It was a very bold sort of thing to do. Did she claim she was more pious than anybody else?
Cordelia admitted to herself that while she did not know how filled up with piety Miss Bretherton was, shedidknow how filled up with facts she was.
Had she been wrong about Lord Harveston? Had she allowed her imagination, her hopeful, wishful imagination, to take her places she was never meant to go?
After all, he was an intellectual, and Miss Bretherton was too.
Gentlemen approached, they were all very pleasant, and they put themselves down on her card. None were Lord Harveston, however.
Lord Hamill had left the group and was very sensibly making the rounds. Lord Harveston remained right where he was, talking to other gentlemen.
She could hardly fail to take the hint.
If Cordelia had been in any doubt of her feelings before, now that what she had considered seemed to vanish in a puff of smoke, she was no longer in doubt.
She loved Lord Harveston, but he did not love her.
Lord Hamill approached. He bowed very gallantly and said, “Lady Cordelia, I believe, is under that veil?”
“Yes, Lord Hamill,” she said, working to keep her tone very pleasant.
“May I?” he asked. He took her card and then he paused. “The final dance is still open?”
“Indeed yes,” she said, hoping it did not sound like a sigh.
“Odd,” Lord Hamill said. He put his name down for it.
That was it. Her card was filled. And, not one of the names was what she wished for.
All those stories of heartbreak Miss Mayton had told she and her sisters made sense now. Where once she could only squint and imagine it, now she felt it. Of course Hans had thrown himself off the side of a cliff, of course Gregorio had run himself through. Who would wish to feel as she did this moment? Who could bear it?
Worse, she was very afraid it would be a permanent condition. The color had drained from the world and it seemed very gray.
*
Percival had madehimself useful at Lady Bloomington’s masque, keeping an eye open for ladies sitting out who would rather not find themselves in such a situation.
He’d only needed to step in twice and so had occupied himself with sporting talk with sporting gentlemen and perhaps a little too much champagne.
He was restless; he wished to get to the final dance. He’d even gone out to the balcony for nearly an hour, just to pass the time.
Finally, the moment had come. He searched the room, his eye briefly catching on another lady dressed as a ghostly figure, but that was not Lady Cordelia. That lady had a black veil, where Lady Cordelia’s was white.
There. There she was. He hurried over, barely cognizant that the bishop was hovering nearby. So strange, but he had little time to examine it.
“Lady Cordelia,” he said, putting out his arm.
“Lady Cordelia?” a voice from under the veil asked.
Percival felt the blood in his veins grow cold. It was not the voice of Lady Cordelia. He was very afraid of whose it was.
He was an idiot! It was Miss Bretherton. That’s why she seemed to always be standing next to the bishop. He was her father.
What had he done?
“Lord Harveston,” Miss Bretherton said, “if there has been some mistake or confusion…”
“No, of course not,” he said gallantly as the bishop eyed him. “Yes, a bit of confusion, but a happy one, naturally. There are two of you dressed as ghostly figures.”
