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To her horror, she found many people were staring at the two of them. Groups seemed to be whispering, pointing their way. Annie was left wrongfooted as she was led to the side of the floor, realising what was happening.
Good lord, a rumour has begun. They will think me his next conquest.
“I must return to my mother,” Annie said, snatching her hand from the crook of Lord Yeatman’s arm. He smiled and bowed to her again.
“Until next time, Miss Storey. Judging by tonight’s dance, I hope our next will be just as memorable.”
She turned away, aware that her eyes didn’t want to leave him very quickly. She headed across the room, hunting out her mother as quickly as she could.
There will not be a next time. That is the one and only dance I will ever give to Lord Yeatman.
When she reached her mother’s side, she felt Barbara’s grip find her wrist once more.
“Tell me my eyes deceive me and that my ears are not hearing these rumours, Annie,” Barbara pleaded with her. “That was the rakish Lord Yeatman, was it not?”
“I only wish I could deny it.”
***
“Do you wish to know what people were saying?” Barbara asked as the carriage moved over holes in the road, making them jolt from side to side.
Annie gripped the carriage bench beneath her, feeling the cushion sinking into the pads of her fingers, despite the silk gloves she wore. She rather hoped that if she kept gripping so harshly, she could ground herself and escape the chatter of gossip, but it was not to be.
“Not particularly,” Annie whispered.
“Well, you shall hear it regardless.” Barbara sat forward, flapping the opening of her pelisse around her body in plain anger. As she leaned forward, the very tip of her nose was reddened, lit by the one lantern that accompanied them inside the carriage and swung from the ceiling on an iron hook. “People take note of who that man dances with. Those names fill the scandal sheets. No lady ever dances with him and escapes conjecture.”
“Mama, what was I supposed to do? He asked me to dance. You once said that I should never refuse a man’s offer to dance. To do so would be saying I was greater than them, an insult that should never be given,” Annie tried to explain herself, but Barbara didn’t appear to hear the words. She was too busy shaking her head back and forth, making the fair curls that hung by her ears dance around her cheeks.
“What people uttered, oh my goodness!” Barbara clutched her cheeks with her gloved hands. “You stared at each other so openly after the dance.”
“We were merely talking,” Annie said, feeling her voice begin to shake.
“I have eyes, Annie! You were staring at him.”
“You have to look at someone when they are talking to you. How rude would it be to stare elsewhere? Should I have looked to the ceiling or down at my shoes, Mama?”
“Anywhere rather than at him.” Barbara lowered her hands as her voice grew firmer. “This is beyond the pale, Annie. To think what this could do to your reputation. How are you to be married by our ball at the end of the Season now after this?”
“Mama, it was one moment in an entire evening.” Annie lost her patience. She leaned forward on the bench, capturing her mother’s gaze with her own. “Do you not think this is an overreaction just because two people stayed on the dance floor looking at one another as they spoke?”
“Thetonhas a tendency to overreact, which is why we must always go to such events as if the floor is littered with eggshells. You cannot shatter them.”
“I did not shatter them tonight.” Annie hoped it was true rather than believed it to be. “Mama, please listen to me.” She held out her hand, but Barbara didn’t take it. She was too busy fidgeting with the flaps of her pelisse another time. “It meant nothing, and no one will remember such a small moment in time.” Barbara raised her eyebrows at these words, clearly in disbelief. “It was one dance and one look. In a few days, it will be forgotten.”
“I pray you are right,” Barbara murmured, doing her best to calm her fidgeting as she laid her hands in her lap. “I worry so. That man carries gossip with him as if it were his shadow. Scandal sticks easily to the ladies he is with.”
“I will not be one of them.” Annie’s voice had become so sharp that Barbara looked up, nodding in acknowledgement.
“Very well, then promise me one thing,” Barbara asked, leaning forward off the bench a little. “You will stay away from him? If he asks you to dance at another event, find a reason to turn him down. Say you have a headache or have promised a dance to another, anything, my dear, but promise to turn him down?”
“I vow to you, Mama. I will not dance with Lord Yeatman again.”
At last, Barbara was satisfied. She rested back on the carriage bench and sighed with a hand to her chest. Annie could not slump so. She sat primly against the bench, so still and so rigid that her body could have been made of marble.
Her thoughts were with Lord Yeatman and that dance. She thought of the way they had danced, with so much ease and care that she had felt truly safe in those arms. It seemed an oddity entirely to feel safe in a rake’s arms, but it had happened all the same. His flirtation, too, stuck in her mind. She chewed her lip, rather wishing he had flirted with her naturally rather than performing it to win an argument.
Perhaps I am not the kind of lady he likes to charm.
