“She just fell,” Lord Francis snapped. “It’s cold. Let the ladies take their cousin home!”
It was what Rose and Charlotte had just said, but now the crowd settled.
Rose snorted, and Celia knew she was rolling her eyes, which made her want to giggle. Need to giggle. She giggled. Couldn’t stop.
“Oh—” Charlotte gasped as Celia tipped towards her.
Celia tried to put her foot down. Hurt! It made her giggle more, clutching at Charlotte.
Lord Francis caught them both, wiry and surprisingly strong. “Where’s Peter?” His voice was low and tight. “I can’t be the one to do this.” Despite the words, his arms were steady around Celia.
“She’s hurt,” said Rose. “Don’t blame her!”
“I don’t want to be engaged,” Celia mumbled to Francis’s lapel.
“Charlotte? Is everyone all right?” Mr. Bigelowe drew up, put an arm around his wife.
“My sweet, you sure as hell want to be engaged,” Francis murmured against Celia’s hair.
“She’s cold, that’s all!” Charlotte had lost her temper. “We’re all cold!”
“Her uncle is bringing the carriage,” Mr. Bigelowe explained. “Brennan is fetching Henrietta and Mrs. Thompson.”
They could leave. Celia wanted to go home, home, home.
Francis shifted. “Here she is, you idiot. Do you never stop talking? I’ll manage the crowd.”
Celia knew it was Peter’s hands, Peter’s warmth, Peter’s breath. Francis had just held her up, but for that moment, Peter held her.
“This doesn’t look like she merely slipped in the grass,” Mr. Bigelowe said. “If Hughes hurt her, I won’t stand for it, I’ll—”
“Shht!” Charlotte grabbed him. “She’s very happy!” she declared to the crowd.
Peter adjusted Celia to his side, in a facsimile of a polite evening stroll. “Can you walk?” he asked, low. “I can carry you, but it will make this story all the better in the telling.”
“I’m trying.” Celia didn’t know what was wrong, what hurt, still so cold.
“I know.” Peter sounded so gentle, when he must be so angry. She had trapped him.
Lord Francis waded off into the crowd, talking and laughing.
“She’s standing on one foot,” Charlotte snapped.
Mr. Hughes took the hint, switched to Celia’s other side, his warm hands on one elbow, then the other.
Rose dropped into the grass, ruining her own dress. She slid her hands under Celia’s skirts, and Celia put her foot into them, letting Rose run her fingers up and down, testing. Without comment, Rose took off her own shoe and buttoned it onto Celia’s foot.
The shoe was warm.
“I can make it,” Celia said. Their group wobbled forward, and now there were strangers in her face, congratulations and condolences and questions. “Thank you,” she said, and remembered how to smile. “Very happy. The grass is wet, that’s all. Thank you.”
Out the garden room. So many words.
The gravel path hurt her foot worse. Celia leaned harder and harder on Peter, who didn’t want her, who couldn’t marry her, who was stuck and unhappy and ashamed of her. But her ankle throbbed and barely held her, and he was solid.
“Oh myGod,” said Charlotte, behind them, on a sob. “She’shurting.”
Peter dropped her arm abruptly, and Celia staggered against Rose. But in the same moment he turned and scooped her up, one arm behind her shoulders and one under her knees, like a hero in a fairy tale. Celia hissed, trying to hold back a sob.
