His touch was cold. Not physically—she was wearing gloves and could not feel his skin. But something in his eyes, a stiffness in his carriage, held a chill all the same.
“If I may be so bold, Miss Weston, you are the brightest ornament at this gathering. My gaze was drawn to you the moment you stepped through the doorway.”
The movements of the dance carried her away from him; when next he took her hand, he said, “You are grace itself.”
“I thank you, sir,” she said, little more than a whisper.
She heard his words, but another meaning entirely lay behind them, some feeling that came off him like the scent of soap used to launder his shirts, rude and unkind thoughts. His true motivation, his true feelings: she was a silly girl, but someone ought to have her money, so why shouldn’t it be him? She wasn’t even a prize to be won, but an obstacle to be overcome.
The dances here were like hunts, gentlemen and ladies chasing after one another.
Her foot missed a beat and she stumbled. One of the other ladies, the kind Miss Allison, took her elbow and steadied her. Elizabeth caught more than the kind look in her eyes; there was also the belief, the certainty, that Elizabeth was a talentless creature who ought to be pitied. While Elizabeth might not hear the words, the feelings directed toward her were plain, sharp as the screaming edge of knives.
Much speculation went on among her parents and their friends about what could make a girl like Elizabeth so quiet and withdrawn. Mrs. Weston had decided that her dear girl by some accident of birth was simply too sensitive to withstand the rigors of society and the world. Likewise, Mr. Weston declared that the fineness of her disposition made her superior, but also vulnerable. Those outside the immediate family were sure that the girl had obviously been too coddled, too sheltered, and so would always be weak and sniveling. A gentleman who aspired to marrying her fortune would first have to persuade Miss Weston that she was strong enough to accept a firm proposal. But the more forceful a suitor appeared, the more timid Miss Weston became. Another paradox.
These speculations never happened within earshot of Elizabeth. She knew of them, just the same.
In truth, Mrs. Weston nearly had the right of it: Elizabeth felt everything. The thousand petty dramas of the typical gathering were as shouting in her ear. She felt the prides and hurts of others as pains in her own heart. She knew what she shouldn’t: which young gentlemen carried on affairs with their mother’s maids, which young ladies were so desperate to escape indifferent families they were prepared to throw themselves into unsuitable marriages. Men who worried over debts, coachmen nursing lame horses—she knew. She could not say how, but she did. She knew that one of the brusque suitors she’d refused, Mr. Rackham, would be cruel if he succeeded in winning her; another, Mr. Carroll, would simply ignore her. From the ladies, she felt the gossip about how Elizabeth was proud and odd and would die an old maid if she were not careful. The old men wondered what was wrong with her, that she should turn up her nose at their sons.
She felt herself to be like the ancient Greek oracles, caught up in the torture of ecstatic revelation. Empathy was the word she found— profound, damaging empathy. And she could not tell a soul.
At last, finally, the music ended, and Elizabeth curtseyed with a sigh of relief. Mr. Forester insisted on seeing her to a chair, when all she wanted was to flee.
“Miss Weston, you seem quite flush, do let me bring you a sherry,” he said, but he was not concerned with her well-being, only with flattering her so that she might fall in love with him.
“No, I thank you, I only need to sit—”
“Elizabeth! How long since you arrived? I did not see you! Here, come with me, I’ve been longing to speak with you—oh, pardon me, Mr. Forester, but I must steal Miss Weston away from you, I’m sure you understand.” Without further explanation, Amy Brannock swept between them, hooked her arm around Elizabeth’s, and pulled her into the next room, leaving Forester staring.
“Thank you,” Elizabeth breathed.
“Richard Forester is such a bore, I’m sure you have had quite enough of him. I knew my mother was going to waylay you. I had wanted to be there, I was watching for you, but then she sent me off to see that Emma knew to fill the punch bowl—Mother can’t leave well enough alone.”
Amy looked very well, as she always did, with roses in her cheeks, wearing a pink muslin gown that complemented her light hair and creamy features. Elizabeth wore a gown of blue with lace—it suited her because Amy had helped choose it, and her friend beamed at the compliment Elizabeth paid by wearing it.
In the drawing room they settled on a pair of chairs. Elizabeth could listen contentedly for hours while Amy gossiped. She might not move for the rest of the afternoon.
And then three strange gentlemen entered the drawing room.
The trio stopped at the door to look around, and because they were strangers, everyone else paused to study them.
“Goodness, will you look at them?” Amy said, hand on her breast like some romantic heroine. “Have you ever seen such . . . shapely gentlemen? Is shapely the right word for it?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I think it is.”
All three had powerful forms under well-made suits; they possessed broad shoulders and took graceful steps. They . . . prowled, looking about with a hooded darkness in their gazes, which scoured every surface, every face. Elizabeth could not take her eyes from them. Mr. Brannock immediately went forward to meet them, shaking hands all around, and the room returned to a normal state of pleasantness, as if a cloud had passed by the sun.
“Who are they, do you think?” Amy asked.
“It’s your ball,” Elizabeth said. “Do you not know?”
“I’ll just go see, then.” She flounced up and made her way to where her mother sat with the matrons. Elizabeth felt herself shrinking in her seat, hoping that no one felt the chivalrous need to come and speak with her. She did not mind being a wallflower.
Fortunately, Amy flounced back soon enough. “I’ve gotten all the news of it from Mother. They are the Misters Wilde, brothers who’ve come into the neighborhood and have taken the lease at Lilies Park. Father met them in town and invited them, to introduce them to the neighborhood. It never hurts having more beaux among the number, yes? I imagine Father thinks to put them in my way.”
“Brothers? They don’t look anything alike.”
Indeed the tallest of the men was fair; the shortest had a brown complexion, calling to mind the West Indies sun; while the middle had dark hair and striking gray eyes.
Amy furrowed her brow, an expression her mother was always complaining of because it marred her features. “They don’t, do they? Ah well, who’s to say?”
The middle one, with the gray eyes, caught her staring. She quickly looked away, but knew he still studied her—she felt a focused attention that put her in mind of a hawk.
“That one there has his eye on you, I wager,” Amy said, her smile mischievous.
With increasing dread, Elizabeth watched the Wilde brothers make bows to the host, who brightened after a moment’s conversation and turned toward her and Amy.
“Oh, you see?” Amy said brightly. Of course she was thrilled. New gentlemen meant new attention.
“Do stay close,” Elizabeth said, clutching her friend’s hand.