Chapter Nine #2
Turning away to escape the mortification she found herself in, her way was barricaded by a large woman with an irate eye.
“You,” said the woman with a quizzical smile, “are my guest. Apparently.”
Ah. This had to have been the Lady Romeril of whom Mr. Todd was so afraid. And now Phylis could see why.
It was not her looks. Lady Romeril looked pleasant enough: an older woman, with wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and a sharpness in her gaze that suggested decades of wisdom. She too was dressed in black, with jet beading shimmering all over her gown.
There was power here—the sort of power that Phylis recognized.
This was a woman captaining her own ship.
“Ah, so you know Mrs. Seaton, then?” Michael asked helplessly from behind her.
Phylis had to give him credit; it was a valiant attempt.
She removed that credit as his paramour or whoever said, “How lovely to see you this evening, Lady Romeril.”
Lady Romeril ignored the flattery—which Phylis had to give her credit for. “Miss Gwendoline, you at least are attired correctly. Mrs. Seaton, however…my guest, are you?”
Think woman, think!
But all Phylis could think about was Miss Gwendoline, and how she had been so close to Michael, her Michael—but not her Michael—and it was ridiculous to hope, ridiculous to attempt anything.
“Yes,” Phylis croaked, hating how so many eyes around the room were fixed on their little spectacle. “I am sorry, I must have misunderstood the—”
“I think she looks wonderful,” said Miss Gwendoline behind her.
Phylis tried hard to be grateful for the support and not wish to throw the woman overboard.
Apparently, Lady Romeril was just as irritated by the interruption, for she snapped, “Michael Chance, if you cannot keep your charge in line—”
“I don’t control what my sister thinks or says,” retorted Michael’s voice mildly. “She’s always been her own woman.”
“My sister.”
Phylis closed her eyes, just for a moment, as she realized how instantly foolish she had been. Assuming the very worst—not that Michael had owed her any information about his amorous activities. It was just…she had hoped…
Oh, blistering barnacles.
“The black ball was my idea, you know,” Lady Romeril was saying imperiously, as though Phylis had committed a crime worse than treason. “My idea. I had intended—”
“Well, there has clearly been a mistake,” said Michael determinedly, and he was at Phylis’s side now and she could not breathe, “and a mistake is easily forgiven because it is easily made. Do you not agree, Lady Romeril?”
The doyenne of Society swelled with repressed rage—or at least, that was what Phylis assumed it was.
But she was wrong. When the woman finally spoke, it was with a glitter of mischief in her eye. “I see that you have made a conquest, Mrs. Seaton.”
“Oh? Oh, no,” croaked Phylis, painfully conscious that a few people had actually stepped closer to hear the full conversation. “No, it’s—”
“Well done. I did not think we would see anyone to tempt young Chance to do anything of note,” Lady Romeril said with a wicked smile. “You’ll want to dance with her, of course.”
“Of course,” Michael said placidly, before Phylis could do or say anything. “Shall we, Mrs. Seaton?”
Well, what on earth was she supposed to do?
Wishing the ground would swallow her up, then both of them up, then just Michael, then just Lady Romeril, Phylis allowed herself to be taken by the hand—Michael had managed to dispense with his sister’s arm—and led her forward to where quartets were being made up for a quadrille.
Thank goodness that nice Captain Rodriguez had taught her the dance last year when they’d spent those three heady weeks in Antigua, Phylis realized darkly, or the white gown would have been the least of her problems.
“You did very well,” Michael said quietly with a small smile as the musicians started up.
“You have got to be joking.” Phylis groaned, doing her best not to allow her pain to be too visible on her face. The world was always watching. “I have never been so humiliated in all my life!”
“It is rather a bold choice, I have to say.”
Phylis gaped as they clasped hands. “You can’t think I did this on purpose?”
Michael evidently had, for he shrugged as though this sort of exhibitionism were perfectly suitable for a lady. “I thought you wanted to get someone’s attention. That’s all.”
‘Someone’s attention.’
“Yours, you mean?”
“I hoped,” he shot back as he released her hands and they turned away from each other.
Blast the man, but he was right. Why did he have to go about being right all the time?
Because she had hoped, hadn’t she? A part of her, a side of her that Phylis had never known before, had awoken from the very moment their paths had crossed in that alleyway. She had not sought him out, she had not sought out any of these feelings and yet…and yet they were there.
Potent, like a storm squalling on the horizon. You could see it long before you came face to face with it, but no matter how far you attempted to sail in the opposite direction, either you were going to hit it, or it was going to hit you.
“Your sister seems…seems lovely,” Phylis managed lamely.
“Gwen? Oh, she’s all right. Not as violent as Reeny, not as placid as Jessy, not as—”
“How many sisters do you have?” she asked, feeling a touch dizzy, both thanks to the twists and turns of the dance, and the seemingly continuous list of names.
Michael chuckled. “Just four, though sometimes it feels like fourteen.”