The dowager’s jaw was set and she muttered, “I will take myself to a retiring room to attempt to recover from an encounter with Miss Mayton.”
She turned on her heel and stalked off.
Once she was out of hearing, Lord Baderston guffawed with laughter, which set Darden off too.
Viola was at first taken by surprise. She did not know what she had expected. She had thought perhaps Lord Baderston would be angry, or embarrassed.
As she watched the two matrons retreat to their respective corners in their own particular styles, laughter overcame her too. It truly was a ridiculous situation.
Attempting to stop her laughter, she said, “Oh really, we should not be laughing. We really should not.”
“Why ever not?” Lord Baderston said. “My mother has long needed a set-down of some sort, though I never imagined the set-down would be actually on the floor.”
This sent them all into further peals of laughter.
As they worked to recover themselves, the musicians began to tune. This seemed to prompt the gentlemen in attendance to make the rounds and put themselves on cards if they had not already done so.
Darden was one of those gentlemen and set off with alacrity, seeming to know precisely which ladies he wished to approach.
Lord Baderston did not leave her side, though.
Viola’s card was filled with three more dances. This did leave some holes in her evening. She was not quite sure what was to be done during those dances she was not yet engaged for. Did one simply stand at the edges of the room and admire those who were dancing? It seemed an awkward sort of thing.
“You must have arrived very early, Lord Baderston, if you do not need to occupy the next few minutes with securing your spot on other lady’s cards,” she said.
“I am not on any lady’s card but your own,” he said. “On those lucky occasions when you, yourself, are not engaged, perhaps we might occupy the time by slowly walking round the room.”
Ah, so that was what one did when they were not engaged. What a nice idea.
“That is,” Lord Baderston said hurriedly, “if you do not presume it to be too forward. It is not the sort of thing that would be tolerated at Almack’s.”
“But we are not at Almack’s,” Viola said.
“No, we are not. It’s just that…it might be noticed.”
“And talked about, I suppose,” Viola said.
“Yes.”
“Does gossip frighten you off, Lord Baderston?”
“Certainly not,” he said, his chin set resolutely.
Viola could not tell if he perhaps meant to say that any talk he might have heard about a tinker’s boy had not put him off. She did not even know if he’d heard it yet.
She would like to ask him but were she to do so she would be practically forcing him, out of good manners, to say that he did not care.
No, she must wait for him to confirm to her that he’d heard it and brushed it off. It must be Lord Baderston who brought the matter to her attention, not her backing him into a corner about it.
“Well, as my aunt has knocked your mother to the floor,” Viola said mischievously, “perhaps it is the least I can do.”
The first dance was ready to begin and Lord Baderston led her forward. Rosalind maneuvered them into the same set, which was a lovely thing to do.
Dancing with the duke and her sister would be very like she and Lord Baderston were alone in their set, as Conbatten only had eyes for Rosalind, just now acting as his White Queen.
As they began the changes, Viola said, “I do not know if I should ask this, but why did you seem amused that the dowager thought you were at the theater?”
“You may ask anything you like, anytime you like,” Lord Baderston said. “My mother is a snooper and she has taken to peeking into my calendar.”
