smiled my way past a small group of guests and slipped from the parlor into the ballroom, closing the door quietly behind me. The click echoed in the empty room like the locking of a cell door. In the silence that followed, I rested my head against the cool wood of the door and allowed my false smile to finally fade.
Though my brother and I had stayed in the hopes that the week could somehow be salvaged, not even Mr. Northam had shown more than a polite interest in me since Lord Williams had walked out on my performance. Not just my performance—he’d completely left the party. More than a few women now glared whenever I passed, tittering about how handsome he’d been, how no one else compared, and how I should never have been invited. The men had been polite but distant, uninterested in a girl spurned by a baron.
The note that had arrived from our father that morning requesting our return had come as something of a relief. But it also confirmed my failure. There was nothing left but to return home and reconcile myself to the disappointment.
I pushed away from the door. Rays of midmorning sun shimmered across the empty, dark floor, inviting me to share a dance, their brightness the only illumination in the otherwise dim room. Ignoring the invitation, I hastened toward the painting of the girl, desperate to see it one last time.
She still stood alone, still stood with arms spread, still lifted her face to the sky, welcoming the rain.
I would never be her.
I closed my eyes against the truth, but it twirled through my thoughts and settled in my heart as firmly as a rock sinking to rest at the bottom of a lake.
I would never be free.
A breath grazed my neck, sending wisps of hair fluttering against my skin. Before I could turn, a trace of expensive cologne drifted in the air and a low voice whispered into my ear. “This isn’t the first time I have caught you studying this painting, Miss Brinton.”
Mr. Northam. Why was he here? I kept my tone disinterested and adjusted the sleeve of my coquelicot spencer. “Are you following me, sir?”
“Could you blame me if I were?”
It was easy to see through his pretend flirtations. And to come up with a few of my own. “On the contrary, it would confirm my good opinion of your taste in company.”
He chuckled and stepped around me to lean against the wall. His tall figure, dark green coat, and black hair proved an alluring contrast to the portrait of the yellow-coated elderly gentleman hanging above him. “When do you leave?” he asked.
“Within the hour, I expect.”
“You do not appear disappointed to be departing early. Are you not concerned I shall be miserable without you?”
“Miserable? A lady can always hope.” We would have been so perfect together, our meaningless banter filling whatever time we were made to spend in each other’s company. And yet, what was the purpose of such banter now? “In all honesty, I am glad to be leaving.”
His eyes darkened. “Williams is a blackguard.”
The disdain in his voice was gratifying, and yet it was time to move past the mortification of it all. Lord Williams would most likely live his life never knowing how he’d ruined mine. And I already knew how futile it was to harbor grievances against such people. “It’s of little import. I shall never see him again.”
“Dance with me?” Mr. Northam asked suddenly.
I glanced around the empty room. He’d closed the door behind himself so that we truly were alone. “One couple is not enough for a dance,” I said.
His lips curved suggestively. “It is for a waltz.”
The dance had been introduced in London a few months ago, and though the papers termed the dance scandalous, there’d been whispers that Mrs. Hickmore was not opposed to its being danced this week. However, being alone with Mr. Northam was enough to shred my already tarnished societal status. Dancing the waltz with him was certain to ruin my reputation permanently, and I still had my honor; Lord Williams had not robbed me of that.
I shook my head. “You will have to content yourself with a bit of conversation. Considering we are without a chaperone, it should satisfy your craving for scandal until I am gone.”
Mr. Northam’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I could convince you to dance with me.” His eyes gleamed with the promise that I would not regret accepting his invitation.
For all