A watery laugh escaped her. She didn't know how she'd face Sebastian across a ballroom or smile at Clarissa or pretend that everything was fine. And she’d have to start over again with this dratted marriage mart.
But all that could wait until morning.
She gathered Charlotte against her side and eventually Charlotte's breathing slowed and steadied. The child was falling asleep, tucked in her arms. So…maybe she wasn't all that grown up yet, after all.
Estella stared at the cold fireplace and told herself that tomorrow she would be practical. She'd apologize to the duchess. She'd take a look at the eligible candidates with real interest. She'd make sensible decisions for her family, the way she always had.
She was Estella Hale, and she had survived worse than this.
But for tonight, she let herself miss Sebastian and the life they might have had.
22
Estella didn't come.
Sebastian stood beside the fountain in the east garden for twenty-three minutes. He knew the precise count because he'd been marking time against the muffled chime of the clock in the ballroom.
Twenty-three minutes he’d waited in the cold. Without his coat, because he'd come straight to the garden after the supper dance without stopping for it. He was, apparently, a man who had lost all capacity for rational thought.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes straining to see into the dark shadows. Where was she?
She'd asked him to meet her here at this precise location. She'd looked at him with those luminous eyes and said, “I need to speak with you properly.” And he'd agreed, because he was constitutionally incapable of refusing Estella Hale anything she asked for.
At the fifteen-minute mark, he told himself she'd been delayed. Someone had caught her in conversation. The duchess had needed her. Perfectly reasonable explanations.
At twenty minutes, the reasonable explanations began to thin.
At twenty-three minutes, wariness pricked at him. Something was wrong. Was she hurt? Ill? Perhaps caught up in one of the baroness’s endless conversations about her silly dogs?
He went back inside.
The party was still in full swing. The orchestra was playing something bright and fast, and the dance floor churned with couples. He surveyed the room.
The duchess he found near the card room entrance, speaking with a group of gentlemen. Alderton was on the dance floor with a young woman Sebastian didn't recognize. Thea Evermore was standing guard by the refreshments, surveying the crowd much as he was.
But Estella was…nowhere.
His chest tightened. He scanned again, slower this time. She was not in this room.
"Lord Blackwood." The voice came from behind him, light, pleasant, and nervous.
He turned. The young woman standing before him was a stranger. Chestnut hair, pleasant features, a pretty pale gown that she was gripping at the sides.
Yes, definitely nervous. Her smile even wobbled as he met her gaze.
She curtsied. "Forgive me for approaching you so directly. I'm Lady Clarissa Whitfield."
He stared at her. Gaped really. Lady Clarissa Whitfield. The name registered a beat too late. But then he saw it, in his mother’s distinctive handwriting. In his own when he’d written back, but?—
"Your mother arranged an invitation for me this evening," she said. As if that explained everything.
It did not. But he finally found his voice. "Lady Clarissa, I wasn't aware you were in London."
"I arrived three days ago." She was twisting a ring on her finger, turning it round and round. "Your mother thought this ball would be a good opportunity for us to…" She faltered. "To meet."
Of course. His mother. She'd apparently taken his silence as some sort of agreement. But he hadn’t agreed.
Yes, all right, he had written a letter saying he’d be amenable to meeting her—but he hadn’t sent it.
