They had not even reached the foot of the staircase when whispers began to shift toward them. Louisa, experienced in such situations, responded with a gracious incline of her head, though her thoughts lingered on the echo of Niall’s kiss.
The ballroom was aglow. Chandeliers blazed, violins played, and a regiment of footmen delivered an endless flow of food and drink. The crowd was so dense that even the walls seemed to lean in, straining to catch every whisper and rumor.
“Smile, dearest,” Sophia murmured, pinching Louisa’s arm. “If you glare any harder, you’ll set the silk alight.”
Louisa forced her mouth into a gentler line. “I am not glaring.”
“You are. It’s terrifying,” Alexandra said. “Very effective, though. Lord Bertram nearly fled when he caught your eye.”
Louisa laughed. “Lord Bertram is frightened by wallpaper.”
“True. But you are not yourself tonight,” Sophia pressed. “Is it Foxmere?”
The name hung between them.
“I have not seen him,” Louisa replied. “Which is the point.”
Sophia nodded. “You will tonight, less the crowd keep him away. He will likely be overwhelmed by the matrons by midnight.”
Alexandra raised an eyebrow. “That’s optimistic. I give it until ten.”
Louisa allowed herself a flicker of amusement, but her gaze kept drifting to the doorway, the windows, the balcony overhead. No sign of him. Just the dizzying swirl of dancers and the parade of familiar faces, each feeling increasingly unreal. Perhaps he was avoiding her just as she had been him.
Eventually, Alexandra steered them to the punch table, where they exchanged civilities with Lady Honoria. Radiant in emerald, her smile bright, she exclaimed, “Dearest Louisa! You outdo yourself. The blue is divine.”
“Thank you,” Louisa replied, “though I confess I feel rather like a cloud.”
Honoria’s eyes sparkled. “Nonsense. You are the talk of the night. In fact, the only talk. Have you heard that the Earl of Foxmere is in mourning for your lost virtue?”
Sophia made a choking noise, admirably disguised as a cough. Alexandra’s grip on her glass tightened.
Louisa matched Honoria’s smile. “I hear mourning is the latest thing in Paris. Trust Foxmere to set the fashion.”
Honoria laughed, but a glance over Louisa’s shoulder suggested she was already planning her next remark. “Well, I shall keep an eye out for him. I do love a man in black. Especially when he’s on his knees.”
With that, she drifted away, followed by her group of admirers.
Sophia, color returning to her cheeks, said, “I hate her. I really do.”
“She is a nuisance,” Alexandra said, “but a particularly entertaining one.”
They managed a lap of the ballroom, but the crowd was unbearable, the company worse. Louisa, mind racing and skin prickling with the threat of exposure, broke away from her friends under the pretext of needing fresh air. She fled through the anteroom and out to the terrace, her slippers cold against the flagstones.
The garden beyond the terrace should have been dark. Instead, it shimmered with light.
Louisa stopped, captivated by the sight. A thousand candles hung from fine wires strung between trees and archways, bobbing in the faintest breeze and creating the illusion of stars drifting just above the ground. The effect was so mesmerizing that even the least poetic mind would gasp.
Stone paths wound through the topiary and rose beds, now edged with wild tulips in shades from blood to flame. Louisa’s heart quickened a she stepped into the garden, the grass wet beneath her slippers, the air rich with the scent of melted wax and the subtle tang of crushed tulip stems. Behind her, a hush fell over the ballroom as others noticed the display, followed by a swell of voices—admiration, curiosity, envy. Guests began totrickle onto the terrace, some venturing onto the grass, others content to watch from the balustrade.
Her friends found her at the edge of the tulip path. Alexandra said nothing, just linked arms with her, while Sophia gasped at the spectacle.
“Your mother outdid herself?” Sophia whispered. “It must have taken days.”
“Longer,” Alexandra murmured. “Look—the wiring, the ladders. The tulips must have been imported. There aren’t so many in all of Kent.”
“If mother planned this, I would have known about it.” Louisa brushed a scarlet petal. The tulip bent beneath her touch, then sprang back. She thought of Foxmere, always on the verge of a sneer or a joke.
“Whoever did this,” Alexandra said, “means to make a point.”
