AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Five
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows”
—Oberon, Act 2,A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The ride home was certainly a boisterous one.
The Rathbourne sisters, Brigid, Lord Larkin and Annie squeezed into one carriage while Lord and Lady Rathbourne took the other.
No doubt the sisters would reenact a play by play of the ball and their current conversation for their mother as soon as they arrived home. Lady Rathbourne looked particularly disappointed when she had to settle for her husband’s less loquacious company in the second vehicle.
“What an astounding coup, Brigid!” Elizabeth exclaimed, excitedly taking hold of Brigid’s hand in both her own.
“Not that it should be surprising a prince paid you such singular attention, of course,” she hastened to add.
“Of course,” Brigid murmured with an indulgent smile.
Elizabeth was truthful in her first statement. It was indeed astounding. Of all the ladies in attendance, Brigid had the least to recommend her before such a magnificent man.
But…
He had stepped out ofherdreams. So perhaps she had rightful claim to him after all. If nothing else, then at least the right of first refusal. She was the one who thought him into being.
As fanciful as that sounded even in the privacy of her own mind, Brigid felt the veracity of it. He was hers.
The question remained: was she his?
“Tell us what he said to you!” Lucille urged. “Don’t leave out a single word or the smallest look.”
“Honestly, I did most of the talking and looking,” Brigid admitted. “He was the perfect gentleman. He simply stared intensely the entire time.”
A round of ooohhhs and aaahhhs filled the carriage.
“I am certain he didn’t know how else to stare,” she qualified her earlier statement, lest they thought his intensity was incited by her person rather than his own innate…intenseness.
“What does it feel like? To be so especially sought out? He looked like the most beautiful dancer. The most dashing, princely partner. It was as if he waltzed you straight into a star-filled sky,” Lucille said dreamily.
Brigid gave a delicate one-shouldered shrug.
As much as she loved her cousins, she wasn’t going to share more of what she considered a private encounter, even though they had been in view of half theton.
“And afterwards, you turned down every invitation to stand up again,” Elizabeth recounted, tapping Brigid lightly with her fan in admonition.
“Hardly any of the most eligible gentlemen paid the rest of us any mind, eager to be the next to dance with the Prince’s choice.”
“That sounds like a good moniker for the ‘queen of the evening,’ Eliza,” Lucille said.
“Brigid Mackintosh, The Prince’s Choice.”
Brigid resisted the urge to roll her eyes at that bit of nonsense.
“I was feeling tired,” she said. “Quite overwhelmed.”
Which was true.
She simply wanted to sit in a corner and replay every moment of the waltz. She wanted to be left alone to her daydreams. Even though she had been the one to walk away when the music stopped, she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms.
But…
