A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,119
until midnight, though Althea had moved the meal up considerably to accommodate an early moonset. She’d long since given up hope that Nathaniel would attend, but still, she stole the occasional glance at the main staircase.
The herald she’d hired from York remained at his post at the top of the steps, another fixture on the set of an evening that was descending into farce.
But not tragedy. She was done with tragedy.
“How can you allow Lady Phoebe to spread her poison while you stand by and do nothing?” Stephen muttered. “Bad enough Quinn had to dance with her, worse yet when she swans around as if this were her ballroom and her string quartet.”
“If she confronts me, I will deal with her. If she’s merely gossiping, then I need not dignify her talk with a reply.” Althea had landed on that strategy, knowing it for the compromise it was. She had wanted this ball to be the start of true acceptance by her neighbors, a gesture of goodwill and good intentions on her part.
But what mattered social acceptance from a lot of gossiping tabbies and tipsy squires? What mattered anybody’s approval, if the whole of polite society stood between her and Nathaniel? Without him present, she would not be gaining entrée into the local community, but rather, hosting an expensive entertainment for the mean-spirited and small-minded.
A soft patter of applause signaled the end of the set. The couples wandered from the dance floor, and Althea gave Strensall the signal to open the doors to the buffet in the gallery.
“She’s coming this way,” Stephen said. “I’m off to fetch Quinn.”
“Do not fetch Quinn,” Althea replied, closing her fan with a snap. “I will deal with Lady Phoebe. You escort Milly to the buffet.”
“But my lady…” Milly began.
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.
“What exactly did 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.