“Temperance,” Harper was speaking to her directly now, though Albina was more than curious as she observed the two. “Do you mind if we speak?”
Her heart was thudding again, but before she could respond in either a yes or a no, a polite cough interrupted them.
Elias Talbot emerged from behind one of the pillars in the direction where the terrace door had been.
She was thinking about this when she heard the sound.
“Elias?” Temperance exclaimed, surprised. All the guests were supposed to leave by now.
“I apologize for interrupting,” his eyes darted around the room. “I thought I would wait until things had settled, I hope that was not presumptuous.”
“Not at all,” Albina said quickly.
Elias came further into the room, seeming entirely comfortable with the whole situation even though it was a strange one.
“I wanted to speak to Miss Hosmer,” he said. “Before I spoke to His Grace, if you are willing.”
The tension in the air returned, and Temperance looked back at Harper, who had gone very still. She remembered at once ofthe abandoned conversation on the dance floor, and guilt settled onto her features.
“I… Mr. Talbot,” she used his surname to establish some sort of formality between them, “I am not sure if I am able to continue to have this conversation with you.”
Not when I have the fresh memory of kissing the Duke imprinted on my mind.
“I cannot accept,” she went on. “Whatever you were going to say, I cannot accept it. I am sorry. You are a good man and you deserve someone who feels the thing that I do not feel, and I hope very much that you find her.” She said it plainly, without apology.
Elias looked at her for a moment, stunned.
“Oh, thank goodness.”
Temperance stared at him.
“I am sorry,” he said, and he did look sorry, though also considerably relieved. “That came out badly. I only meant…” He stopped. He looked at the ceiling briefly, in the way of a man reorganizing himself, and then looked back at the room. His gaze moved past Temperance and settled somewhere behind her. “I was going to ask you first because I thought it was the right way to go about it. Being discreet. But I can see that perhaps I was not as discreet as I imagined.”
Temperance turned around and realized Elias was looking at Albina.
Who in turn had gone very still. Her expression was the one she had when something had surprised her, which was rare, because very little surprised Albina Hosmer. Her cheeks were pink.
“Lady Wilmington,” Elias said, and his voice had changed from the voice he used for everything else, “I have been wanting to speak to the Duke about the possibility of courting you. I thought that speaking to Miss Hosmer first was the more considerate approach, given the circumstances, and I did not want there to be any confusion about my intentions. I am sorry if the confusion happened anyway.”
The ballroom was very quiet. Albina opened her mouth.
“You,” she said. “Am I hearing this correctly?”
“Yes,” Elias said, “my only regret is that it took me too long to say it.”
“You have been coming to this house,” Albina said, “and attending these events, and sending flowers, and all of this time you were….”
“Yes,” Elias said again, with the same patient, steady certainty.
Temperance looked back at her mother and felt the laugh arriving before she could do anything about it.
“I thought he was here for you,” Albina said, and she sounded genuinely astonished, which from Albina was extraordinary.
Albina had recovered herself somewhat, though her cheeks were still pink, which Temperance found both extraordinary and wonderful. Her mother, who had walked into a ballroom in trousers and never cared what anyone thought of her, was sitting on a chair with a sleeping dog beside her looking flustered.
“I am not opposed to being courted,” Albina said finally, and said it with the dignity of a woman reclaiming her composure one piece at a time. “In principle.”
“Only in principle?” Elias said.
