“And I’m surprised you could tear yourself away from your looking glass.”
There was a spluttered noise from Lord Henry that sounded suspiciously like a smothered laugh. The smile dropped off Miss Sophia Redford’s face altogether, but just for a second.
“How droll you are,” she remarked recovering herself. “Come, let’s take a turn around the room. I want to talk to you. As for you, Lord Henry, you may admire us from a distance.”
Throwing an arch look over her shoulder at Henry, she drew her arm through Eleanor’s and dragged her away, not giving her any time to object.
The two women walked in less-than-companionable silence for a few minutes.
Well, to the extent that any soiree – even one as dull as Lady Grantham’s – could ever besilent. All around them, the babble of chatter sprang up, laughter and clinking glasses creating a thick layer of ambience, making it nearly impossible to hear oneself think.
They finally reached a little space at the corners of the room, behind where the dowagers’ chairs circled the dance floor. At last, there was enough quiet to speak at a normal tone and be heard, as well as some relief from the oppressive heat.
“Tell me, Miss Fairfax,” Sophia began, in a light, jovial tone, “what exactly do you think you’re about?”
Eleanor glanced over at her. The woman’s profile was infernally perfect.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, I’m sure that you do. You’re making a dead set at Lord Henry, aren’t you?”
Eleanor wanted to laugh. “If you knew me at all, Miss Redford, you’d know that I’m not interested in the Season. That means I’m not out tocatchanyone, or any of the other vulgar terms you care to use.”
Sophia bristled almost imperceptibly. “Not interested in the Season? Goodness. Well, that’s not what I heard. I heard that your tradesman of a papa intends to marry you off. It makes perfect sense that shop-people like yourselves would want a member of the aristocracy. You’d never catch a proper Duke, of course, especially not one as eligible as the Duke of Dunleigh, but his younger brother – well. That’s a match of some repute, I’d say.”
Eleanor tried to tug her arm free, but wretched Sophia Redford had a powerful grip.
“I’m not trying to catch Lord Henry,” Eleanor said finally, when it was pretty clear that she wasn’t getting away anytime soon. “I’m not standing in your way, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The woman made a littlemoueof impatience.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Somebody like you, Miss Fairfax, would never bein the wayof somebody like me.”
Eleanor was beginning to get annoyed. She finally wrenched her arm free, swinging around to block Sophia’s path and make her look her straight in the eyes.
“Listen to me, you air-headed fool,” she hissed. “I don’t want Lord Henry. I’m not out to catch a husband, no matter what you have heard. You’ve got it wrong, as I imagine you often do – you wouldn’t know a ledger if somebody dropped one on your head. And tell me this – if I’m so beneath your notice, why have you taken this special occasion to warn me off? We don’t bother with competitors who aren’treallycompetitors to us, we focus on our true rivals. I think you find me more threatening than you’d care to admit, Miss Sophia Redford.”
Sophia narrowed her eyes. She probably couldn’t decide which part of that little speech to take offence at, or whether she should just be angry at all of it.
Probably the latter, although Eleanor would bet all her money that nobody had ever called Sophia Redford anair-headed fool.Not to her face, at least.
“I know what people like you are willing to stoop to,” she spat. “You’ll try and trap him. You’ll addle his mind, or get him alone and leave him obliged to marry you, won’t you? Lord Henry is too delightfully innocent to understand your wiles. And now he’s made the ill-advised decision to go into business with you and yourwretched family, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so. I know yourtype, Eleanor Fairfax.”
Eleanor curled her lip in whatmighthave been a smile, if somebody was so inclined to see it that way.
“I can assure you that you don’t know my type at all, and I think you’re rather underestimating Lord Henry. After all,youhaven’t been able to catch him, have you?”
Sophia went beet red. Her hand flashed out as if she wanted to slap the other woman. Eleanor held her ground – Miss Redford slapping somebody at a party would be a talked-about circumstance, make no mistake.
At the last moment she regained control of herself, fisting her hands in her fabulous yellow dress instead.
“You’re going to get what’s coming to you,” Sophia hissed. “Oh, you really are. I intend to marry Lord Henry Willenshire, and I always get what I want, you see.”
“Yes, it shows.”
“Don’t interrupt, you wretch! When I am engaged to him, I shall tell my papa about this ill-advised business arrangement, and we shall take measures to extricate him. Atany cost. Do you hear me? Any cost. We’ll own your wretched pots by the time it’s all finished, and I’m going to smash each and every one of your stupid, cheap, ugly teacups. What do you say tothat, Miss Eleanor Fairfax?”
Eleanor drew in a breath. “I’d say that you ought to keep your voice down when you make threats, Miss Redford. People might overhear.”
