Page 9 of Miss Delancey’s Tragicomedy

“Go on,” she said, pressing his arm.

He gave her an apologetic smile and disappeared into the haze.

“I hate when he does that.” She grimaced.

“Politicking at social events?”

“What?” Dessie looked startled, then she smirked. “No. Calls me ‘darling.’ It’s so…” She pushed her tongue against her teeth as if working out a piece of gristle. “Treacly.”

Across the hall, sandwiches and dainty sweets had been set upon a long candlelit table. A sideboard in the same room held row upon row of champagne flutes. Ophelia nodded that way. “Are we allowed?”

“Champagne?” Dessie’s nose wrinkled. “Yes. But if you take one, the biddies will start counting.”

“I was only going to have one.”

“But you see, it will be very good champagne. And the evening is young.”

Ophelia took hold of her sister’s arm. “Why don’t we share a glass? Confuse the poor creatures with fractions?”

“Oh, I like that!” Dessie giggled and pulled her into the room.

The champagne was extraordinary: fresh and tingly with the lightest bite on the tongue. The duke didn’t stint on his entertainments, the show-off. Ophelia wondered how many marble ancestors would soon find themselves auctioned off. Not that she felt any inclination to rescue him from financial ruin with her dowry. He didn’t have to put on so extravagant a display.

It was lovely to link arms with Dessie and tour the room. Like old times, except that Dessie knew nearly everyone and Ophelia knew no one. The Englishmen eyed them appraisingly—Ophelia more so than Dessie, probably because she was a new face and not married to one of them—while pretending they were doing nothing of the sort. The English ladies were polite to a fault but not warm. Dessie responded in kind. Ophelia found herself doing the same. Play-acting.

When her sister returned to the table for a sweet and to divest herself of the empty glass, Ophelia was drawn into a nonsensical conversation with Lady Mary, the petite, pretty, very young daughter of someone whose name Ophelia missed hearing, who claimed she would be embarking in a few weeks upon a three-month American tour. Miss Delancey simply must tell her all the sights she must see. Of course, her main goal was to talk to an Indian! But she’d heard there were no longer any Indians in New York. Where must she go?

“Um…Arizona Territory?” Ophelia guessed. The poor girl shouldn’t wear those blonde ringlets so tight. They were pinching her brain.

“I will! And I’ve heard that I must see New Orleans. And San Francisco. Is that true?”

“Yes?” Ophelia answered, then bit her lip to keep from grinning. In three months? Had Lady Mary no concept of American geography? No, of course she didn’t.

A voice at her shoulder said, “You shouldn’t miss Canada, either. If you are braving the crossing, there is a café in Montreal that serves the most delicate scones.”

“Oh! Your Grace!” Lady Mary blushed. “Thank you. I will.”

“If you’ll excuse us, I’m afraid I must borrow Miss Delancey for a moment.”

Trentham put his hand to her elbow and steered her away. Tonight, his hands were ensconced in soft, black kidskin gloves, but his touch still warmed her. She wondered how hot his hands would feel, skin to skin. Which was not something she should be wondering.

“That conversation made my head hurt,” he murmured. “I wonder what the devil she meant by ‘I will.’”

“Have you really been to Montreal?”

He glanced down at her. “Yes. And I can still feel those scones melting on my tongue. But I didn’t seek you out to trade travelogues.”

Ophelia beamed at him.

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just I’m pleased to meet you again, rather than that man at the door.”

A hint of humor played about his mouth. “You mean ‘the duke?’”

“It is as if everyone here is acting a role. Even Dessie.”

“All the world’s a stage. But how do you know that stuffy duke is not my true self?”