Page 15 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Cresson ignored him, accepting the coins from the barman. “Never mind.”
“Lord Bentley sows enough discord that those in his wake have found kinship with each other, unlikely as it may be. But to answer your question, she had a business arrangement withBentley. She doesn’t any longer. It was hardly the love affair you’re imagining.”
“I’m not imagining anything,” Cresson snapped, and shoved his way through the waiting crowd for the door.
Abe shrugged and threw one last glance behind him as he followed.
He found some balm in the fact that Millie Yardley’s eyes followed him all the way to the door.
PHASE III: POLLINATION
CHAPTER 6
This felt different.
Millie had been to a handful of balls in her life, and since the first, she had thought herself certain she had a handle on what the experience would be like.
One arrives alongside one’s mother. One’s mother drags one about, forcing uncomfortable introductions. Then, one is permitted to find her place along the wallpaper while she watches the dancing.
One does not sneak in her journal, either. She’d learned that lesson the first time she’d been caught sneaking away to scribble her observations into it.
Her mother, tiresome as she sometimes was, wasn’t against Millie’s journaling habit. In fact, Millie wasn’t certain she’d even minded the sneaking off. What scared Lacey Yardley was Millie risking her reputation being compromised while off by herself in an empty room, either by a real unwanted tryst or simply whispers of something of that nature, and all the unpleasantness that could follow such a thing.
It was one of those times that Millie’s mother had a very good point.
But that was when she had been a debutante. The rules were plentiful and exhaustive for debutantes.
Millie Yardley was a lady’s companion now, a staid spinster earning her own wage. And knowing that, knowing she could wander off if she pleased, make only the introductions she wished, and dance only if she desired it, was, in a word, intoxicating.
Even the evening air felt different.
When she’d attended her first ball some years back, there had been a still, wet chill in the air and endless, thick clouds pulled over the sky like rows of tilled soil. Tonight, save a few gossamer-thin pink wisps here and there, the sun was setting on a perfectly clear canvas, spraying layers of sherbet punch in every direction. It was warm enough to tingle on the skin, and there was a breeze whipping playfully at gowns and tails outside the house.
Lady Bentley was fanning herself with her constellation fan, matched perfectly to her blue gown with gold flecks sewn into the skirt. She wore a gold and silver brooch at her breast with the contrasting metals winding around one another into a complex knot. The back of the gown was cut very, very low.
“I couldn’t be daring as a girl, nor as a wife,” she’d told Millie gleefully when she’d revealed the dress, “but as a widow, there’s no one at all to stop me.”
When Millie had expressed concern about mean-spirited whispers and gossip sheets, it had only made Patricia Hightower’s eyes sparkle all the more.
“Oh, do you really think so?” she’d asked with enthusiasm. “I’ve never caused a stir before.”
Later, she’d amended this statement. She’d turned to Millie quite suddenly in the carriage on the ride over, twisting a loose tress of pale hair around a finger, and said, “Actually, I should say I’ve never caused a stirin public.”
Millie had not known how to react.
Though she did release a giggle a moment later, when Lady Bentley had muttered, “I suppose I caused Freddy. Does that count?”
Millie’s own gown was a simple affair in a forest green silk, accented with mock pearls and glittering silver threads that twinkled beautifully in the night. The dowager had also lent her a delicate comb studded with diamonds that shone against her dark hair, drawing candlelight to the red undertones in her curls.
The dowager had pressed her to be daring as well, but Millie had anticipated an experience like those balls she remembered with her mother, and she thought it well to plan to blend into the walls as quickly and quietly as possible unless she was expressly needed.
After the showing at the opera, she had suspected her patroness would be occupied for the entirety of the evening.
“I’ve never gotten to enjoy a Season before, my dear,” she’d told Millie. “I’ve never even really had a chance to enjoy London. In my youth, there was always some goal to accomplish, some task to attend. Now, I can simply be here and choose the activities that bring me pleasure. That is all life should ever be, isn’t it?”
Perhaps it was, and now, upon the realization thatthisball was going to be different—that, indeed, it was a font of freedom and possibility—Millie wished she’d worn one of the more elaborate pieces in her new wardrobe.
Next time, she told herself.
