Chapter 13 #2
“Oh hush,” Emily said, tapping Thomas’s arm. She wore a chain of diamonds around her neck, and Rosalie wondered whether that was an engagement present from the rich uncle. “You will embarrass her if you continue down that vein.”
“Yes, you certainly will,” Rosalie joked, always a little nervous around new people. But Thomas laughed loudly enough that two matrons nearby turned to look.
“I am so sorry,” he said. He let go of Emily’s arm, and she looked almost grief-stricken, fetching drinks for them instead. “Lady Emily has schooled me tirelessly on what to do and say tonight, but I fear I am getting all mixed up in the instructions.”
“Not at all,” Rosalie assured him, liking Thomas more by the second. He was striking in his warmness. “I am often like a fish out of water at these events myself. We can be fish together.”
“May I also be a fish?” Emily put in, arriving with two glasses of punch for her and her betrothed. “Preferably an inconspicuous little fish that ducks under the sand when predators approach...”
As she said this, she slid behind Thomas and nodded at something in the distance. Mrs. Beatrice Levant was nearby with her flock of pretty ladies, the picture of English beauty in blue silk. There were blue flowers in her hair. Her blue eyes were trained on Rosalie and her group.
Beatrice nodded in greeting and smiled at Rosalie, who wondered how long she had been watching. Evidently, she intended not to wait a moment longer to make her first physical introduction—having met Thomas and Emily time and time again in gossip and rumor.
Rosalie braced herself, feeling suddenly protective over Thomas and Emily’s happiness. She stood in front of them as Beatrice arrived.
“Why, Miss Winthrop,” Beatrice said enthusiastically, assessing Rosalie from head to toe.
She was mostly alone; her friends were amorphous, multi-colored shapes behind her.
“How delightful... to see you like this... so thoroughly well-surrounded. You have been a busy girl lately, if what I have heard is true?”
“Mrs. Levant.” Rosalie kept her voice even, but her hands were shaking slightly by her sides. “If what I have heard is true, you have also been keeping yourself busy.”
Beatrice laughed. “Have I? Ah... I suppose you must hear much secondhand about my activities from my cousin, Mr. Sinclair. But men so rarely understand a woman’s real outer life, much less her inner life.
And perhaps the same can be said when the sexes are reversed in their roles.
” She narrowed her gaze and looked over Rosalie’s shoulder and wiggled her fingers in a wave.
“Good evening, Lady Emily. I see you there.”
“How funny,” Emily said quietly, dragging Thomas out of hiding. “I had not seen you, Mrs. Levant. You are perceptive to a fault.”
“You are not the first to say as much, and I doubt you will be the last. I notice a great deal.” Beatrice’s smile did not move.
“For example, I noticed the collier’s son beside you.
Somewhat hard to miss, is he not? How do you do, Mr. Harcourt?
You must feel completely overwhelmed by the events this evening.
Do they have parties like these where you come from, or just the usual...
well, what would you call it, when the laborers gather and try to emulate our social pleasures? ”
Emily’s face turned so red it was almost purple. Rosalie opened her mouth to say something in Thomas’s defense, but Beatrice beat her to the punch, glancing behind her.
“I really should not outstay my welcome. I have heard there are many young gentlemen here seeking your hand tonight, Miss Winthrop.”
“Perhaps you have heard wrong for once,” Rosalie managed to get in, breathlessly.
“Oh, pooh. I never hear wrong. But I do wonder whether my cousin knows just how crowded his position is. He is not a man built for disappointment. His first love taught him that lesson rather thoroughly, though of course you would know nothing of that, I’m sure. He has always been a closed book.”
Rosalie’s throat went tight. “I would not presume to discuss what is not mine to discuss with anyone.”
“Very demure, very sage.” Beatrice’s eyes glittered.
“I had not expected as much from a Winthrop girl. Your sister never much cared for privacy or overstepping the mark, did she?” Beatrice smiled pleasantly.
Rosalie called to mind pretty stalks of foxglove—poisonous despite their beauty.
“I should take my leave. Good evening, Miss Winthrop, Lady Emily.”
Beatrice disappeared into the crowd, and Rosalie stood there for a moment, with hands that were now cold and still, feeling thoroughly outmaneuvered. Her chest tingled with some sort of unpleasant excitement.
“Terrible woman, isn’t she?” Thomas said to break the ice, shaking his head, unruffled by Beatrice’s attack. “Are they all like that?”
“If you mean the ton’s primary gossip-mongers, then yes, I fear they all are,” Rosalie murmured, shivering.
“But Beatrice is the worst,” Emily said, gripping onto Thomas’s arm again. “Rosalie, about Anna... You don’t think she—”
Whatever Rosalie thought, whatever Emily was about to ask, was wasted in the end. With alarming speed, a group of young gentlemen descended, all dressed in black like a murder of crows. Rosalie understood quickly, without much vanity attached to the understanding, that they had come for her.
“Miss Winthrop, might I beg the next dance?”
“I do not believe we have been introduced...”
“You are as charming as Mr. Sinclair said you were.”
“Surely you have not filled your card already.”
“Gentlemen,” a voice cut through the crowd after a few minutes of pleasantries and jokes. “You ask too much of Miss Winthrop. She is only one woman.”
In her confusion, she thought the voice belonged to Gabriel. But it was not. How could it have been? She had not invited him that night. It was Edmund Sinclair.
The men parted for him and fell silent. Mr. Sinclair reached out his arm for Rosalie to take, making some excuse about how he could see Miss Winthrop needed air before the dancing began in earnest.
Together, they slipped out of the large ballroom and into the antechamber beyond that. There was a courtyard behind Almack’s where other guests that evening had gathered. Mr. Sinclair promptly released her once they were outdoors.
The night was cool and pleasant, but Rosalie found it difficult to enjoy. “We left them inside without defense,” she said, watching Mr. Sinclair as he found a stone bench for them and sat down. “What if Mrs. Levant returns?”
“She won’t. She’s had her fill of you for tonight,” Mr. Sinclair said, rubbing his hands on his breeches. “There are more young men to torment than Thomas Harcourt. Are they engaged to be married?”
Rosalie nodded. “Yes, they are.”
“And do they love each other?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Then good for them.”