She curtseyed. “Good evening, Nicholas.”
He smiled. Beside him, his grandmother made a small cough, as if she disapproved of something. He ignored it. He stood with Bernadette, and they turned to welcome their first guests of the evening.
“Lord and Lady Cranmer and their son, Lord Wilchcombe.”
Nicholas inclined his head, greeting the guests. He had met them perhaps distantly and he didn’t really know them at all. Most of Grandmother’s guest list would be theTon; the fashionable and the noble elite. That meant they were, for the most part, people he didn’t know and in all likelihood wouldn’t befriend anyway. He glanced at Bernadette.
Her gaze was slightly unfocused, her lips pressed together as if she was summoning courage for something that terrified her. He recalled the charades of the previous evening and how brave she’d been—much braver than himself, who hated being in full view. He shot her a smile, hoping to give her some strength. She beamed back and his own smile stretched broadly across his face.
“Lord and Lady Grovedale.” The butler announced.
Nicholas felt Bernadette’s feather-light touch on his arm where she gripped it and he smiled at her again in reassurance. She curtseyed to the guests, who both looked approvingly at her. Nicholas wanted to whisper to Bernadette that nobody could help thinking well of her. Everyone who met her seemed to like her. He glanced sideways at her, his heart warm. It seemed unbelievable to him now that he had ever thought she was foolish, or shallow. She was kind, understanding and clever and funny. She was a truly lovely person. He glowed as he stood there beside her.
“Lord and Lady Epstone, and their son, Lord James, and daughter, Lady Amelia.”
Nicholas bowed and glanced sideways at Bernadette, who curtseyed and smiled, exchanging brief pleasantries with the arriving people.
“There are fifty guests on the list,” he whispered to her in answer to her weary gaze. “We’ll be here for about an hour.”
“Fifty,” she whispered back, eyes wide and round in amazement.
“Yes.”
They grinned at each other, a conspiratorial look passing between them, and then more guests flooded in, needing their attention.
“Lord and Lady Gladwell.”
Nicholas felt his feet starting to get sore in the boots he wore. He glanced at Bernadette. Her feet must be cold. She was wearing thin dancing shoes, made from the finest silk that must allow every blast of cool breeze to chill her. He looked about concernedly. The ballroom was getting full. Soon they would be able to go in, he reminded himself to reassure himself.
“Lord Overham,” the butler announced, and Nicholas bowed to a tall, disinterested looking fellow who he distantly recalled was a duke. He glanced at his grandmother, but she was smiling at the guests with a thin, hard smile that he knew meant she didn’t really like them. She’d clearly invited them for the impression she wished to make on them.
It was a strange system, he thought wryly. They invitedpeople they didn’t even know or like. It was a system that shut him out; a crowd of cruel, judgmental whisperers that he avoided. Now, thanks to Bernadette, he could see its foolishness. They were spending time and money entertaining people they neither knew nor liked. Why? It made no sense whatsoever.
He turned to Bernadette, wanting to share his realization, but his gaze caught someone, and he froze.
“Lady Alverton and her daughter, Lady Emily.”
Nicholas gasped, suddenly feeling like he couldn’t breathe; as though the wind had been knocked from him. He glared at his grandmother, but she was standing behind him, unaware as she chatted with another guest. He turned to greet Lady Emily.
“Good evening.”
He bowed, barely even looking at her.
“Good evening,” he murmured.
She looked up at him as though she expected him to greet her with more than the coldest frost possible. He looked at her mother, then looked away from them both. He felt anger ignite, hot and corrosive, within. How could his grandmother allow that?
He looked behind him, seeing Grandmother greeting the newly-arrived guests, both of whom were dressed in mourning colors, as was appropriate. Lord Alverton had passed away not quite a year ago, after all. He took a deep breath.
“Lord Cloveley.”
He breathed out as more guests arrived. Bernadette was greeting them, a frown on her brow, her face stiff with tension.
“Are there more guests?” he asked softly.
“Two coaches,” the butler, standing near him, replied without his asking. Nicholas breathed out, heavily.
The two groups arrived and then the butler was closing the doors and Nicholas, relieved, moved away. He glanced at Bernadette, who was still holding his arm. She looked distressed.
