He turned from them and went deeper into the house, corridor by corridor, following the reasonable logic that a boy with James’s preferences would have put as much distance between himself and the ballroom as the building allowed.
He started at the far end.
“Lady Annabelle, if you do not hold still, I shall never get the left side even.”
“Mills,” Annabelle said, with the patience of someone who had been standing still for a considerable time and was prepared to be reasonable about it for approximately two more minutes, “the left side is fine.”
“It is not, my lady. It is three-quarters of an inch lower than the right.”
“Three-quarters of an inch is not visible to any human eye in a candlelit ballroom.”
“It is visible to my eye,” Mills said, and the brief silence that followed indicated, with precision, whose eye mattered in this room.
Helena Thrupton, perched on the edge of the writing desk with both feet dangling and the untroubled confidence of someone dressed and ready an hour ago, watched the whole exchange with bright amusement.
“You look beautiful,” she offered.
“I look like a woman being prepared for the marriage market,” Annabelle said pleasantly.
“That is a rather grim description of what is, if anything, a very becoming gown.”
“It is also an accurate one.” Mills stepped back with the satisfied air of a craftsman and indicated, with a small gesture, that Annabelle might now turn.
Annabelle turned.
The gown was blue—a soft, modest shade—and the cut was well-judged, lending her figure a composed elegance she had never arrived at through any effort of her own.
She tested the range of movement at her wrist. Satisfactory. She would need her hands free for the performance.
“That doesn’t make it less of a market, Helena. It makes it a market with a becoming gown.”
“Your brother only wants you to be happy. So, have any of them been remotely interesting?” Helena asked. “This season, I mean.”
Annabelle huffed. “I am not asking for very much,” Annabelle said. “Decent character. An intellect that functions. Someone who can hold a conversation on a subject that is not entail or horses. Someone who will not arrange me in a chair and consider the matter of his domestic obligations entirely discharged.” She reached for her gloves. “That is a modest list, by any measure.”
“It is,” Helena allowed. “It says nothing about feeling anything for the man in question, though.”
Annabelle looked at her, then glanced away. “One makes the best of what is available.”
“One should not have to.”
“Helena.” She kept her voice warm and meant it as a close. “Could you give me a moment, please? I need ten minutes alone with the allegretto before I face two hundred people who have come, in part, to assess my prospects. I will be considerably more charming company for having had them.”
She picked up her folio.
Helena slid from the desk and, at the door, turned. “Of course. And, Annabelle? You’ll play wonderfully. You always do.”
“I’ll play correctly,” Annabelle said. “Which is nearly as good.”
The door clicked shut.
She stood alone and listened to the sound of the gathering below: voices layered over voices, the orchestra’s efforts against the room’s accumulated volume, the social machinery of a ball in full progress.
She straightened her gloves and went.
The corridor to the back of the house was darker than the main rooms, the wall sconces spaced farther apart and lit with lessceremony than the ballroom. The sound dropped away with each step, the voices and the music receding into something muffled and distant.
Here, there were no guests. No one is watching. The floor was uncarpeted, and her heels were quiet on the boards.
