“I am glad you could attend,” Margaret said after a moment.
Her voice remained steady. Arabella studied her face carefully, perhaps searching for the reaction she had hoped to provoke. Unfortunately for her, Margaret was not going to give her that satisfaction.
“Well,” she said smoothly, “I should not monopolize the hostess.”
Margaret inclined her head again.
“Enjoy the evening.”
Arabella dipped into a graceful curtsy before drifting back into the crowd, pale silk disappearing among the moving dancers. Margaret remained still for a moment, then she turned back toward the ballroom. Music swelled again as another waltz began.
Margaret forced herself to continue moving through the evening, greeting guests, exchanging pleasantries, smiling until her cheeks ached, but as the night wore on, something else began to trouble her.
Nathaniel had disappeared.
At first she assumed he had stepped away briefly, perhaps to attend to Eliza, or to speak privately with one of the gentlemen gathered in the study, but time passed and she saw Eliza and her gentleman and Nathaniel was not with them.
Another dance ended, then another, and still he had not returned. Margaret felt unease begin to coil quietly in her chest. She scanned the ballroom again. He was nowhere among the dancers, and nor for that matter was Miss Vaughn.
The unease tightened. She did not want to accuse him of anything, but it made far too much sense. His absence had never truly been explained, and his reasoning of seeing Eliza was too easy, too convenient.
After excusing herself from another conversation, Margaret slipped quietly from the ballroom into the adjoining corridor. The music softened behind her as the door closed. Lantern light flickered along the hall, casting long shadows across the walls.
Margaret paused, listening.
Somewhere deeper in the house a door closed. She drew a steady breath, then she began walking. If Nathaniel had truly been gone that long…
She had nearly reached the archway that led from the ballroom into the quieter corridor beyond when a familiar voice called softly behind her.
“Margaret?”
She turned. Beatrice stood a few steps away, the light from the chandeliers catching in the pale silk of her gown. Her eyes, always too perceptive for comfort, studied Margaret’s face.
“You look as though you are fleeing your own ball,” Beatrice said gently, moving closer. “Surely that cannot be the intention of the evening’s most celebrated hostess?”
Margaret let out a small breath that might almost have passed for a laugh.
“I am not fleeing,” she said, smoothing an imaginary crease from her glove. “Merely stepping away for a moment.”
But she had never been much good at concealing her feelings from her friends, and that was only made worse by the condition that she was in.
“Is something wrong?”
For the briefest instant, Margaret wanted to tell her everything. She wanted to tell her what Miss Vaughn had alleged, and to say that there was a part of her, as foolish as it felt, that believed it.
But the ballroom behind them was bright and loud and full of watching eyes. She could not afford to take such a risk again.
And so, Margaret lifted her chin and summoned the same composed smile she had worn all evening.
“Nothing at all,” she said lightly. “I simply realized I have not seen His Grace for some time. A hostess ought to know where her duke has vanished to.”
Beatrice did not smile back immediately. Her gaze lingered, searching Margaret’s face with that quiet, disconcerting attentiveness that had always made it difficult to hide anything from her.
“Margaret, if there is anything–”
“It is truly nothing,” Margaret said quickly, though her voice remained gentle.
She reached out and touched Beatrice’s arm, a brief reassuring squeeze.
