Page 22 of Scales and Sensibility
“My dear.” Sir John positively glowed with pleasure. “I found her at The Lion’s Head, already on her way to meet you. Mrs. De Lacey, may I present my daughter Penelope?”
“Delightful.” Elinor forced herself to meet Penelope’s gaze, and offered her hand as courtesy demanded. She dropped it, though, at the very first brush of fingertips, and turned immediately back to Sir John, taking care to keep Sir Jessamyn’s face safely pointed away from her cousin. He was trembling with long, silent shivers, but as long as he couldn’t see her, he seemed able to bear it. “And your wife?” Elinor said expectantly to her uncle.
“Ah…well,she’sinside somewhere, I suppose, but…” His gaze darted back and forth between her and Penelope, whose lips had begun to push into a pout. “Penelope, Mrs. De Lacey has generously agreed to help with your début.”
“Oh!” Penelope’s incipient pout vanished, transformed into a beaming smile. “Then I amsopleased you could come after all, Mrs. De Lacey! It will be a marvelous ball, you know. The very best people will be coming from miles around. Iknewyou couldn’t bear to miss it, even with a sore throat. No matter what Elinor—well.Iknew that you must choose me in the end!”
“Indeed,” Elinor murmured. “My throat is...much improved.”
“We must write to the newspapers immediately, Papa! When everyone reads that Mrs. De Lacey will be in attendance at my début ball—”
“I beg your pardon,” Elinor said, “but we won’t tell the newspapers beforehand, if you please!”
“What?” Penelope and Sir John both spoke at once.
“Nottell the newspapers?” Sir John demanded
“But—but—!”Colour mounted on Penelope’s cheeks.
“Not until after I’ve left Hathergill Hall,” Elinor said firmly. “I am having a quiet rural retreat. I don’t wish it to be disturbed.”
“A quiet rural retreat?” Penelope breathed. “Quiet? Rural? Butmy début—”
“We’ll write immediately after your début, pet, once Mrs. De Lacey is gone,” said Sir John. “I’m sure she won’t mind that.”
“If you must.” Elinor tried not to imagine what the real Mrs. De Lacey’s reaction when she saw that notice.
Elinor would be long gone by then, and this illusion would be safely past, too.Surely.
She slid a nervous glance at Sir Jessamyn. He had finally stopped shivering, but he was hunched with unusual stiffness on her shoulder, head lowered, peering carefully away from Penelope through slitted golden eyes.
With a pang of empathy, Elinor recognized the pose. He was trying to be invisible…just as she had when they’d first arrived. It appeared that they had both learned that lesson in their time here before.
How dared Penelope make him feel so small and helpless? For the first time since she’d arrived, Elinor didn’t have to pretend the assertiveness that held her chin upright and her eyes raised in absolute equality with everyone around her.
No one had the right to make Sir Jessamyn feel that way. Elinor wasdamnedif she would ever let it happen again!
“I believe there are more introductions to be made, Sir John.” She waved a careless hand at the men behind her without turning to look back. If Benedict Hawkins wanted to keep on gaping at Penelope, let him. “In the meantime, though, my dragon will require more food soon, and I should like to retire to my chamber to rest from my journey.”
“Of course, of course. The maids—”
“—Will show me to my room, I am sure.” Elinor swept past him, ignoring the gathering storm on Penelope’s pinkening face.
“But my début—! You can’t leave before we even begin to—”
“I’m sure it can all be arranged this afternoon.” Elinor kept a steadying hand on Sir Jessamyn’s back as they brushed past her cousin, and she felt the long shiver that rippled through his body. But there was no tell-tale chuckle as he tucked himself even tighter around her neck.Brave dragon, she thought, with fierce pride.
Out loud, though, all she said was, “Goodbye, Penelope.”
* * *
It wasthe first time she had ever gone against her cousin’s wishes without a punishment. Perhaps it should have felt like victory. But as Elinor followed a hastily-summoned maid up the main staircase of Hathergill Hall, exhaustion wrapped around her like a fog. All of the piled-up drama and panic of the last twenty-four hours felt so heavy, she nearly staggered under its weight. If she could only make it to her bedroom and be safe...
“Ma’am?” The maid’s voice pierced her fog. Elinor snapped back into awareness to find the girl staring at her in open puzzlement. “I’m afraid we haven’t quite reached your room yet.”
“I beg your pardon?” Elinor frowned—then felt a lurch of horror as she looked down at her own hand. Her fingers rested on an all-too-familiar door handle. Without even thinking, she’d already begun to swing open the door…
…Into the bedroom that she’d slept in for the past six months.
