Page 28 of The Rise of a Forsaken Lady
I’ll have to speak to her sometime during this night.
Edward took her among the throng of people dressed in their beautiful best. She got reacquainted with people she really should not have alienated by her dislike of the Ton and its nonsensical and unending balls. When she and Edward got a moment, a question, she should have asked an hour ago, darted the forefront of her mind.
“Er, Edward, who is managing my dance card?”
He looked quickly at her, “Miss Bell is.”
“Oh,” she blinked and spun to look over to her maid who was seated at the sidelines with a stoic Mr. Moore behind her standing with a soldier-like posture. His head, however, slowly twisted to one end of the room to the other. He was taking her brother’s orders of keeping her safe to heart.
She got a break when she excused herself to the privy and nearly bumped into Lady Cheltenham. “Oh, my apologies.”
“Lady Penelope,” the older lady smiled. “I have not seen you in a while.”
“I have not been that enthused with these things, honestly,” Penelope replied. “I find them so…exhausting and monotonous.”
Lady Cheltenham titled her head, “There are times when I find them the same,” she sighed. “It’s not enough that we women have to endure this for the sake of gaining a husband.”
Tact, Penelope, tact.
“Marquess Witherton,” she said slowly. “Is he your intended?”
The lady took a long while to reply, and when she did her voice was soft. “No.”
She blinked, “Are you sure? He looked very…fiancé-ish.”
Fiancé-ish?Fiancé-ish?Had that just come out of her mouth? Her tact had disappeared in the thin air, and she cringed. “Sorry. That was not remotely sensible of me.”
“It’s all right,” Lady Cheltenham waved. “I remember your eccentricities, Lady Penelope. You were not one to beat around the bush much.”
“So…not him then,” Penelope said uneasily.
Her head shook regally, “No…not him.”
She nearly asked ‘Who then’?” but then the ghost of her dead tact rose up and even though she wanted to ask Lady Cheltenham if she was willing to try again with her brother, she did not say a word about it. “Well, I wish you all the best.”
“I wish the same for you, Lady Penelope,” she replied and walked out with a regal gait fit for a princess.
After relieving herself, she washed and went back to the ballroom in time for the call for the first dance to begin. Martha came up to her in a rush. “My Lady…your first dance is—”
Before Martha could say a word, she knew exactly who her first dance was—Lord Hillbrook.
“Lord Hillbrook,” she said intuitively albeit, emptily.
She had not seen him enter, but then again, she had not been looking. After Duke Quinton’s inquiry of the man, she had not felt pressed to ask about him, hoping, that the Lord would not show. Now, with Martha’s agreeing nod she realized her hope had been in vain. Lord Hillbrook would have never let go of a chance to clutch her to him.
“Wonderful,” she grumbled and flicked out her fan.
Looking around, she spotted her brother speaking to two other men at the sideline and Lady Cheltenham with her not-fiancé. She looked around for Mr. Moore and found him helping an old lady to her seat from the direction of the refreshment room.
He bent down to her mouth as she spoke something in his ear and came back up flushing. He shook his head and said something. The matron patted his hand and he pulled away. Then a lady came up and touched his hand. She was pretty with soft reddish-golden curls and a shapely figure, but the worst thing was the coy look on the lady’s face. An unrequited jab of green jealousy ran through her chest.
“Lady Penelope,” Lord Hillbrook’s smooth voice cut through her unfounded envy. She forced her eyes away from Mr. Moore and turned to her brother’s friend.
“Lord Hillbrook,” she greeted.
“Stephen,” was his automatic refrain.
“Lord Hillbrook,” she said stubbornly. “I must tell you that I have not danced a few of these songs in years.”
