Page 21 of The Language of Love

Chapter 4

Afan rapped Annis sharply on the shoulder and she jolted and turned to find her cousin Miriam glaring down at her.

“Susanna has been waiting for you in the retiring room forever. Whatever is keeping you?” She shot a narrow, dismissive look at Freddie, whom Annis had been talking to, and then spun on her heel without waiting for an answer.

Freddie shook her head. “What an appalling woman.”

Annis smiled. “I had better go, Freddie.”

“Yes, do. But make sure you come back.”

Annis gave a noncommittal nod and then moved as quickly and politely as she could toward the retiring room. There was no point promising Freddie things that weren’t hers to give. It was likely that she’d spend the rest of the evening dancing attendance on her cousins and aunt.

Miriam and Susanna were ready to pounce the moment she entered the retiring room.

“Your behavior is inexcusable,” Miriam, the elder and more short-tempered of her cousins, snapped. Her voice carried, and several of the other occupants of the room turned to stare. “Susanna missed the second set because of you.”

Annis felt like pointing out that she had not been the one who’d trod on Susanna’s skirt, but she had learned it was better not to argue.

“Show me the tear, Cousin.” She opened her reticule and extracted a card of pins.

Susanna, who was often kind to Annis when her sister was not around, lifted the hem. “It’s right—”

“Can’t you do anything without help?” Miriam demanded.

Susanna dropped the skirt as if it had stung her fingers, which forced Annis to kneel and go over the fabric, inch by painstaking inch.

The gown was a lovely shade of pale green that perfectly set off her cousin’s dark-haired beauty.

“I cannot find a rip,” she said.

“Look again,” Susanna said. “It’s there.”

“Do you think she is inept on purpose?” Miriam asked her sister, tapping her toe.Susanna clucked her tongue. “Remember your manners, sister. Don’t let her willful behavior reduce you to her level.”

“I found it,” Annis said.

“Get on with fixing it,” Miriam ordered.

The almost invisible tear was not in the hem itself, but in the lace two inches above it. Annis removed a pin, wove it through the rip, and used the stiff card rather than her only pair of evening gloves to bend the end. Satisfied, she stood.

Miriam squinted down at the repair. “A pin? You did not have enough wit to bring a needle and thread?”

“Come, come,” Susanna said, grabbing her sister’s arm. “We shall miss the entire ball if we stand here expecting any sense from her.”

They turned and headed for the door, and Annis let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, Annis?”

Her head jerked up at the sound of Miriam’s voice.

“Mama wishes to see you immediately. She is with Mrs. Neece and Mrs. Howell.” She gave Annis a spiteful little smile and flounced out of the room.

Annis turned to regard her reflection in the mirror, frowning at what she saw: a skinny old maid wearing an old ball gown that was far too loose on her slight frame.

It was one of Miriam’s from two Seasons past. Although delicate primrose was a pretty enough color, it did nothing for her pale complexion and colorless hair. And it had been so laden with bows, ribbons, and lace that a dull gown remained after she’d stripped away all the furbelows. She’d planned to embroider flowers along the hem, but her cousins had hardly left her with a moment to eat or sleep.

Even though the Season was more than half over, the Duchess of Tinley’s ball was the first haute ton affair the Bowman women had ever attended.