Chapter 7
Peaches could safely say she was not feeling like the belle of the ball at the moment.
In fact, she wasn’t sure if she would have felt any more conspicuous if she’d arrived in her underwear. At least her underwear was dry and relatively unwrinkled. She certainly couldn’t say the same about her clothes.
She could say that she wasn’t convinced that her maid hadn’t been plotting to ruin her evening.
After she’d unthawed her extremities under some very lukewarm water in a loo that would have benefitted from a good scrubbing, she had returned to her room to find that Betty had unpacked all her things and distributed them around the room to dry, though in a rather haphazard fashion.
The resemblance to her college dorm room had been slightly comforting, but seeing everything in its less-than-pristine state had left her choosing the least objectionable of what she had and hoping it would be good enough.
Obviously she had chosen amiss.
“Let me show you to the buffet, miss,” said a voice at her side.
She looked to find a youngish maid there, looking at her with her eyes watering.
Peaches wasn’t sure if she was laughing or if the smell of wet wool sweater was overpowering the poor girl.
Peaches was half tempted—actually, closer to 99 percent tempted—to turn and run away.
Then she managed to identify in the sea of faces one that she recognized.
Stephen de Piaget, looking grave.
Perhaps that was the expression he wore when he was trying not to bray out a laugh about the faults and foibles of a woman he thought only intelligent enough to identify the ingredients going into her compost.
And if he was going to look at her that way, she absolutely wasn’t going to give up.
Unfortunately, he was starting across the room toward her. Her only hope was to escape, and she decided her best avenue of escape was to go with the maid who was stifling without success her giggles. Hopefully some supper in her hand would give her courage to face the crowd.
Hobnobbing with nobility, she decided as she filled a plate that was wholly inadequate to supporting food while her trembling hand was carrying it, was just not her thing.
She liked one-on-one encounters with people who liked her.
She did not like being in a room full of people she didn’t know, most of whom were looking at her as if she’d just come in from rolling around in the stables.
She stood at the buffet and gulped a time or two.
Unfortunately the only thing that did was give her a good whiff of her sweater.
She had to blink her eyes rapidly to keep them from tearing uncontrollably, but what else could she have done?
Her only blouse had been hopelessly wrinkled and wearing an evening gown had seemed inappropriate.
The sweater had been damp, but she hadn’t realized it had been that fragrant.
That said something about the state of her room, something she didn’t want to think about.
As for her current condition, it hadn’t been as if she could have worn Stephen’s overcoat, had it?
She looked in the mirror to see her doom coming toward her in three parts.
David was laughing with guests as he moved toward her, but he was definitely on his way to talk to her.
Andrea was currently engaged in conversation with Irene but looked to be trying to extricate herself from it to come Peaches’s way.
And, finally, there was Stephen de Piaget, inexorably working his way toward her while working the room at the same time.
He looked like a jaguar, polished, lethal, and absolutely relentless.
Women he stopped to speak to were left in various states of swoon.
Men looked vaguely dissatisfied, as if they hadn’t engaged in all the nobleman chitchat they’d desired.
He scared the hell out of her.
There, she had said it. He was snobby, tweedy, and absolutely undeterred, apparently, when he made up his mind about something. She pitied the poor books he was looking for in the library. She wouldn’t have blamed them for hiding behind Tudor manuscripts just to escape his scrutiny.
She had no interest in what he would say to her, because she was certain it would have to do with her not having dressed suitably for the evening.
She imagined it would also involve a long, tedious lecture on all reasons she didn’t belong—actually, given that it was Stephen, it wouldn’t be a long lecture.
It would just be a look that would speak volumes.
Which was why she would avoid him like the plague.
Fortunately for her, Andrea reached her first. She looked at David’s cousin warily, but was relieved to find Andrea seemed to be on her side.
“Oh, Peaches,” Andrea said with a miserable smile, “it was a bit of a slog to get here, wasn’t it?”
“Does it show?” Peaches asked lightly.
“You should have sent for something of mine,” Andrea chided.
“I didn’t think to,” Peaches said, because that was true. She’d been too busy trying to regain the feeling in her hands and feet and wondering what in the hell she’d been going to do since she hadn’t had anything dry to wear in public.
“Well, lovey, next time just trot down the hall—oh, except you aren’t down the hall. No matter,” she finished quickly. “Send your maid up later tonight for something to wear tomorrow if she hasn’t already gone to bed by the time you get back to your room.”
Peaches wasn’t sure what Betty’s nocturnal habits were, but she thought she could safely guarantee she herself would be indulging in an early night. If not, she would have no trouble kicking Betty’s cot on her way to her room. Maybe the woman could be sent off on a mission of sartorial mercy.
“And here comes David,” Andrea said. “I think he’s been waiting for you.”
Peaches resisted the urge to close her eyes and indulge in a little prayer, because someone might notice.
Instead, she took a firmer grip on her plate and turned to find David Preston indeed coming toward her, entertaining souls along the way with his sparkling wit and no doubt vastly entertaining anecdotes about things Peaches was sure were just fascinating.
And she smelled like wet dog.
To his credit, David only wrinkled his nose once and so quickly that she hardly noticed. He frowned slightly.
“Get caught out in the wet, Peachy?”
She suppressed a wince, because the sound of that name was a bit like fingernails on the chalkboard, but then again, she was sure nothing could have made her happy at the moment. It didn’t bother her at other times. Honestly.
She took a careful breath so she didn’t make her eyes water and looked at him. “Yes,” she said, doing her best to smile.
David continued to frown. “That’s odd. Irene said she had sent someone to the station to pick you up. I’m sure of it.”
Peaches didn’t want to credit Irene with nefarious intentions, so she pushed aside a tiny, unpleasant thought about the fact that her clothes were damaged and she was making a bad first impression. Surely David’s sister wasn’t purposely malicious.
“Well, there was a mix-up somewhere,” Andrea said with a shrug, “but we’re all here now and mostly dry. Things could be much worse.”
“Well,” David began slowly.
“And isn’t Peaches’s sweater lovely?” Andrea continued. “And did you know she counts among her clients one of Seattle’s most famous telly hosts?”
David continued to sniff despite Andrea’s continued efforts to create a verbal résumé for her.
Peaches was grateful for the thought, but she found it difficult to concentrate on what Andrea was saying.
There was a smell that smelled even worse, if possible, than she did.
She sniffed surreptitiously, then realized that the stench was coming from her plate. What next? Poison?
She looked for somewhere to deposit the goods, as it were, but couldn’t find anywhere convenient to stash them.
It wasn’t possible that karma had a very long memory and those eleven-year-old kids she’d deprived of their Ding Dongs and Ho Hos had truly suffered, was it?
And did retribution have to come while she was standing there in a damp wool sweater and wearing wool trousers that hadn’t quite managed to be rid of the proof of their trip in the vegetable cart?
Apparently it did. She listened to Andrea and David discuss her in increasing detail, then watched in horror as other people came her way, people that made her wonder if she would actually manage to keep things on her plate.
Stephen de Piaget was still working his way across the room toward her, still leaving swooning women and disappointed men trying to talk to him in his wake.
And then there was Irene Preston approaching in a more direct fashion and leaving those in her wake quivering in fear.
Peaches was beginning to think she’d made a terrible mistake. It was a fairy tale, all right, but not exactly the kind she’d been hoping for. She was horrendously uncomfortable, feeling terribly out of place, and now she had the twin terrors of Irene Preston and the Viscount Haulton to deal with.
Irene reached her first and her look of disdain was like a slap. “Interesting evening wear, Miss Alexander.”
Peaches would be the first to admit she generally didn’t much care what people thought of her. But somehow, now that she was out of her comfort zone and still smelling slightly like wet sheep, she cared very much.
“I thought we were sending a car for her,” David said, looking at his sister sharply.
“Of course we were,” Irene snapped at her brother.
“Surely you don’t think I would purposely put her out in the weather, do you?
She probably sent it away so she would garner sympathy or something equally ridiculous.
What do I know of how this person thinks?
It’s hardly my fault she hasn’t a clue how to dress properly—”