The smashing of glass on the floor caused her to tear her gaze away from him.
“I am so terribly sorry,” Clara said, two hectic spots of red on her cheeks. The footmen came running to sweep it up.
Before Evie could wonder about it longer, the orchestra played another tune.
“I would ask you to dance, milady, but alas...” He knocked his cane against his ailing leg. Turning to Hartenberg, he said, “And you mustn’t dance with her again. It would be most unfashionable to dance more than one dance with one’s betrothed.”
“Alas, I have never counted myself to be one among the fashionable kind.” He held out his hand with a smile. “Evie, if you please.”
It was a minuet this time, which required a frequent switching of partners, so she no longer had the opportunity to converse with him.
Afterwards, she felt quite hot and unaccountably tired. She excused herself and withdrew to the retiring room.
She found, to her surprise, that the room was empty. There was only a maid there, who got up from her stool and curtsied when she entered.
Evie requested her to pour some water in a basin to wash her hands.
Her face looked pale in the mirror. She pulled her lips to a smile, which did not reach her eyes.
“How silly of you,” she muttered to herself, as she stared into the mirror, “how unforgivably silly of you…” to fall in love with the man you are about to marry.
Particularly when he’d said, more than once, that he did not believe in love.
Was she completely addle-brained?
Did she have windmills in her upper storey? In her heart, more likely. There it went again: making that irregular little skip every time she but thought of him.
“Heaven help me,” she groaned.
“Lady Evangeline?” a musical voice said behind her.
Evie froze when she saw the image in the mirror of the woman who stood behind her.
The lady in black.
“The Black Widow,” she whispered. She turned slowly.
The woman was standing in front of the door.
There was no sign of the maid.
“I have come to congratulate you on your betrothal,” the Baroness said smoothly. “Of course it came as no surprise and we have been expecting it.” She inclined her head. “Felicitations.”
The woman took several steps into the room and folded her hands. She was swathed in black from head to toe, tall, lithe, a veil covering half her face. And even her gloves were black. It was like she’d emerged from the shadows, a supernatural being. “I have come for your answer to what we discussed. What is your decision?”
“I wasn’t aware that I had any choice in this matter.”Evie’s voice hardened. “It sounded more like blackmail to me.”
“It is such an ugly word,” the woman said lightly. “Why don’t we say it is an invitation for you to support the cause of the widows?”
Evie laughed. “Your sense of sarcasm is admirable. You ask me to support the cause of widows on the occasion of my betrothal. Truly?”
She tilted her head to one side. “I must admit it is hardly tasteful. But look at who is assembled here: the entire elite of the congress. I cannot possibly ignore that, can I?”
Evie’s fingers cramped around her silken dress. How on earth was she to get out of this fix?
“What if Hartenberg does not have the list?”
“Then come up with intelligence that is of equal weight.”
