The other voice laughed cruelly. "You wouldn’t think so, would you?"
The words stuck with Constance, and she found herself desperate to go home, to be alone in her sadness. They had not said anything she had not thought before, although she had not known that Ezra’s late wife had been a beauty. But she had finally begun to think that maybe there could be something between them, in spite of how unlikely it seemed.
And now, they had brought her crashing back down to reality.
He was surely just passing the time with her, until he chose someone he could actually court. Perhaps he found her interesting – she knew she wasn’t unintelligent – but she had begun to believe he was attracted to her. And now she saw what a folly that had been.
"I’d like to go home," she told her grandmother when she found her. "I can go alone and send the carriage back to you, if you’d like."
Grandmamma frowned in concern. "Of course not. I’ll come with you. Are you well?"
"I have a bit of a headache," she admitted, and it was true – though she thought it had come from frowning and gritting her teeth, not from any illness.
"You do look pale," her grandmother said. "Come, we’ll thank our hosts on the way out and ask for our carriage. Do you need to say goodbye to Lord Gracewood?"
"I…" Her heart ached for the excitement she had felt earlier that night about seeing him, about dancing with him. But had he not shown her from the first day they met that looks were impossible to ignore? Perhaps when her maid made an extraordinary effort, he found her attractive – but that was the case tonight, and even that wasn’t good enough for the ladies who criticised her. She was better off returning to the belief that he could have no possible interest in her beyond pleasant conversation to pass the time.
But she had got her hopes up, and it hurt to have them dashed.
"No. He’ll know where I’ve gone. I’m sure he’s too busy to notice my departure."
Her grandmother frowned but did not question her further as Constance hurried to the door, needing to escape the suffocating ballroom, and wanting to leave before Ezra saw her and tried to persuade her to stay.
???
When Ezra returned from the card room, he could not see Constance. At first he tried not to be too obvious in his searching, not wishing to make his interest overly apparent to the county gossips. But when he had failed to spot her or her grandmother after two circuits of the ballroom, he became more determined.
"Have you seen Lady Constance Beaumont and her grandmother?" he asked a group of ladies near where he had last seen them.
One of the ladies shook her head. Another frowned. "The tall one?"
Ezra paused for a moment. It was not the first adjective that came to mind when he thought of Constance, but he supposed she was taller than average. She was no taller than he, certainly, so it was not something he had ever really considered.
"I suppose. Her grandmother is the Dowager Countess of Basingstoke."
"I haven’t seen them for over an hour," came the reply.
The next ladies he asked were even less helpful.
"You don’t need to find her," said a redheaded woman, fluttering her fan and eyelashes at him. "There are plenty of ladies here for you to dance with! The county has much to offer,my lord. You don’t need to seek out plain London ladies if you’re looking for a good time."
"Surely you’ll dance at least once with us all, Lord Gracewood?" a brunette added. "After all, we are rather lacking in gentlemen here."
"Not at present, I’m afraid, ladies," he said, forcing politeness though he found them utterly vile. They were certainly pretty, but their nastiness towards Constance – for no real reason that he could ascertain – made them appear rather ugly to him. He had asked a simple question about whether they had seen someone; there had been no need for them to throw themselves in his path and insult her in the process.
When he finally deduced that she had left, he withdrew himself in disappointment. He had thought the evening had been going well. He had looked forward to dancing with her again, and he had thought she felt the same. And yet she had gone without a word.
Had someone said something to upset her? Or perhaps she was ill, he thought with sudden concern.
He called for his coach, eager to go home himself. He had thought he was enjoying society, but in truth, it seemed he had only been enjoying the society of one particular woman. Without her, the whole charade felt pointless.
Chapter Fourteen
Constance decided to ride out to Dunburgh Castle to blow away the cobwebs and try to improve her mood. She was letting the silly words of those women at the ball upset her far more than she wished, and her grandmother had begun to notice the change in her disposition.
"Are you sure the Earl has not done something or said something to upset you?" she’d asked again over breakfast, three days after that wretched ball. "If he has behaved improperly—"
"He has not. Do not worry, Grandmamma. I have just been feeling unwell, but I’m sure I’ll be better soon."
