“Do not thank me. The entertainment you have provided is thanks enough. I shall now pretend that I have been overcome by hunger and was raiding the buffet alone.”
Cecily looked at him in consternation but quickly fled through the door he had pointed to, passing maids and footmen with trays and baskets along the way. Though they looked surprised to see her, no one tried to stop her, and soon she reached a dim corridor near the cloakroom, trembling as she caught her breath.
Who in the world was that man? He had helped her escape, even if his motives were selfish, by his own admission. But why had he said he wished to know her?
Why had he come so close to her, even after learning that she was an unmarried woman?
Her heart was pounding hard, and her cheeks burned with an inexplicable heat sparked by the man, even though he had never touched her. She knew she should have left the moment she realized the situation was improper, but she had not.
Surely, he had known how improper it was, too. Yet he spoke as though he was merely asking her to dance, or to walk with him in the park. He had almost sounded like a suitor, not that she had ever encouraged any of them further than such simple invitations. At six-and-twenty, she had never even kissed a man.
Why should she think of that now?
Cecily took several deep breaths and went to the cloakroom to stash her bag away. On her way back to the buffet room, she stopped at the retiring room to check her appearance, re-pinning a few stray golden-brown curls and smoothing the blue silk evening dress that was old now but fitted well.
“Where have you been, Cecily?” Lady Holt exclaimed angrily when Cecily returned to the buffet room and found her there, sitting stonily over a cup of lemonade and an already empty plate.
Her grandmother and uncle never let themselves go hungry, Cecily observed with disgust, even if they were prepared to inflict hunger on her and Mary.
“My stomach was upset,” she lied. “I could not return to the performance.”
Thankfully, Lady Holt seemed satisfied with this explanation, although displeased in general with everyone and everything, as she so often was.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “My own stomach was turning with that dreadful music. We will not be staying for the second half, Cecily. Come, help me stand, girl.”
However, Cecily’s attention was focused elsewhere, her eyes inexorably drawn to the tall, dark-haired man in conversation with the Duke and Duchess of Mildenhall, over by the table where the salmon was laid.
“Cecily? Are you listening to me? Stop staring at the food and help me up. If your stomach is that troubled, it’s best that you don’t eat anything anyway. Hot milk will be enough when we get home.”
Lady Holt’s beady eyes had followed Cecily’s gaze to the table, but she had thankfully misinterpreted the cause of her distraction.
“Very well, Grandmother,” Cecily agreed with apparent meekness.
She turned her face away as the unknown man raised his glass toward them as though they were old acquaintances.
“Ha!” Lady Holt exclaimed as Cecily helped her to her feet. “Now there’s a surprise.”
Cecily’s cheeks burned self-consciously, and she prayed her grandmother would not ask her why the stranger was greeting them.
“The Duke of Greyhaven is out in society again, I see,” Lady Holt continued. “That’s him over there, the dark-haired man beside our hosts, raising his glass to us. Nathaniel Winslow. I’m surprised he remembers me after so many years.”
Nathaniel Winslow, the Duke of Greyhaven. Now the stranger had a name.
“Oh,” Cecily murmured, relieved but concerned to find that her grandmother knew the man, even if apparently the acquaintance was slight. “When did you last see him?”
She hoped that her grandmother would not want to renew the acquaintance and force her into an embarrassing charade of pretending she had never spoken to him before.
“Let me see… It must be eight or nine years ago now. Yes, it was at his wedding. What an odd occasion that was!” Lady Holt chuckled to herself at the memory.
“At his wedding?” Cecily repeated, unable to entirely keep the indignation from her voice. “He is married?”
“Yes, Cecily, people generally do get married,” Lady Holt confirmed witheringly. “It is the done thing and the most respectable state for ladies and gentlemen of rank and wealth. Tell your sister that if you really wish to help her. Now, run to the cloakroom and get our things, and then we’ll go home.”
I cannot believe that he is married!Cecily thought to herself as she left the room, far more deeply offended by this fact than she should be.
* * *
Back at Holt House, Lady Holt supervised Cecily drinking a mug of hot milk, presumably from a well-founded suspicion that she would otherwise take it upstairs and share it with Mary.
