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“Good,” Miss Mayfield said. “Then you are sitting with us after supper. We shall save you a chair.”
“What shall I bring?”
“Yourself. Charlotte is bringing noise, Miss Lennox is bringing appetite, and I shall provide the chair. We are fully supplied.”
Rosalind’s first answer rose by habit — and did not reach her mouth.
“Then I shall sit with you.”
“Good,” said Miss Mayfield. “We shall hold you to it.”
James handed Rosalind into Augusta’s carriage and gave her back the parcel only after she was seated, and as the door closed, Charlotte leaned across from the opposite seat.
“You see? We did not lose a single plate.”
“Do not be smug.”
“I shall try very hard.”
“You will fail.”
“Almost certainly.”
The carriage started. Through the glass, James stood on the pavement with Miss Mayfield and Miss Lennox behind him, and when Rosalind looked back he lifted his hat, and she lifted one gloved hand in answer.
Tonight there would be a chair waiting for her in a crowded room. For once, she meant to sit in it.
Chapter Fourteen
By half past ten, the Thornes’ long drawing room held only the guests who liked it best. Miss Mayfield and Miss Lennox had kept their word and saved Rosalind a chair after supper, with Charlotte between them and nothing required of Rosalind but conversation. She had sat in it for nearly half an hour and had even forgotten to look for work.
Then old Mrs. Tarrant lost her glove.
After that came a comfit dish, a smoking candle-branch, and a footman’s tray that wanted steadying. One useful thing led to another until Rosalind discovered that she had mended everything the room could offer. Now she stood at the quieter end near the window where the greenery hung thickest, her hands folded upon nothing at all. What did other ladies do when a room wanted nothing of them?
Augusta sat twelve feet away at the card-table, dummy this hand, with her back half-turned toward her niece. James came up beside Rosalind so quietly that she knew nothing of it until, between one breath and the next, he was simply there, and her heart gave a great leap before she even turned her head.
“You have mended everything,” he observed. “I have been watching you do it all evening.”
“I am sure I do not know what you mean.”
“There is a footman by the door who would have dropped a whole tray of glasses an hour ago, had you not got to his elbow first. He does not know you saved him, and you will not tell him, will you?”
“There was no tray to save. He only wanted his balance found for him.” She kept her eyes carefully from the greenery above, for she had marked every bough on her way in, and a woman who knew where a thing hung need never be caught beneath it. “It is a very good party, is it not? The Thornes do not try to make it more than it is, which is why it is more than most.”
“You said nearly the same of the Danforths. You have a whole science of houses, I think.” He stood no nearer than was correct, though she knew the exact distance he kept and could feel when he meant to keep it. “I confess I would rather hear your science than play at the tables. I have been losing to Westcott all evening on purpose, so that I might be free of them.”
“You ought not to lose to Westcott on purpose. He will tell everyone.”
“He will tell everyone regardless. It is the one thing in which he is entirely reliable.”
She let herself smile at that, and the smile cost her nothing to give, which was the very thing she could never grow accustomed to, that with him a thing might be given and cost nothing at all.
The memory of the conservatory rose in her without her leave — his name said in the green dark, and never unsaid — and it pressed up beneath this easy conversation until her breath went shallow.
“You have gone somewhere,” he said, softly.
“I am only thinking that I have run out of things to mend.” She meant the words to come out lightly, though they managed rather less lightness than she intended. “It is an uncomfortable condition, and I am not much practiced in it.”
