He touches Rosalie’s chin and then looks at Mother, hearts practically coming out of his eyes. He takes her hands and helps her down the final step before twirling her. Her laughter fills the foyer and Rosalie’s shoulders come down just a hair.
In thirty minutes, they’ll be their most prim, proper, and intimidating selves, presiding over the ton. But right now, they’re just her parents as they truly are. Happy, soppy, and really far too much sometimes.
She supposes that’s the real difference, isn’t it? Mother may have little with which to fill her time, but she and Father do love each other.
“We’re going to be late,” Rosalie says after giving them the requisite two minutes of fawning over each other.
They’re easier to handle when Christopher is home. Or at least she can commiserate with someone when he’s here, equally exasperated along with her. It’s always worst when Father’s preparing to return to London for Parliament too.
“We’re already late,” Father says, even as he steps back from Mother, sedately offering her his arm.
“We’ll miss the opportunity to make an entrance,” Rosalie counters. “We can only be fashionably late so long.”
“Well, you two took forever getting pretty.”
“How long were you waiting?” Rosalie asks, ushering them both toward the door. Mother just eyes them with fond exasperation. They do this dance every time. Rosalie kind of loves it, and kind of hates it.
“Thirty minutes.”
“Oh, George, really,” Mother cuts in.
“MissWrigsby?” Rosalie calls out, glancing toward the servants’ wing.
Their lady’s maid, MissWrigsby, pokes her head out and looks among them, her big brown eyes narrowed, lips suppressing a cheeky smile. “M’not sure it’s in my best interest to be truthful.”
Mother cackles. “Less than five minutes!”
“It was at least ten,” Father counters.
Rosalie winks at MissWrigsby before shooing her parents out the door and into their waiting carriage.
For all his charms, Father abandons them almost immediately for the cards room, leaving Mother and Rosalie alone to push through the stifling crowd toward the ballroom at the Upper Rooms.
Every six steps there’s someone they need to greet. She can feel Mother’s fingers pressing indentations into her arm even through both of their long white gloves.
Eventually, they make it through the foyer and into the two-story rectangular ballroom. With its vaulted, half-dome ceiling and tall white columns, the room is a breath of air, even packed as it is with bodies. There’s space in the center for dancing, and an orchestra set up at the far end. Still, the perimeter is easily ten people deep on every side, with more packed into thealcoves created by the overhanging balcony and interspersed pillars.
Rosalie gratefully notes Henrietta Raught and Amalie Linet across the room, loitering in one of those alcoves, momentarily out of the fray. Their yellow and green dresses are easy to spot and complement each other nicely, a truly welcome sight.
“I’m going to...” Rosalie says over the din, jerking her chin toward her friends.
“Keep an eye out for Mr.Dean,” Mother whispers, tugging Rosalie in for a moment in a wordless farewell before she sets her free.
Mother’s immediately swarmed by her own circle, a group of mothers equally intent on finding their daughters proper matches. It’s like watching Mother be swallowed by a sea of white muslin. Rosalie leaves her to swim on her own, lest she get sucked in as well and stuck in an endless round of thinly veiled insults dressed as compliments. Mother’s much better at navigating these events than Rosalie is, even though she doesn’t have bosom friends to fall back on.
Mother always has endless acquaintances, of course—and she’s invited to every tea—but outside of Aunt Genevieve, it’s like she’s never wanted to make true friends.
But Rosalie doesn’t want to feel sad about her mother’s lack of friends tonight, not when she has twenty minutes of politely declining dances and pretending not to see men’s advances ahead of her. Amalie and Henrietta simply watch her struggle, sipping their drinks and smirking.
They used to be a phalanx ten girls strong, all moving about the room together, making pacts and architecting charming bumbles to intersect with their chosen suitors. Rosalie adoredthose balls; she was always good at making sure the right girl stumbled into the right boy.
But now, it’s just her, Amalie, and Henrietta—a lone trio inching toward spinsterhood and left at the perimeter of the room. Well, Amalie and Henrietta are concerned with spinsterhood. Rosalie has Mr.Dean, of course.
“Lady Rosalie—if I may, I wanted to introduce you to Mr.Thomas Pilkey.”
Mrs.Thornson steps directly into Rosalie’s path, her pinched face split in an overly polite smile. Beside her, the aforementioned Mr.Pilkey stands awkwardly. He’s nearing thirty, at least. There’s a cowlick at the back of his hair and his shirt is unevenly buttoned beneath his waistcoat.
She’s sure he’s lovely, but he’s so far below what her mother would ever consider—never mind that Rosalie feels not an ounce of attraction to him at all—it would be cruel to even entertain the introduction.
