When she reached the doors and stepped inside, every eye turned to her. Every eye but the duke’s. Fable scanned her gaze over all the faces but he wasn’t there. For a second, she felt panic rising in her. She didn’t belong here, dressed like something she wasn’t. She wasn’t a servant. She wasn’t a noble lady. She didn’t know where to stand or what she should eat. She thought about turning back around and running to her rooms.
“Come, Miss,” Edith appeared again at her side and urged her forward toward the tables.
“Where’s the duke?” Fable leaned in and whispered to her.
“Bryce from the kitchen said he saw the duke ride away without a word to anyone.”
He rode away? Where did he go? Fable worried. Why would he leave now when he told Edith to dress her and bring her to him, when every mouth she passed set whispers to the air?
“Who is she?”
“I heard the duke found her on the streets of the city.”
“I heard the duke was fond of her. But look at her, she’s much too plain to interest him.”
“How fond of her can he be? He’s not here to even greet her.”
“I saw him leaving in a hurry,” one of them said. “Or I should say he was running away.”
Those particular whispers came from a group of ladies standing around the large fireplace. They sneered at Fable when she glanced their way. Usually, she let jabs and jibes slide off her. They mostly came from unhappy, insecure, hateful people. She tried not to let these girls bother her, but the more they laughed, holding dainty, gloved fingers to their mouths, the angrier she grew at the duke for not being here.
“Get me more tea,” one of them called out to her.
“And be quick about it!” shouted another.
“Ladies,” Edith intervened. “I beg your pardon, but–”
One of them stepped forward and held up her palm to quiet Edith. Lady Charlotte. Fable remembered her when she stood with the duke’s sister earlier. At the time, she hadn’t taken her gaze from the duke for a second.
“Are Lady Prudence’s guests to be scolded by a servant?” She did nothing to mask her contempt for Fable when she set her burning gaze on her. Then she turned her smug smile to the others. “I saw this one earlier running around the halls in her nightdress and stockinged-feet.”
The others gasped and sneered some more.
But Lady Charlotte wasn’t done. “She brazenly ran to Lord Sudbury and laughed with him in the face of Lady Prudence, behaving like nothing more than a street prostitute.”
A what?Fable lifted her head and clenched her teeth. She’d listened to enough. With her hands balled into fists at her sides she strode toward them, Lady Charlotte in particular.
“Who the fu–”
“Lady Charlotte!” They all turned to the duke standing in the doorway. Somehow he appeared taller, more like a storm,a gleam of lightning in his eyes as unyielding as the cut of his jaw. As he came near, the women took a collective step back.
Everyone but Fable. She stared at him while he glared at the others.
“Get out,” he ordered Lady Charlotte in a quiet, chilled voice. “Don’t let me see you here again.” He raked his gaze over the others. “Miss Ramsey here is my guest. I won’t tolerate vicious rumors against her. If they continue, you will all be asked to leave, as well.”
He turned to Fable now and let his gaze warm over her face.
She looked away and then stormed out of the dining Hall.
She couldn’t breathe. Did women back here in the eighteenth century die from their corsets and bodices being too tight?
Fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her. She spun around to see the duke. She couldn’t say that in any other time, he’d be a dream come to life, because all the centuries were the same. People barely tolerated the poor. If you were street poor, you were worth as much as a sewer rat.
But he was different. He was a dream come to life inanytime.
“Where are you going?”
“Where were you?” she asked, barely hearing his question. “You keep claiming to want to protect me, but youtoldEdith to dress me and bring me to the dining Hall. You threw me to the wolves and left me to protect myself.”
