AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Now, as she stood observing Blythe from her spot by the wall, Theo concluded, as Lady Meredith cooed over him, that she haddrasticallyoverinflated his affections.
Her stomach, already roiling with distress, didn’t just pitch, it heaved. She might well retch into the punchbowl at any moment. The feeling was akin to being unable to discern an object across the room until she placed her spectacles on her nose and then marveled at how clear her vision had suddenly become.
Oh, dear God. I must retrieve the miniature.
“Theo, whatever is the matter with you?” Cousin Rosalind came up alongside her, gently nudging her with an elbow. “You look as if you’ve eaten something spoiled. Or perhaps Lord Blythe said something you didn’t care for? Though I can’t imagine such a thing.”
“You can’t?” Theo murmured back, remembering Blythe’s rejection. She couldn’t begin to describe how unpleasant that had been.
“You hang on his every word. I expect if he told you to leap off the roof of his home, you’d do so to please him.” She leaned closer. “Your adoration and pursuit of him has not gone unnoticed, particularly by Lady Blythe.”
How unwelcome. “I don’t think Blythe’s mother cares for me.”
“Not in the least,” Rosalind assured her with a smile. “But if it helps, she doesn’t care for most of the young ladies in pursuit of her son. You are merely one of dozens.”
“I imagine I am.” Another wave of dread rose inside Theo at Rosalind’s words. Her cousin had no idea how correct she was, as Theo had belatedly realized.
She tore her gaze from Blythe to glance at Rosalind, swathed in a diaphanous peach confection which did an excellent job of hiding her generous figure. “Did Romy design that for you?” Theo whispered lest they be overheard. The gossip that Romy, Duchess of Granby, played at being a modiste had finally faded. Mostly. There was no need to stir it up again.
“She knows exactly how to hide my deficits, something I appreciate, though no one else has noticed.”
“You look lovely, Ros. Are you speaking of anyone in particular?”
“He hasn’t looked once in my direction.” Rosalind sniffed.
“I thought you didn’t favor Lord Torrington’s suit?” The older widower, some twenty years Rosalind’s senior, had, earlier in the year, expressed interest in courting Rosalind. Theo’s cousin had stubbornly rebuffed his efforts purely on the basis that her mother approved of him.
Rosalind’s cheeks pinked. “I’m not going to marry him just to please Mother.”
“Of course not.” Theo thought Torrington smart to pretend disinterest in Rosalind. Because every time he did, she became that much more interested inhim. “And I wouldn’t jump off the roof to please Blythe. I’m not an idiot.”
Rosalind gave Theo an incredulous look. “And yet, you won’t wear your spectacles because you overheard Blythe decry their attractiveness.” A frown crossed her lips as Torrington walked into the room, the voluptuous Lady Carrington clinging to his arm. “Instead, you walk around with bruises, destroying vases and tripping over servants. Ruining the coats of gentlemen with ratafia.”
“I don’t consider the Marquess of Haven to be a gentleman. And no one finds the spectacles I’m forced to wear attractive. It isn’t just Blythe.” That much was true. Theo had burst into tears the day she’d first looked in the mirror, staring back at herself through those tiny panes of glass.
“I see Blythe’s appeal, Theo. Honestly, I do. He’s rather spectacular, but —”
“But what?”
Rosalind pursed her lips, her brow wrinkling. “You’ve been very impulsive since meeting Blythe. I know you have a rather romantic nature.”
Theo scowled back at her.
“And I know you imagine him to be—well, I only don’t wish you to be hurt. Or do something reckless to garner his attention. A regretful something. Promise me you won’t.”
Far too late for such a vow with a half-naked miniature of herself sitting in Blythe’s study. “You worry needlessly,” she replied to Rosalind.
Lady Meredith’s dark head turned intimately toward Blythe, her hand on his arm while Lady Blythe, clothed in a bright shade of yellow, watched, lips pursed, like a giant, disapproving canary.
“Will you excuse me, Rosalind?” Theo needed to get to the study. While Blythe and his mother were occupied with Lady Meredith. The last thing she wanted was to be caught wandering around Blythe’s home by his mother.
“Why must you desert me? Now?” Rosalind gave a long-suffering sigh and nodded in the direction of Cousin Winnie, who was making her way across the drawing room toward her daughter and Theo. “She’s sure to be angry I haven’t spoken to Torrington.”
Theo had no desire to have a conversation with Cousin Winnie, not when it was imperative that she collect the miniature from Blythe’s studybeforeher impulsive idiocy was discovered.
Theodosia’s Magnificent Mistake.
Ignoring Rosalind’s puff of frustration at her departure, Theo took a tentative step into the swarm of guests assembled for Blythe’s birthday. In order to reach his study, Theo needed to be on the other side of the drawing room. With so many guests in such a small area, it would take every bit of concentration not to run into someone, spill a drink, or trip over a gentleman’s foot.
