Page 36 of Claiming His Scottish Duchess
Just as Tillworth motioned for an attendant to refill his wine goblet, a hushed silence descended upon the ballroom.
While the music didn’t exactly stop, the hums of the instruments faltered, and some of the musicians’ bows froze mid-stroke. Heads began to turn, eyes widening with a mixture of shock and morbid curiosity.
“What in God’s good name is going on here?” Tillworth muttered as the attendant brought him a full glass of wine.
“Did you hear about her family?” one woman said to a group standing by the dance floor, fanning herself. “They are practically penniless from what the girl said! No wonder she parades herself like this at events, a desperate attempt to latch onto a wealthy man!”
“It can’t be true that things are quite that bad, can it? She comes from a somewhat respectable family, at least as far as Scots go,” one man wondered aloud.
“I heard it on good authority,” a young girl stated, as she explained to the group all that she had heard between Eliza and Catriona. “I had stopped by to see Lady Marchant and heard the whole thing!”
The rumors were like the rustling of dry leaves in autumn, starting out in a slow dance as they fell from the trees but quickly gaining momentum with an errant wind. Then it was like the rustling of leaves had caught on fire, and everything was up in flames before Catriona’s eyes.
They are all talkin’ about me.
Catriona noted how the gentlemen who previously vied for her attention now turned completely away from her, lost in the tawdry conversation. Their interest has clearly been replaced by disdain and distaste at the thought of her.
Lord Beaumont, having no doubt heard the whispers and inferred the looks cast in their direction, practically shoved Catriona away. His face contorted with contempt as he looked down at her.
“I had no idea of your schemes,” he muttered, his voice dripping with condescension. “I cannot associate myself with such misfortune.” And he left her alone in the middle of the dance floor.
“Desperate,” one hissed.
“Trying to snare a wealthy husband like the viper she is,” another scowled.
“How utterly shameful,” one woman of high standing said.
While Catriona could not recall that woman’s name, she did remember she had once been polite to her at a party. So those words especially stung, and she could take no more. She could only hope that her mother and Lady Marchant were somehow out of earshot.
Her face was burning with hot humiliation at being the evening’s laughingstock. She felt the fragile hope she had dared to muster for her future shatter into a million pieces, as if the chandelier above her head had crashed and smashed at her feet.
Me worst fears have come true.
Her reputation, already precarious, was now irrevocably tarnished. Her fiery spirit had been extinguished by their hateful words. She had no hope of saving her home.
She had no hope left inside at all, for anything.
Nae hope of a future.
Tears prickled at her eyes, but she refused to let them fall in front of these vultures. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her hurt.
Instead, she turned and fled to the balcony, desperate for a breath of air untainted by the poisoned atmosphere of the ballroom.
“Look at Miss MacTavish,” the whispers continued to snake through the ballroom.
Richard listened silently as the persistent knot of unease he felt on the subject tightened in his stomach.
Something is wrong.
“Pardon me, my lord. I am not one to be taken by idle gossip, but something seems to have gotten the attention of the guests here.”
Tillworth was no longer looking at him. His gaze was fixed on a woman across the room, his face paling with a look of genuine alarm.
Richard followed his gaze, seeing Lord Beaumont leave Catriona alone on the dance floor. His hands tightened into fists as he willed himself not to break the glass in his hand, his knuckles as white as snow.
While he did not like the sight of her with such a pipsqueak, he did not want to see her snubbed in such a public manner. In fact, he had to teach him some manners.
The contagion of whispers reached them like a rush of wind, taking his breath away.
