No sooner had Lambley left her side then a new shadow fell into Bryony’s path.
“Talking to dukes now, are we?” brayed Phineas Mapleton, the most self-important member of theton.
He was a bully and a gossip. The sort who made rude, outlandish statements just to get a reaction. The only reason he was accepted anywhere was because his aunt was a Patroness and he was related to those with titles.
“Was that a duke?” she replied in a bored voice. “So good you were here to eavesdrop. Never say you don’t have someone to stand up with you this set, Mapleton.”
He snorted. “The only way someone would stand up withyouis if you were in disguise at one of Lambley’s masquerades and they didn’t know any better.”
Bryony cut him a flat look. “Who have I been dancing with, phantoms? This is the first rest I’ve had all evening.”
“They just feel sorry for you,” Mapleton scoffed. “Sparing you twenty minutes out of respect for your father is far more palatable than being stuck with you for the rest of their lives.”
Normally, Phineas Mapleton’s balderdash never managed to get to her.
Yet this one cut far too close to home. Her entire life, Bryony had heard she wasn’t sweet enough, not biddable enough, not ladylike enough from her mother. Before, she had never cared. She was too busy having fun. Now that such days were numbered, she could not help but reassess her situation.
Would she ever find someplace that wouldn’t treat her as an outsider and an oddity?
No. She would not let Mapleton win. She glowered at him in disgust. She didn’tmindbeing who she was. He was the one who could not be tolerated.
“Don’t wrinkle your nose at me,” Mapleton said in pique. “You should mind your appearance. A face like yours is at its most attractive when hidden behind a violin.”
“You’ll never know,” she snapped, as she curled her shaking hands into fists. “You have just lost the right to attend this coming Grenville musicale as well as all future Grenville functions of any kind.”
“You shrew!” he gasped in outrage. “When I tell my friends—”
“Anyone who sides with you on this matter loses their invitation as well,” Bryony said coldly.
He reared back in horror. “I cannot be the only one not in attendance. I shall be pitied!”
“I thought you were a stallion among pups,” she replied innocently, referring to an unflattering caricature that had made the rounds a few weeks earlier, mocking him for boasting he was better than his peers.
His lip curled. “At least I’m not a lame nag, not even a tolerable enough mount to ride.”
He flung himself about and marched off, nose held high.
Bryony didn’t let her placid smile drop until he was well out of view. She had won that round, but it still felt as though she had lost. Mapleton was an insufferable blackguard and a plague on humanity.
But what if he was also right?
Chapter 5
One of Max’s favorite moments each day was the feeling of peace and pride in anticipation in the hour before the Cloven Hoof opened for business.
He didn’t see his gambling salon as an empty room, but as the twilight sky just before the stars appeared. It was not the calm before the storm or the last flicker of light before being engulfed in darkness, but a nexus of possibility, of promise, that rumbled through the walls and reverberated through the very air.
When the hack dropped him at the stones just in front of the Cloven Hoof, Vigo was already guarding the door. A movement at the window indicated at least one of the other employees was inside readying the interior for an influx of patrons.
“Did you make it to Vauxhall?” Max asked in lieu of a proper greeting.
Vigo’s eyes lit up. “That I did. We adored the balloon launch. Thank you for suggesting it.”
“Who doesn’t love balloons?” Max asked with a smile.
Vigo raised his brows. “Did you attend?”
“Next time,” Max promised and let himself through the door before there were any more questions.
