Gwen drew a breath. “Then I must find a way to leave without Howard’s knowledge. If he notices I’m gone, he will question everyone. If he hears I slipped out in the middle of a ball, he will be apoplectic.”
Arabella winced. “We cannot have that.”
Eleanor pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Very well. We shall cause a small scandal.”
Gwen blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“A harmless one,” Eleanor clarified. “You need a reason to vanish from the ballroom for the better part of an hour. There are limited excuses a young lady may use that cannot easily be disputed.”
Arabella brightened. “Fainting.”
“Too dramatic,” Eleanor replied. “It calls physicians and interfering mamas.”
“A ruined hem,” Arabella suggested. “Dragged through some unfortunate substance. Mud.”
“Too easily remedied in a retiring room,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Then what?” Gwen asked.
“A headache,” Eleanor pronounced. “Sudden, blinding, brought on by heat and too much noise. You will cut a dance, claim you must lie down, and request to be taken to the withdrawing room upstairs.”
Gwen frowned. “And how does that help?”
Arabella’s eyes sparkled. “Because once you are upstairs, you will not be attended.”
“Lady Harrowden is notorious for neglecting those who need quiet,” Eleanor elaborated. “She prides herself on the bustle of her guests, not their convalescence. The maids will settle you, bring water, and leave. At most, they will check once, perhaps twice. They will assume you are asleep. You will instead slip out through the side staircase that leads down to the servants’ entrance.”
“And from there,” Arabella finished triumphantly, “into whatever carriage awaits you.”
Gwen stared at them both. “You have thought of this before.”
Arabella looked offended. “We are imaginative, not depraved.”
Eleanor’s mouth curved faintly. “We are observant. Several ladies have used this strategy to meet lovers in the garden. I merely propose you adapt it.”
Gwen’s heart pounded harder. The thought made her palms grow clammy. “If someone sees me…”
“They will not,” Eleanor assured her. “We will help. Arabella will draw attention to herself by tripping a gallant or knocking something over. I will pretend to scold her. Several matrons will rush to assist. Amid the chaos, you will excuse yourself and slip away.”
Arabella nodded eagerly. “I am very good at falling.”
Gwen could not help it; she let out a short, shaky laugh. “You are mad.”
“We aredevoted,” Arabella corrected. “There is a difference.”
“You will go, then?” Eleanor asked, her tone cautious.
Gwen looked up at the clock again. The hands crept toward a quarter past nine. “I will go,” she replied. “I will tell him it is over. I will make him understand that whatever lies between us has no future.”
Her heart whispered a hundred protests, but she ignored them.
“Once that is done,” she continued, more steadily, “I will send my letter. I will leave. I will never see him again.”
Arabella’s eyes shone with emotion. “You are very brave.”
“No,” Gwen said quietly. “But I am quite tired of being afraid.”
They drifted back to the main swirl of the ballroom, their plan forming between them in murmured fragments, tucked behind fans and beneath the swell of violins.
