Sarah stepped away, examining her handiwork. “Almost back to where it was.”
Rose turned her head to look at her hair in the mirror, held her breath for fifteen long seconds, then let it out slowly. “Yes. Thank you, Sarah.”
“Where’s the lace cap?”
Rose scowled. “Under my desk.”
“I can retrieve—”
“No. I want no one in my office for the rest of tonight. No one. Tell Davis. Nor tomorrow.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The door to Rose’s bedchamber opened with a rush, and Cecily stood in the frame. “Rose! What are you doing up here?” Rose turned and Cecily gasped. “What happened to you? Why is your face so red?”
Searching for an answer, Rose hesitated, and Sarah murmured, “Your courses.”
“Thank you,” Rose whispered back and stood. “After handling the situation with that vendor in my office, I realized my courses had started so I dashed up the stairs for the cloths. I’ll be down in a moment.”
Cecily looked skeptical. “Your courses have never surprised you a day in your life. And you have never had them twice in one month.”
Rose took a long calming breath. “Cecily, I will be down in a moment.”
“Hm. Please do so. Mother is turning frantic looking for you.” With another narrow-eyed look, Cecily closed the door.
Rose sank back down on the dressing table stool. “Now I have to face all those people.”
“And you will do so as if nothing happened. Because I know you are that strong.”
Rose’s lips tightened as she reached inside for more determination, but that well had almost bled dry. But...you have done this for ten years. You can do it for one more night.
She stood, straightened the neckline on her gown one more time, and lowered her chin. “I will see you when this is over, Sarah.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Rose took the servant’s stairwell down to the kitchen, checked briefly with Cook and Mrs. Williams, then came up to the ballroom from below, entering through one of the baize doors behind the screens. She emerged from behind the screens—after first checking that the way was clear—and headed for her mother. Lady Dorothea scolded her for her absence, complained that one of the readers had gone missing, and demanded to know if they had enough ratafia to last out the evening. Her mother’s fondness for the sickly sweet liqueur had always been a puzzle to Rose, but the entire family indulged it, and her older sister Beatrice had developed an equal affection for it. Yes, Rose told her mother, there were three more cases already retrieved from the cellar.
So... no emergency, just her mother’s usual insistence that Rose be responsible for everything.
Rose found the missing reader asleep in the drawing room. Then she mingled for a bit, having a pleasant conversation with Cecily and Lord Philby, whose claim on her sister had been appropriately acknowledged, so Cecily no longer fended off a flock of interested bachelors. Rose glanced around occasionally, but she saw no signs of the Ashtons. Good.
Finally, when she spotted her father lingering near one of the doors, she snagged a cup of lemonade and went to his side. They stood silently a moment, then he tilted his head toward her. “Her Grace sent word that she had developed a vicious headache. Lord Robert and Lady Elizabeth took her home.”
Rose sipped her lemonade.
“Lord Newbury left sometime before that. He walked.”
She studied her cup. “This really is excellent lemonade, Papa. I’m glad we allowed for it in the budget.”
“He is going to write me in the morning.”
“What a waste of expensive foolscap.”
“Rose—”
She slid her arm inside her father’s elbow and squeezed. “It’s over, Papa. Whatever this game we have been playing, whatever this dance? It’s over.” She nodded toward her sister. “I promised Cecily I would stay through the Blackmore Ball at the end of May, which I will do. Then I’m going to Yorkshire and put as much of London behind me as I can.”
“Rose—”
