“Not to Penelope,” he said, kindly. “We are courting, and I have an invitation to extend to you all.”
CHAPTER 25
ONE WEEK LATER
“Oh, my heart, look how marvelous this is!” Pure delight danced over Aunt Agatha’s face, the fan in her hand beating up a storm as she gazed over the Duke’s foyer a week later. “All thebeau tonis here! I cannotwaitto make acquaintances.”
Lords in their dark ball suits and ladies clad in every shade of the rainbow twirled with elegant vigor across the dance floor to the sensual strains of a waltz. Chatter and laughter floated in the air, and the champagne flowed freely. Yet no surge of excitement raced in Alice’s veins.
Instead, a hollow cavern of dread had settled in her stomach an hour ago, and pure reluctance now had her breastbone trapped in a cage. It was eight days since the evening Benedict had announced his courtship to the family, and two weeks since she had last seen the Duke, and as happy as she was for Penelope—she couldn’t stomach seeing Edward again.
“This time, dear, you might want to settle for two or three and familiarize yourself with their names first instead of guessing the titles of the whole room,” Uncle Richard cautioned his wife.
“Yes, yes,” Aunt Agatha tutted. “Penelope dear, when you have a moment, thank Marquess Brampton for us. Such a night like this will surely lighten the tedium I have been feeling of late.”
“And since when have you been feeling this way?” Richard adjusted his ill-fitting evening jacket. “You certainly haven’t told me such a thing.”
“I have,” Agatha scowled. “You just have not been listening.”
Letting her relatives quibble in one ear and out the other, Alice looked around, half-wanting and half-dreading seeing Edward among the crowd. She did spy Benedict, though he seemed blissfully unaware of them. He was halfway across the room, engaged in lively conversation with two other men, a glass of sparkling champagne in one hand, the other tucked into his trouser pocket.
She wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Shall we get a drink before the next dance?” Eliza chirped before swanning off to the refreshment nook.
Despite it now having been a week since Benedict had officially broken his courtship with Alice and informed the Thorpe’s of his intentions to court Penelope, Eliza had not uttered a word toAlice. She had looked at her though, with scalding jealousy and bristling animosity.
At first, Alice had just brushed it off as nothing different, but now, Eliza’s silence was not boding well with her. Eliza’s suitor,Baron Portman, had come around twice, and it had taken all of her strength to not be ill when she saw the fake smiles and simperings Eliza had put on for the lord. A lord whom, just a month ago, she had been utterly determined to avoid entertaining.
“I’ll get us some water,” she told Penelope before following her cousin.
While waiting her turn, she spotted her reflection, hergrimreflection in a mirror—and couldn’t help but stare; Alice did not see that hopeful, vibrant undaunted woman stare back at her in the mirror anymore.
She did not see the innocent girl who had longed to dance all night at balls or stroll in the gardens with a beau beneath the stars hoping at most for a curt peck on the cheek. The person looking back at her was one darkened by lost hope, disappointment, worry, and fear.
“I had assumed the rumors to be untrue,” Miranda Valentine sneered behind her fan. “The Duke truly is scraping the bottom of the barrel inviting your kind here.”
Alice huffed in irritation, and before even gathering her thoughts, spun to face the lady squarely. “Pray tell, Lady Valentine,” she began, “when was your last courtship?”
Miranda’s face soured as if she’d sucked a lemon, and Alice walked right past her to fill the glasses with water, only to hear Miranda snidely say to Eliza, “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Her head jerked to the two as she listened in.
Eliza sniffed. “What is between me and His Grace is between me and His Grace.”
Alice’s hand trembled at the mention of Edward. What had happened between her cousin and him that she did not know about? More importantly,whendid it happen?
It seems my decision to avoid Edward has been changed without my consent.
Taking the drinks back to her sister, she sat and quietly sipped at hers.
“Do you plan on dancing tonight?” Penelope nudged her.
“No,” she replied. “I haven’t the feeling for it.”
“Not even if Lord Brampton asks you?”
Her gaze shifted to the lord in question; tonight, his waistcoat matched his eyes, his blue-grey brocade and charcoal trousers fitted superbly to his virile form while a sapphire stick pin winked in the folds of his cravat.
