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Aidan frowned, unsure what Trafford was alluding to, but before he could respond, he was left alone, the ostentatious golden tails of the other man’s coat the last thing one could see from the dim interior of the room.

Sighing heavily, Aidan walked over to the door to peek his head out and look about. Where would Smythe’s private study be?

Gwen’s cheeks ached from the smile fixed on her face. For the better part of an hour, she had stood beside her father, welcoming every guest into their home with unflagging politeness. Her posture was correct, her greetings faultless, and her tone precisely modulated. Every inch the dutiful daughter of the house.

Most of the gentlemen had barely acknowledged her presence, offering her the kind of distracted bow reserved for a footstool or a fern. Their interest had been reserved entirely for her father, whose considerable charm and irreverent wit never failed to endear him to his peers.

The ladies had been little better. Many had passed her with the faintest tilt of their heads, their painted smiles thinning behind fans of ivory and lace. A few older matrons had stopped, their eyes alight with the kind of kindness that felt like vinegar in an open wound. They had inquired, pityingly, whether anyone had begun to court her yet.

Gwen would have preferred outright rudeness. The extended conversations about her lack of prospects, delivered with matronly concern, were far worse. They left her struggling to steer the discussion elsewhere, her facial muscles straining under the weight of polite responses and feigned good humor.

How she longed to be ordinary.

Her appearance, whatever its merits, only ever served to draw attention, and not the sort she desired. She stood too tall, with the wrong shade of hair and an outspoken fondness for scholarship. It made her a spectacle. A curiosity to some, a cautionary tale to others.

Once, years ago, she had dreamed of making a match despite her peculiarities. Of finding someone who might value her wit, her mind, even her freckles. But it had taken only a Season or two to disabuse her of such notions. Her illusions had been stripped from her like petals from a flower, one indifferent glance at a time.

She had wished her mother were still alive to guide her through the ordeal. But by the time Gwen had been old enough to enter society, the family had already lost its brightest light. And Gwen had been left to navigate the treacherous currents of the ton alone.

She had learned to protect herself from scrutiny, to craft a mask so carefully applied that even she believed it, at times. She no longer noticed the sidelong glances, the whispers, the pity.

Except … it still hurt.

Gwen skirted the edge of the ballroom, her slippers soundless against the polished parquet as she wove past gilt-framed mirrors and marble-topped console tables. She admitted the truth to herself, as painful as it was.

After all these years, she remained disappointed. Disappointed that she had never found her match.

Her parents had shared a great, enduring love. When her mother fell ill, her father had made a solemn vow to care for Gwen and Gareth. They had cloistered themselves at home during those final months, tending only to each other, savoring what little time remained. Mama had passed peacefully, having secured a promise from each of them that they would attend to one another always.

And they had kept that vow.

Papa, Gwen, and Gareth had made every effort to remain a close-knit family. It had become their unspoken way of honoring her mother’s memory. Gareth wrote weekly from Eton, and she and Papa would read his letters together in the drawing room after breakfast, sometimes aloud, sometimes in quiet reflection. Gwen penned their replies, recording little household events, snippets of news, and the small details their mother would have wanted them to share.

Mama would have been proud.

If only Gwen had made a match, she might now have children of her own. Sweet, clever babes who would carry on that legacy of love and learning. But it was not to be. If her mother were still alive, Gwen would have sought her counsel on how to navigate the ton with dignity and hope. But after seven failed Seasons, it was clear that she would never wed.

It might have been easier to relinquish that dream had her father stopped insisting on another turn on the marriage mart each year. He simply refused to believe that his daughter was undesirable to the gentlemen of society.

She watched the dancers twirling beneath the chandeliers, a flurry of silk and muslin, the women’s gowns painted in peacock hues and pale pastels. The gentlemen, by contrast, were adorned in their regulation blacks and midnight blues, the fine cut of their coats whispering wealth and privilege.

And yet, irony remained her only true companion at these balls. Her own father’s events, no less. At her own balls, she barely danced.

A few of Papa’s cronies, gallant and graying, sometimes filled a spot or two on her card out of affection for Frederick Smythe. But on most nights, she was fortunate to secure half a card, if that.

Gwen glanced down now at the delicate rectangle tied to her wrist with a ribbon of pale satin. Three dances remained unclaimed. It was enough time to take some air on the terrace, which would spare her the pitying stares of chattering guests and allow her to recover her composure.

Decision made, she began weaving through the press of lace and brocade near the perimeter, her hand gently brushing aside a cluster of overzealous debutantes as she made for the tall French doors at the far end of the room.

“Miss Smythe!”

She hesitated.

Every instinct urged her to pretend she had not heard and slip outside, but her mother had not raised her to be discourteous. With a practiced, gracious breath, she turned to find Lady Gertrude Hays peering up at her, cheeks flushed, feather bobbing in her turban.

The old lady was kindly, but incurably garrulous. Gwen’s heart sank.

“Are you enjoying your evening, Lady Hays?”