“And then he asked if I would ever consent to being alone with him.”
Philip swore under his breath. Her association with him was dragging her down as he’d feared it might, as he’d warned her father it could.
“I reminded him we were alone, but he said he meant somewhere truly private. Then he pressed me against the wall and ... and now I wish to go home.” She started crying again.
Philip felt ill. Thinking her safe, he’d foolishly let his guard down and she had been mauled as a result.
“Lord Lowry had no right to take any such liberty,” Miranda insisted, “and I hope you will go downstairs and call him out.”
“No,” he said firmly, hoping to get through to her. “Although he had no right, you allowed him the opportunity. You shouldn’t have come upstairs with him. If anyone finds out, you will be considered sullied.”
She took a step away from him.
“That’s how men get away with it.” She stared at him, her lower lip quivering. “That’s howyouget away with it!”
“Do not lump me into your mess. I have never cornered a lady or compelled her to do anything. You brought this upon yourself by your naiveté, and even that is no excuse.”
“I want to go home,” she said again. “I feel out of sorts.”
“Regardless, you must stay, eat dinner, and pretend nothing happened. And you must make damnable certain no one knows you were alone upstairs with a man.”
She opened her mouth, perhaps to contradict him but then appeared to change her mind.
“Very well.”
“Go quickly,” he ordered. “Directly to the ballroom. Your aunt is awaiting your reappearance. I’ll come in a few minutes. Tell her you were with Lady Harriet or Lady Emily.”
Miranda turned on her heel before glancing back at him.
“How do I look?”
Beautiful, he wanted to say, but that wasn’t what she was asking.
“Hair and dress will pass inspection,” he told her. Then he handed her his pocket handkerchief. “But blot your face on the way downstairs and smile before you enter the ballroom.”
Nodding, she left him.
Philip paced, deciding whether he ought to seek out Lowry and set him down a peg. Unsure if it was in Miranda’s best interest for the other man to know Philip was her confidante, he drew his flagon from his pocket. After a sip, he decided.
Only one thing would make him feel better. He clenched his hands into fists.
THE NEXT DAY, SHE READ inThe Timesabout “the indecent foreign dance.” While she recalled how magical she’d felt whirling quickly and effortlessly in Philip’s arms, with her heart pounding and the two of them entirely independent of the other dancers, the paper’s editorial had a different opinion of the ever-more popular waltz:
“...it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females.
So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his or her daughter to so fatal a contagion."
Miranda felt soiled before she even turned to the gossip column, and then the floor fell away.
“One cavorting miss, who is considered ‘bright’ as the sun due to her connection with the dazzling Lord M, found herself on the wrong floor with Lord L. When seen before the midnight supper, one couldn’t help wondering if her tears were due to disappointed expectation or from being discovered by the wrong man? Or perhaps they were caused by loathsome regret? Lord M was in a tweague. Dare one say he is unused to having his game-birds poached?”
She could scarcely breathe. Carefully folding the paper, Miranda tucked it underneath her skirts just before her father came into the dining room for breakfast. She could at least spare him reading about his daughter being compared to a prostitute for waltzing and keep him from asking her whether it were true she’d been crying at the ball.
And if anyone asked her why she’d been crying, the answer would have been impossible to confess — she was in love with a rake. When Lord Lowry took her lips under his, she felt the disappointing contrast. He was handsome and a good dance partner, but his kiss left her unmoved.
Worse, it left her bereft, facing a future with a husband whose kisses were like his, and nothing like Philip’s.
And she wanted Philip!When Lord Lowry’s hands began to explore, she’d turned to stone. No part of her body reacted. She needed to see Lord Major Mercer’s sparkling eyes, smell his familiar cologne, taste his mouth, and especially feel him under her fingertips. No one else could come close.
