Eleanor drew away to one side, trying not to compare her simple blue gown with Sophia Redford’s beautiful yellow silk confection, dotted with red silk roses and cut daringly low around her shoulders. The woman looked like a vision, and ladies and gentlemen alike stopped to stare admiringly at her.
Lady Grantham grandly extended her hands, and Sophia took them, smiling perfectly up at her.
“Such a model of beauty, elegance, and good breeding. Such a rarity these days,” Lady Grantham pronounced. She didn’texactlylook sideways at Eleanor to make her point, but she might as well have done.
Eleanor was forced to stay rigidly smiling, ignoring the insult as best she could. Charles had disappeared somewhere, probably towards the few card tables already set up, and that left Eleanor alone. She turned on her heel and strode away from Lady Grantham, who was still gushing over Sophia Redford.
Marcia was probably here already, but that didn’t mean that Eleanor would be able to find her in this crush. She pushed her way through the crowd, standing on her tiptoes to try and see a familiar face. A few gentlemen glanced down at her, annoyed, as she pushed past them. One or two snippily offered to find her a chair – a none-too-subtle hint that they thought she should have been sitting quietly along the walls, waiting for gentlemen to approach and talk to her, or perhaps even ask her to dance – and they visibly bridled when she politely refused.
“You’re looking lost, Miss Fairfax.”
A familiar voice came in her ear, and warmth radiated all down Eleanor’s spine. She glanced up at a smiling, annoyingly handsome face, and scowled.
“Well, if I was a beanpole like you, Lord Henry, I’d be able to see over the heads of the crowds easily enough. If you’ve come to offer to find me a chair, don’t bother.”
“I was going to do nothing of the sort,” Lord Henry responded easily, keeping pace with her as she pushed through the crowd. People moved aside forhim, she noticed sourly. “If I could find a place to sit down, I’d take it for myself.”
“What a gentleman you are.”
“And what a ladyyouare, calling people beanpoles. Ah, I think I see a little space over there.”
Without asking permission, Lord Henry seized Eleanor’s hand and towed her through the crowd. His fingers were warm, slipping against her silk gloves, and the heat in her chest indicated something more.
Then, quite abruptly, they were through the crowd, in a little corner of space near the mantelpiece, and Eleanor couldbreatheat last.
“Thank goodness,” she sighed, drawing in a breath of air that didn’t havepeoplein it.
“Agreed,” he said, smiling wryly. “Lady Grantham might be a formidable person in Society, but I’m not sure her company is particularly fabulous.”
Eleanor snorted, an unladylike noise which did her no favours and would be particularly looked down upon where people like – say, Lady Grantham were around to hear it.
Lord Henry only grinned, though, and that warm feeling in her chest fluttered. Like butterflies.
“Can I tempt you to cards? I believe a particularly sedate game of cards is being played.”
“Ugh. No. Nothankyou.”
“Dancing? There’s a… jig, I think, but an oddly somber one. I didn’t realise jigs couldbeslow and stately.”
“Either way, I’d much prefer going home early.”
Eleanor wasn’t sure why she’d said that. Perhaps it was her father’s pale face in the carriage as they drove here, face bone-white, skin thin as paper. He hadn’t had anyturnslike before, but steadfastly refused to discuss his health with anyone, least of all Eleanor. She tried suggesting he pay Jonathan a visit, but he refused, and it wasn’t as if she couldmakehim.
Henry’s expression faltered, and he opened his mouth.
“Eleanor, there was something odd your father said to me before, only today when he had that fit of illness. He said…”
“Lord Henry! Lord Henry Willenshire, I do declare!”
Eleanor could have sworn she saw dismay cross Lord Henry’s face, before it was smoothed away. He turned, a quick smile lighting up his features, towards the resplendent woman in yellow silk trimmed with red, gliding effortlessly towards them.
“Miss Redford, good evening.”
Sophia Redford swept an excellent curtsey to them both, her bow to Eleanor’s markedly shorter and shallower.
“Ah, Miss Fairfax, I thought I might find you here, beside our dear Lord Henry,” Sophia said smoothly, flashing a glint of a smile Eleanor’s way. “How do you do? I am surprised you could tearyourself away from your shop-work to join us civilized folks in Society.”
It was a thinly veiled insult. No, it wasn’t evenveiled. Eleanor clenched her teeth and tried unsuccessfully to smile.
