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Stephen took one look at Althea’s face and winged his elbow at Millicent. “We have been dismissed from the dueling ground, and I, for one, need to sit down.”
Stephen was being biddable, a first in Althea’s experience. Perhaps she ought to have given up pining for anybody’s acceptance years ago if that was one of the results. Milly took Stephen’s arm—or offered hers in return—and they moved away toward the doors to the gallery.
Now that a confrontation with Lady Phoebe was at hand, Althea felt only calm. She had done nothing wrong, not even when she’d allowed Rothhaven to kiss her farewell.
Lady Phoebe’s cruelty was wrong.
“My lady.” Lady Phoebe nodded, when a deferential curtsy was called for. Perhaps she feared dislodging the plumes waving from her coiffure.
More likely she was being intentionally rude. “My lady,” Althea replied, nodding as well.
“I bid you good night,” Lady Phoebe said, loudly enough to stop the dancers from further progress toward the gallery. “I hope my neighbors soon see fit to depart as well. In future, perhaps your unfortunate upbringing will be less evident in your public conduct. I shall pray earnestly for your soul, though when a woman is lost to all discretion, when she flaunts her wantonness for any to see, I know my prayers will likely be in vain.”
Mrs. Elspeth Weatherby, her two daughters at her side, stood behind Lady Phoebe.
“If you are determined to go,” Althea said, “then I will wish you a safe journey home, but I must inquire what exactly you saw me doing that you now feel—after dancing with His Grace of Walden and spending the last two hours sampling my punch—it is imperative to quit my presence?”
One of the Weatherby sisters snickered, though her reaction was no consolation to Althea at all. More guests were gathering behind Lady Phoebe, doubtless intending to take an early leave of the ball, after offering Althea a final rude glance.
“Whatexactlydid I see?” Lady Phoebe’s pause was worthy of Mrs. Siddons. “At a shockingly early hour, I saw you in the intimate embrace of a man who is certainly not a member of your family. I saw you kiss that man where any passerby could gawk at the spectacle. I saw you strut off across the fields, a woman without shame, no better than she should be.”
The ballroom acquired the hush of a rapt audience when the concertmaster held his bow aloft, and Althea was tempted to deliver the scathing rejoinder Lady Phoebe deserved. Miss Price stood off to the left, her hand wrapped around Lord Ellenbrook’s arm. She of the dark hair and green eyes was the vulnerable point in Lady Phoebe’s citadel of outraged propriety.
A veiled reference to glass houses, to even the best families having a few reasons to blush, would douse the flames of Lady Phoebe’s righteousness.
And douse any chance Sybil had of making the match she so clearly desired with Lord Ellenbrook.
Worse, that tactic would reduce Althea to the same petty, vindictive plain on which Lady Phoebe dwelled and from which there was no return. Althea grasped the dilemma Nathaniel faced: two choices, equally wrong. For him the options were a life of deception or unacceptable risks to the people he loved. For Althea, the choices were to bully or be bullied.
And she rejected both of those options, in favor of the simple truth.
“What you saw, Lady Phoebe, was a parting kiss on the cheek between neighbors who’d shared a sickroom vigil, a vigil that ended in answered prayers, I might add. A friendly hug, nothing more. If the gentleman were here, he’d verify my version of events.”
Steps sounded on the stairs behind Althea. Quinn, no doubt, coming to make Lady Phoebe regret her folly, though Althea’s neighbors didn’t know Quinn. He’d turned his back on his Yorkshire upbringing to bide in the south, and the best he could do was to end this skirmish before Lady Phoebe had the last word.
“But that gentleman is not here, is he?” Lady Phoebe retorted. “He doesn’t bother to show his face in public for the likes of you, a common, disgraceful—”
“Excuse me.”
A hint of sandalwood gave Althea a moment’s warning that the tread behind her didnotbelong to Quinn. Nathaniel took the place at her side. His height gave him presence, and in evening attire, his impact was magnificent. When he treated Lady Phoebe to an indifferent passing gaze, Elspeth Weatherby gasped.
Althea gestured to the herald gawking from the top of the steps. “Announce my latest guest, please.” Her voice had been steady, for which there was no accounting. Her heart was thumping against her ribs, and a flock of butterflies had taken wing in her belly.
Two more latecomers appeared next to the herald, an older woman and…Robbie? What on earth could Nathaniel be about?
The lady passed a card to the herald, and Robbie murmured something inaudible to the woman, who conferred again with the herald.
“Do announce us, please,” Nathaniel called. “Her ladyship’s guests are doubtless awaiting their supper.”
The herald cleared his throat and thumped his staff three times. “The Duke of Rothhaven, the Duchess of Rothhaven, andLord Nathaniel Rothmere.”
“Apologies for our tardiness,” Nathaniel said, bowing over Althea’s hand. “As a friend and neighbor, I hope you will overlook the fault, just as I expect Lady Phoebe to apologize for herharsh,inaccurate, andimmensely regrettablewords. If neighbors cannot hold in affection those who aid them in a time of need, then Yorkshire has become as backward as the capital, which I refuse to believe.”
Somebody sighed. Lady Phoebe looked like she’d swallowed a large bug. The whispering started before Nathaniel had finished speaking.
“One expects a duke and his family to be fashionably late,” Althea said. “I must welcome Their Graces to the gathering. I am so very glad you all came.”
Also so very surprised. Amazed, really.
