would she sit back here along the far wall, hoping to be noticed? Or would she fight for every scrap of time to whirl in Mr. Grenville’s arms? Hope against hope for him to steal a kiss?
She glanced at the pretty young ladies in front of her with growing unease. Had any of them been the recipients of Mr. Grenville’s romantic affection or ardent kisses? Nausea twisted her belly. She could not bear the thought of his lips on theirs. Even their mere ability to accept an invitation to dance, to waltz in his arms before Nora’s very eyes, was more than she could withstand.
Yet she could not hate them for it. In their shoes, would Nora not do the same?
Listening to the innocent, animated conversations of these perfectly normal, perfectly raised, perfectly sweet wallflowers was torture. It would be churlish to dislike them just because Mr. Grenville could court them and not Nora.
It was not their fault that Mr. Grenville could only be seen with Nora publicly if there were a cover in place. Like escorting a baroness to a gallery, or taking tea with a peer. She was something to be hidden. An embarrassing deviation from his rightful path.
“Did you know he can speak four languages?” one of the wallflowers continued. “I can barely read Latin and French.”
Her companion nodded. “With his love of geography and travel, I’m only surprised he stopped at four.”
Nora’s spine curved even smaller.
Mr. Grenville really was too good for her by every conceivable metric. He was so smart, so educated, so well-read, so respected by his peers for his knowledge and cleverness. Nora would never be able to share that with him.
No wonder aristocrats were fond of saying that peasants should not try to reach past their station.
“Why, it’s Lady Roundtree!” cooed a passing lady. “And still in splints. Are you ever so bored?”
“Terribly. Although I did procure a temporary companion.” The baroness sent a kindly smile over her shoulder at Nora. “I imagine Miss Winfield cannot be bored. I rescued her from a sheep farm.”
“A farm!” The young ladies tittered at such an ignominious fate. “She must be so grateful to be free from such monotony.”
“And the stench of livestock,” added another.
Nora’s throat stung, and she swallowed the thick words she could not say. All the things she was proud of, all the things her family had built their lives around… all the sacrifices she had made to save the home of the people she loved was worthless to the ton, and only made her look even more ridiculous to them.
Nausea twisted in her belly. If she claimed their open disregard didn’t hurt her, she was only lying to herself.
Before her stoic walls could begin to crack, Nora leapt to her feet. She faced the baroness. “May I fetch you a lemonade?”
“Ratafia.” Lady Roundtree pursed her lips. “And a sponge cake.”
Nora nodded and stiffly made her way toward the refreshment table.
It was flanked by a cluster of cackling dandies, the loudest of which was in the middle.
“Among pups like you, I am a stallion,” he concluded to boisterous laughter. “Everyone says so. A stallion among pups!”
Nora tried not to roll her eyes. She recognized this man as Phineas Mapleton, who thought more of himself than anyone around him. The last time she’d been forced to interact with him, he had gone out of his way to ensure Nora understood how little and insignificant she truly was.
When his group neither partook of refreshments nor moved out of the way, she cleared her throat as delicately as possible. “Might I slip in to fetch a refreshment?”
Mapleton’s sharp gaze was immediately upon her. “Not this one again! You still haven’t learned to speak to your betters only when spoken to?”
The others laughed.
Nora gritted her teeth and said nothing. This was not an argument she could win.
“Of course you have the manners of a sow,” he continued, to the delight of his peers. “She was raised on a pig farm!”
Nora did not dare correct the laughing dandies with sheep farm. The distinction would only prove more fodder for ridicule.
“It’s not for me.” She kept her voice low, but composed. “Lady Roundtree is parched.”
“Parched?” Mapleton echoed with a braying laugh. “I’ll say. She’s more wrinkled than a raisin left to dry in the sun. Why, we should call her Lady Raisintree!”
Nora clenched her fingers. She might have to swallow her betters’ personal attacks toward her, but she was not going to allow some arrogant prig like this to be ghastly to Lady Roundtree.
“A true gentleman,” she enunciated clearly, “would have just as much respect for any female who outranks him as we peasants do.”
“Ooh, was that a set-down?” Mapleton snorted with laughter. “All I hear is the squealing of a little country pig. Go ahead and take a trough full of sweets back to your master, little sow. I am too fine a gentleman to waste time trying to reason with animals.”
“Mapleton isn’t just a stallion among pups,” chortled one of the dandies, “but a pig-tamer, too.”
“Go back to the country where you belong,” Mapleton laughed as he shooed his well-dressed cronies out of the way. “You will be wrinklier than your mistress in no time.”
The “stallion” pranced off without a care in the world, likely to recount the tale to anyone who would listen.
Fury raced through Nora’s veins. If he wished to mock her, so be it. But her family was off-limits.
And Lady Roundtree was family.
Chapter 17
After s
he’d seen the baroness settled for the night, Nora closed the door to the rear parlor Lady Roundtree had given her companion leave to consider her own, in addition to the guest chambers above stairs.
She tossed her gloves onto the single chaise longue and seated herself at the beautiful escritoire the baroness had installed to ensure Nora had a comfortable spot to draw.
Tonight, she was still fuming over that prat Phineas Mapleton’s unconscionable comportment toward Lady Roundtree.
Usually, after returning to the town house from some event that made her feel tiny and insignificant, Nora unloaded her emotions into a secret sketchbook containing painstakingly rendered images far too intimate and raw to send home to her family.
She shoved that sketchbook aside. Tonight wasn’t about Nora’s feelings of inadequacy when surround by the beau monde.
Phineas Mapleton had made Lady Roundtree’s eyes shimmer with tears. And he considered such reprehensible behavior a success. It was all Nora could do to refrain from dumping the lemonade bowl atop his carefully coiffed head.
At the start of the evening, Nora might have privately found humor in the discussions on how to best stage Lady Roundtree’s entrance so as not to put a dent in her standing—or her sitting, as it were. But she would have never disrespected the baroness.
After Nora had been sent to fetch ratafia and sponge cakes, Mapleton had been so taken with his hilarious jests at Nora and Lady Roundtree’s expense, that he had circled back for more… and eventually misjudged the distance between them.
Nora would never forget the shocked expression on the baroness’s hurt face when she overheard Mapleton say it was little wonder her husband preferred the company of a pretty roundheels over wrinkled Lady Roundtree. Nora’s fingernails dug into her palms.
Mapleton had terrorized London long enough.
Nora could no longer passively allow such toxic arrogance to stand. She might be a stupid country peasant from a ragtag little sheep farm, but she wasn’t as powerless as bullies like him believed.
She was an artist.
Hands shaking with anger on kindhearted—still perfectly elegant—Lady Roundtree’s behalf, Nora stabbed a plume into her inkwell and began to draw.
