“If you ladies will excuse me, I will get us some punch,” Nicholas said, “or perhaps some ratafia?”
“Oooh, yes,” Amelia squealed while Violetta managed a more demure “yes” while blinking her eyes to the point where Mari wondered if she’d gotten something in one of them. Both of them watched Nicholas walk off in pursuit of a waiter. On another occasion, Mari would have felt jealous, but tonight she was just annoyed.
“Oh, look,” Violetta said to Amelia, ignoring Mari now that Nicholas was out of sight. “The bluestockings are here.”
Mari glanced in the direction they were looking. Abigail and Olivia had taken chairs against the wall, close to where the chaperones sat. Mari bit her lip, wishing she’d had more time after her return to convince Abigail to order a gown in a more becoming color. She had beautiful auburn streaks in her hair, if she’d just wear it down. Olivia Ashley, seated next to her, looked like she wanted to blend into the wall, and she almost did—her gown being nearly the same mustard color as the wallpaper behind her.
“You would think they would have given up the idea of snagging a husband at Almack’s,” Amelia said.
“They are a little long in the tooth,” Violetta replied, and both girls giggled.
Mari frowned. She didn’t know shy Olivia very well, but Abigail was a friend, and both girls had every right to be there. “They are only a few years older than we are.”
Violetta and Amelia stared at her as though she had just uttered blasphemy, and then they returned to their conversation.
“With as wealthy as the Earl of Sherrington is, I am surprised someone has not offered for Abigail,” Amelia said.
Violetta sniffed. “Well, most men do not want a woman with scholarly opinions.”
“I heard Olivia helps her father with the accounting at his firm,” Amelia said smugly.
“No,” Violetta exclaimed. “How…howcommon.”
Mari’s temper rose, but she was prevented from retorting by Nicholas’s return with a tray of drinks and by the musicians beginning the first tune. She had known the debutantes were snobbish, but she had not realized just how cruel they could be, although she remembered how scathing the cut-direct had felt at Lady Tindale’ssoiree.
And how Jamie had saved her from public humiliation by going to talk to Lady Jersey. Mari had only found that out much later when Maddie overheard her mother talking to a friend about what a gentleman Jamie MacLeod was.
Why had she never noticed?
As she accepted a glass of the sweet liquor from Nicholas, Mari searched the room for Jamie. She spotted him at the same time he looked at her, and she smiled. But his eyes had already cut to Nicholas standing beside her, and he looked away.
“Shall we dance?” Nicholas asked a few minutes later when the orchestra began its second set.
Mari put her hand lightly over his and let him lead her in a cotillion. Once, as they performed the steps in the movement, she saw Jamie out of the corner of her eye with Maddie. An odd sense of relief flooded her that they were not dancing a waltz. She stumbled slightly and Nicholas caught her.
“You do not seem very focused,” he said as the dance ended.
“I am sorry. I…I have not been feeling well.”
“So you have said,” Nicholas answered.
Mari let her gaze roam the room, and it rested on Jamie talking with Maddie not far away. Quickly, she looked away, but not before Nicholas noticed.
“It seems your friend and the Highlander are making quite a splash,” he said, a hard edge to his voice.
“Y-yes, they are.” Indeed, Maddie’s face was flushed, and Mari could see her friend’s eyes were glowing even from where she stood. Jamie appeared to be attentive.
If I were you, miss, I would swallow my pride and go to him before it’s too late. The words echoed in Mari’s head, and a wave of nausea flooded her stomach.
“I think I am going to be ill. I need to go home.”
“Nonsense. We are going to announce our betrothal when the orchestra breaks,” Nicholas said. “You will just have to manage.”
Mari did not like his clipped tone nor his lack of even a pence’s worth of sympathy. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. And maybe shewasseeing him for the first time. His eyes were cold, not warm like Jamie’s. Now that she thought of it, Nicholas had not once come to her rescue. When she’d sent him the note conveying Jillian was ill and she was leaving for Scotland, he had not come by to see her off or even voiced any concern. What was worse, he had used a piece of private information to paint that ghastly portrait.
Jamie had tried to purchase it and then gallantly defended her honor with the duel and finally, cut the thing to shreds when she said she never wanted to see it again. Jamie had done that forher. Memories flooded her mind of all the times she’d been annoyed with him forprotectingher when—at least most of the time—he’d been rescuing her from her own foolishness.
Why had she never noticed? She glanced across the room again. Maddie was smiling and nodding at something Jamie said. He caught her gaze just as she was about to look away, and for just a moment, she thought she saw something spark in his eyes before he returned to his conversation with Maddie.
