Well, now,thatwas interesting.
“Hawk!” Mr Nathaniel Ashford exclaimed, regarding his cousin with chagrin. He was a handsome fellow and recently engaged to the lady beside him, who had been introduced to Alice as Miss Margaret Bancroft.
Alice sighed, expecting at any moment to lunge and catch Clara, who would undoubtedly fall into a swoon at such an indelicate greeting.
Except she didn’t.
“Indeed,” Clara replied, stiffening her backbone and looking like she might bare her little white teeth given the slightest provocation.
Heavens! This was even more interesting.
The dowager was also watching this exchange with obvious fascination. “You know Miss Halfpenny, Hawkney?”
And then the inevitable happened: Alice looked at the dowager, something she had been determinedly not doing all evening, though the desire to take just a little peek had been so enticing.
Oh!Oh, but all the pretty, sparkly, glittering loveliness that the dowager had swathed herself in was simply too much to endure. Everything else became background noise, the drowsy buzzing of an irritating wasp, a warning sound but not immediately dangerous. In some part of her mind, Alice knew she would reflect upon the stunning outburst Clara was enacting for the duke with astonishment, but for now she was too spellbound to care.
Alice took in the stunning array of rubies, some of them big as quails' eggs, and curled her fingers tighter around the stem of her wineglass lest those wicked digits took matters into their own hands and got away from her. The temptation was nigh on irresistible.
“That’s ‘your grace.’”
Alice doubted the words the duke ground out would have penetrated her avaricious stupor, if not for Isabelle Honeywell pinching her arm. Alice jumped at the intervention and returned her attention to the scene in time to see Clara turn an interesting shade of sickly green.
“Excuse me,” the girl managed, and then fled.
“Well, well, Miss Halfpenny has a backbone after all,” the dowager said with a delighted smile.
His grace looked a tad less pleased.
“A backbone?” Hawkney repeated, incensed. “Did you not hear her? She’s a bold chit with no manners and a complete disregard for her betters.”
Mr Ashford shifted awkwardly, frowning at his cousin. “Lord, Hawk! Never mind her, hear yourself. When did you get so stuffy?”
The duke glared at him. “Did you listen to what she just said to me?”
“I did, and it sounded perfectly reasonable.” He shook his head at the duke in consternation. “I’ve never known you to bully shy young women, either, Hawk. What got into you?”
“That creature is not shy!” Hawkney protested.
“I can’t believe it.” Izzy turned to Alice with obvious confusion. Her eyes were wide with shock, giving Alice reason to believe she had missed something truly noteworthy. “Clara never says a word… toanyone.”
The dowager’s eyes glinted mischievously as she toyed with a huge diamond ring glittering on one hand. “It seems my grandson brings out her better nature.”
This remark sent the duke off in high dudgeon, though his grandmother seemed delighted by his irritation.
“Oh, dear,” Izzy said, clearly agitated. “You know, I don’t think Clara had the slightest idea of who he is. Did she, Miss Marwick?”
Alice, whose attention had once more been seized by the rubies, gave herself a mental shake and reminded herself she had friends now, a new and interesting development, and friends looked after one another—apparently.
“What? Oh.Oh!No. Indeed, she did not,” Alice agreed.
“I’m quite certain she didn’t,” the dowager said with a chuckle. “And it does Hawkney good to be taken down a peg or two now and then.”
“We’d best find her,” Izzy muttered to Alice, pushing her spectacles up her nose and gazing around the ballroom. “She’s probably hiding behind a potted palm by now.”
“Being sick in one, more like,” Alice remarked, belatedly noticing a young man watching her.
His intent expression made warning bells explode in her ears. Mr Aubrey Seymour, cousin to the Duke of Hawkney. She’d thought him a handsome fellow, with thick, waving auburn hair and the most astonishing green eyes. They’d not long been introduced, and she’d been aware of a lingering look of admiration in his smile which had unnerved her. His expression wasn’t so admiring now. Worse, he wasn’t looking at her at all, but at the splendid diamond brooch that sat snugly upon her less than impressive décolletage.
