And ashen.“When I return home, I’ll tell my step-mother to talk with her.She’ll confide in Liv.Everyone does.”
“You-know-who hasn’t come near me, you realize,” Ezzie said, snapping together the sticks of her ivory fan in her gloved hands.“He won’t ask for my hand.”
Ada reached for her wrist and squeezed in sympathy.“Think of it as a blessing.”
“That’s the word I heard Victor say to him this morning.”
“What?What do you mean?”
“I was passing the library and the door was ajar.After my breakfast, I was on my way to my room and I heard them arguing.”
Ada hadn’t seen either Victor or Richard at breakfast or when she’d taken Vivienne and Deirdre to practice their archery skills.This afternoon, she’d been relieved she hadn’t seen them.Now she worried that Victor and Richard might have argued and she was the cause.“What about?”
“I don’t recall the exact words, but they fought over money.Victor refuses to give his brother a loan.Richard resents it.”
Good for Victor.
“Then they argued about me.I was terrible to listen but I had to.”
Ada leaned closer.“What did they say?”
“Victor took up for me.Says I am a gem and Richard is an…ahem…his exact word is…ass.”
Ada grinned.“I have it on good authority Victor likes that word.”
“Apt,” Ezzie said with a triumphant flutter of her fan.
“Just so.”
The waltz ended.The dancers paused, moved to the edge of the chalked floor and dispersed to their chaperones or to find new partners.
Would Victor dance again?As one of the hosts, he should.But whom would he choose?She followed his movements with narrowed eyes…but he disappeared in the throng.
“Did you know that Victor returns to Shanghai before Christmas?”
Ada’s mouth dropped open.
“So you didn’t.”Ezzie’s fan went up and she put it to use.“I’m sorry.I thought you needed to know.”
I do.Did.Don’t.Shouldn’t care.“How did you learn that?”
“The argument.”
“I see,” she said, her heart so heavy she wanted to dissolve into the parquet floorboards.Her gaze drifted to the man in question.He bowed to his mother and put her hand in Richard’s.
“He thinks he must go despite the winter weather.”
“That’s a shame,” she said as he strode toward her, his appealing turquoise eyes fixed on her like a magnet.
Chaumont appeared at their sides.“I shall sit.Pardon me, but I must.MademoiselleMoore, will you join me?”she asked as Victor stood before them and bowed.
But Sir James Edgecombe appeared at Victor’s side, eager as a schoolboy, his attention on Ezzie.
“May I have this dance?”Victor asked Ada.
Edgecombe did the same for Ezzie.
Ada gave her hand to Victor.
