Lady Roundtree had done such a splendid job outfitting Nora like one of her peers that the handsome gentleman had mistaken her for someone who might possess a dance card. With names on it. Perhaps even room for his.
A sudden rush of yearning washed over her. If only it were true. If only it werepossible. She would have loved nothing more than to dance in a place like this. To dance with someone like… him.
But girls like her didn’t have fairy stories.
She was not a secret princess who would win the heart of a prince before the clock struck midnight. Her living conditions had already improved dramatically just by becoming Lady Roundtree’s temporary paid companion.
A servant girl, she reminded herself. Who should definitely not be off dousing aristocrats in lemonade or engaging in flirtatious banter about dance cards.
In fact, Nora had better hurry back to Lady Roundtree’s side before the baroness was forced to sack her for taking so long to fetch a simple glass of lemonade.
As out of her element as Nora felt, she could not afford to lose this opportunity. The future of her family farm depended on her bringing home the whole salary, which would only happen if she remained gainfully employed.
The refreshment queue had dispersed now that the next dancing set was underway, so she exchanged the sticky goblet for a fresh one and made her way back to the rear of the ballroom where duennas and matrons filled two rows of Queen Anne chairs.
Nora took her place in the back and handed the lemonade up to Lady Roundtree, who was seated in the front row amongst her friends.
“Oh!” the baroness gasped as she accepted the glass. “I was ever so parched. These salons are positively stifling when one cannot promenade near the open doors. These splints are a dreadful bore, Winfield. I wouldn’t wish a broken leg on my worst enemy.”
Nora nodded quickly.
The day she’d arrived, the surgeon had been present to check on Lady Roundtree, and Nora had overheard the prognosis.
Due to the size of the swelling, one of the bones almost certainly had a crack, but fortunately nothing had snapped in two. Had there been fractured ends to contend with, Lady Roundtree would be prostrate in her bedchamber with her limb elevated inside a fracture box for the foreseeable future.
The surgeon had advised her to stay off her leg as much as possible. The baroness was to keep the splints firmly in place until the swelling was completely gone and the surgeon pronounced her good as new.
“From this distance, I can scarcely discern what’s happening,” Lady Roundtree groused to a few of the friends seated near her. “Dorothea, can you see who Wainwright is dancing with? Remind me to tell Carlisle he should move the seats closer to the dance floor.”
“If he does, someone might trip over your broken leg,” came the stern-faced matron’s swift rebuke. That was Lady Pettibone. Nora had heard quite an earful about her.
She leaned back in her chair to stay out of the line of sight. Listening was adventure enough.
Lady Roundtree’s favorite pastime was gossiping about her peers. Lady Pettibone was infamous for putting people in their place. Cowering debutantes referred to her as the “old dragon” in hushed whispers, but never to her face.
Nora didn’t call her anything but Lady Pettibone. She was the reason Nora had this post.
The truth was, she’d been surprised either of the ladies had remembered she existed. They had not seen each other in years. Lady Roundtree was not only a baroness, but the niece of a duke. Nora had no aristocratic blood at all.
Her mother had been Lady Roundtree’s first cousin on the other, non-duke side of the family. Nora’s lips curved into a wistful smile. Mama had even had a Season once, thirty years earlier, before unfashionably marrying for love and leaving London forever.
Nora had not had a Season. Now she was too old for one.
Instead, she lived with her brother and paternal grandparents on a very uncomplicated farm in the very pretty countryside where no one referred to anyone else as “old dragon” or “common bit of baggage” or worried about impressing matriarchal patronesses for the privilege of purchasing a voucher that would allow admittance into Almack’s hallowed dance floors.
Sometimes there were country dances in the assembly rooms of nearby towns. Nora had even danced. Once in a while, there were picnics in the meadow. Or bathing in the river. Or a lazy afternoon sketching fancy gowns she would never be able to afford. She was content with her lot.
Back home, she knew exactly what to expect and what to do. Here, she couldn’t help but feel trapped inside a perfect, floating bubble that could pop at any moment.
If she made the wrong move, said the wrong thing… And it would be so easy to do, wouldn’t it? The subtle conventions of thehaut tonwere as baffling to her as ablative Latin declensions. Books were her brother’s domain. Nora had never even had a governess.
Not that it would have done much good. Carter had tried his hardest to help, but still the letters rarely stayed put on the page for Nora to manage reading them.
Until meeting the baroness, books had been Nora’s greatest fear. The entire paid companion position would disappear in a puff of smoke the moment Lady Roundtree demanded Nora read aloud to her, and discovered she could not.
Fortunately, the baroness’s primary literary interests lay in the scandal columns of her daily newspapers and lady’s magazines, which she read to herself first thing every morning before breaking her fast.
Now, however, Nora worried she’d been glimpsed making calf’s eyes at a handsome lord.
