Page 5 of The Secret to Swooning
“Have I not done everything just as you’ve always asked me to? I did everything perfectly with Lord Trevor, and—” She snapped her teeth together.
“You’re right, Ann. I apologize. You’ve always been a good, dutiful girl. Lord Trevor’s folly is not yours.” She smiled.
A smile! Finally!
But it did not light Ann up as it usually did. It felt like a ghost light leading her down the wrong path.
“I trust you, daughter,” her mother said as she marched up the steps. “We shall greet our hostess first. Then we’ll breech the circle of conversation occupied by the best matrimonial prospect.”
Ann scurried to catch up. Entrance into the townhouse happened in a blur—knocking, a sour-faced butler, an absurdly ornate entrance hall, announced at the parlor where the guests milled about.
The walls of the parlor suffocated beneath tapestries and gilt-framed paintings. Every piece of furniture polished to a mirror shine, as were the parlor’s inhabitants. Nothing out of place—from cravats and fichus to hessians and slippers.
Her mother pushed her farther into the room. “There she is. Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Don’t wobble when you curtsy.”
No, she would save the wobbling for the swooning.
Ann looked to where her mother pointed. And her heart stopped. She dug her heels into the soft, thick rug beneath her feet.
An older woman sat in a chair at the back center of the room as if it were a throne. Her steel-gray hair piled high like a crown, and her grim mouth looked as if it had never smiled a day in her life.
And right beside her, his face alive with some joke, stood Lord Dartmore and his cousin Mr. Blake.
Dartmore grinned and bowed, and her heart did its usual welcome for him—speeding up and flipping fast. Dartmore… here? This is the last place on earth a man like him would wander.
Her mother tugged Ann forward. “Dostop dawdling.” She spoke to Ann under her breath before lifting a beaming smile to the enthroned lady. “Dearest Lady Catherine.” Her mother dropped a long, slow curtsy. “We are delighted to attend to you this afternoon.”
“Lady Shelfington.” The lady with the steel-gray hair sniffed. “I am glad for your presence to distract me from the bad manners of these two… gentlemen.” She stabbed her chin toward Lord Dartmore and Mr. Blake.
Dartmore bowed. “Merely trying to enliven this event, my lady.”
“Go enliven some other event. You were not invited.”
“My grandfather, the Earl of Bennington, was.”
“And you are not he.”
“He will be one day,” Mr. Blake said.
Lady Catherine sniffed, turning her back on Lord Dartmore and his cousin to excise them from the group. “Lady Shelfington… you were prettier in youth than you are now. During our come out, the men would look at you almost as often as they did me.Humph. But you have not the history of good looks found in my family, I’m afraid. Is this your daughter?” She nodded at Ann.
“This is my daughter,” Ann’s mother said. “Lady Ann.”
Ann curtsied, ripping her gaze from Lord Dartmore. “I’m pleased to make—”
“Stand up straight, girl!”
Ann snapped to her full height just as Dartmore’s eyes grew hard, his shoulders stiff, and if Lady Catherine had deigned to glance his way, she’d have found herself skewered on the sharp point of his disapproval.
Lady Catherine did not seem appeased, despite the improvement of Ann’s posture. “My daughter is also Anne. But with ane. A superior spelling. Do you use thee?”
“I’m afraid not, my lady.”
Lady Catherine tsked. “A shame. A waste, really, to never elevate your name. What could you have been thinking, Lady Shelfington?”
“I… I suppose,” her mama stuttered, “I was thinking of economy?”
Dartmore leaned close enough to feel the whisper of his breath across her ear. “Superior ladies don’t need extra letters to elevate them. You have no need of ane.”
