Celia stood up, away from Rose. “I did not appear to injure myself, thank you…”
Mr. Hughes moved back from the group.
“No. No trouble at all.” Rose spoke quickly, her heart probably pounding with the same rhythm as Celia’s: no scandal, no gossip, no fuss.
“Let us return to the concert hall,” Charlotte said. “Here, Miss Westhaven. Take my arm.”
“I was so enjoying the music,” Celia mumbled. They nodded and smiled their way out of the room.
In the cool of the hallway, Rose suggested they pause a moment.
Celia leaned against the wall, pulling in a slow breath. Rose fanned her and Charlotte held her hand. Another group passed; the Bonnet Brigade did not dare talk now.
A memory was bothering her. Celia drew another breath, settling into her body and searching for it.
Their first dance. She had tripped then, too. That time, it was her finger that hurt, and Edmund had made a fuss. How did he know it was her finger? And how did she trip so often around him?
Celia stood upright, shaking her head, and they made their way back to the concert parlor. If he wished to court her, he would not wish to hurt her. It was that simple.
Her instincts fluttered around the correlation, surprise and pain and affection bound together. But Celia had no words for any of that.
*
A soprano wobbledher way through an aria fromErmione.Truly, all the good performances had run out, and now it was just the debutantes whose mothers wanted to parade them in front of society. The poor girl had more hair than vibrato.
Rose sat in stony silence, hands resting on the scrolled arm of her wide captain’s chair.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Celia whispered, for the third time. Maybe if she could convince Rose to brush off the tumble, she would believe it herself.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Charlotte murmured from her other side. “But still, I wouldn’t like Mr. Cade to hear the story of what happened tonight.”
“Hetouchedyou,” Rose snapped.
Celia fiddled with her sash, twisting it around her fingers. Mr. Cade wanted a respectable lady, which was just fine, because Celia wanted tobea respectable lady. Unlike Rose, she liked being touched, but not like that.
“A thousand times worse,” Charlotte whispered.
Celia knew. She had already decided to refuse—
They were struck with a breath of perfumed hair oil, a scrape of wooden chair legs, and Lord Edmund wedged a chair between herself and Rose. Did they deserve no mercy?
“I just wanted to ensure you are not hurt,” he whispered, in such a way that carried more than regular speech. “It is the only gentlemanly thing to do.”
“I am well, thank you.” Celia imagined her father, vibrant and dynamic, chasing away this upstart. Her brother—but he owed Lord Edmund money.
The Cu Sidhe, then. Celia twitched her fingers in her skirt, imagining them slinking out from under the chairs, appearing like mist from below the lid of the piano and the f-hole of the violoncello. Lord Edmund was talking and talking, forgetting to whisper as he went on. He roundly critiqued two sisters singing a duet, a very small girl on the violin, and an older man with a lively selection of sea chanteys. Celia envisioned the hellhounds’ jaws bearing down, Edmund’s feet waving helplessly in the air as he was subsumed in black fur and snapping teeth.
Two of the ladies nearby kept stealing glances at them, giggling and whispering behind their fans.
One of Cu Sidhe snatched his shoe, and Edmund’s bare toes wiggled in the air. Celia smiled faintly.
A flutter of white skirts—Henrietta was switching seats again, drawing closer to them.
The Cu Sidhe were now dragging him towards the exit, or perhaps towards the gates of hell. Celia turned towards the front of the room.
“Does she call herself a contralto or is she imitating a trombone? Ha!” Unfortunately, Edmund’s corporeal body was unaware of his ongoing demise.
A jowly gentleman swung around, tapping his finger to his lips impatiently. It was Celia’s job to direct her companion’s conversation, and she was failing miserably.
