Clarissa’s smile sharpened. “Tell me, did your father sponsor your attendance? Or did the magistrates take pity?”
The ladies around them inhaled sharply.
Penelope sipped her champagne. “Is your memory failing, Clarissa? I was born with a title. You only married yours.”
Clarissa’s smile cracked—just a hairline fracture, but enough.
“You always were dreadfully plain-spoken,” Clarissa murmured, voice tight. “It’s no wonder you were never courted.”
“And yet,” Penelope said lightly, “I seem to have arrived with a companion who outshines everyone in this room.”
Clarissa blanched.
A shadow glided into place beside Penelope, smooth, precise, deliberate. Mingxi.
“Lady Penelope,” he said in that perfectly even tone that always felt like a blade sheathed in velvet. “I hope I did not keep you waiting.”
Penelope arched a brow. “Just concluding a conversation.”
Clarissa dipped a strained curtsey. “Foreign dignitary.”
Mingxi inclined his head the bare minimum required by etiquette. “Lady Wrenford.”
Something in his gaze, not rude, not improper, but deeply assessing, sent Clarissa stumbling in her farewell.
“I… must greet the hostess,” she managed, retreating with more haste than grace.
Penelope exhaled softly.
Mingxi murmured, “Is that one your enemy?”
Penelope took another sip. “No. She never mattered enough for that.”
Mingxi smiled, slow, approving, lethal. “As it should be.”
Mingxi’s smile lingered a heartbeat longer than propriety allowed. Then, smooth as a bowstring easing, his expression shuttered.
“I must speak with the ambassador,” he murmured. “I will not be far.”
A statement.
A promise.
A warning to anyone listening.
He inclined his head—precise, elegant—and stepped away into the gathering crowd, immediately drawing glances as he moved. Nobles shifted to clear a path, unsure whether he outranked them, hoping he did.
Without his presence beside her, the air felt sharper. Colder. The gossip recommenced like the crackle of frost underfoot.
“Look, he left her.”
“Perhaps hewasonly being polite.”
“Foreigners have such strange manners.”
“Or perhaps he finally realized who she is.”
Penelope ignored all of it. She lifted her champagne, composed herself, and stepped deliberately into the nearest cluster of polite conversation. She made small talk with Lady Everton about the winter charity drive. With Lord Danforth about the orchestra. With the Marquess of Wakefield about the ice sculptures lining the hall.
