Chapter 24
The ball was everything she had planned it to be.
The flowers were right, the candles were right, the music was right, and the rooms were full of people who were, by all appearances, enjoying themselves. Mrs. Peel had outdone herself with the supper. The staff moved through the guests with the quiet efficiency she had come to rely on.
Everything was exactly as she had intended it to be.
Then why was it so hard to be happy?
Temperance stood near the window with a glass she had not drunk from and watched it all and felt a weight on her chest.
Charity appeared at her elbow at half past eight. “It looks wonderful,” she said.
“Thank you,” Temperance said.
“Are you all right?” Charity looked at her.
“I am perfectly fine.”
“Do you… should we talk about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
Alethea was nearby, with Oliver, and she caught Temperance’s eye across the room and held it for a moment before looking away.
The room was warm and bright and full of people she knew, and the evening was going exactly as planned, and she stood by the window and thought that she had never felt less like celebrating anything in her life.
She saw Harper from across the room.
She had been aware of him since the moment she came downstairs, in the specific, inconvenient way she had been aware of him for months, the awareness that arrived before she decided to be aware of anything.
He was standing near the far wall with Edmund, and he was dressed impeccably, as he always was.
Upon seeing her, he crossed the room towards her.
“Oh, god. He is coming,” she tried to hide behind Charity. “I don’t know what to say to him. I am not ready.”
“You’ll be fine,” Charity sounded amused now. “And you’re going to have to get used to it, you know. You cannot run from him forever.”
“Miss Hosmer,” he said, when he reached her.
“Your Grace,” she said.
“The ball is a success,” he said.
“It appears so,” she said.
A pause. He looked at the room, at the guests and the flowers and the candles, and then he looked back at her.
“The dress….” he sighed, as though it was taking him great pains to say the words, “It suits you.”
Suddenly, her throat felt impossibly dry. “You picked it out, so I suppose I should thank you, twice.”
He was quiet for a moment, and a strange expression came across his face. He looked upset, but then concealed it quickly.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You have gotten what you wanted.”
She was about to ask him what he meant, but he did not give her the chance to.
“Enjoy your evening,” he said.
She watched him turn and walk back across the room, standing by the window with her untouched glass, and then Elias appeared at her elbow.
“Miss Hosmer.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I am glad you came.”
“I would not have missed it,” he said. “Would you do me the honor of the next dance?”
He was a good dancer. She had known this. He was steady and reliable, and he led well.
“You have done a wonderful job with this evening,” he said, as they moved through the first figure. “The flowers especially. My sister would approve.”
“How is she?” Temperance asked.
“Opinionated as ever,” he said. “She told me last week that I needed a haircut. I told her I had just had one. She said it was insufficient and we are at an impasse.”
“I think I would like her,” Temperance smiled back.
“She would like you too as she appreciates people who say what they mean.” He turned her through the next figure. “Are you enjoying your own ball?”
“I am,” she said, lying.
“You don’t look entirely like someone who is enjoying themselves,” he said, pleasantly.
“Well, I suppose,” she looked at him. “I am a little tired.”
“Of course,” he said, and left it there, which was one of the things she genuinely liked about him.
They danced in silence for a moment. The music was good and the floor was not too crowded and it was all perfectly, completely pleasant.
She felt Harper’s eyes on her back. He seemed to be watching her from across the room as though she was the only thing that mattered.
Of course, it made everything a little harder to breathe for her.
“There is something I would like to speak with you about,” he said.
“Before I speak with His Grace.” He said it carefully, with the gravity of a man who had prepared what he was going to say and was now saying it.
“I have given it a great deal of thought, and I believe we suit each other very well, and I would like…..”
She looked at him and thought about what her mother had said on the way home from the park. A life without love is always slightly cold.
“Mr. Talbot,” she said.
She looked at him. At his kind face and his steady eyes and the genuine warmth in them, and she thought that he deserved someone who felt the other thing when they looked at him, and that she was not that person, and that she had been telling herself she could be for long enough.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that perhaps we should finish the dance first.”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Of course,” he said, and smiled, and they finished the dance. It was the longest two minutes she could remember.
When the music stopped she curtsied “Will you excuse me for just a moment?”
Without even waiting for an answer, she walked toward the door that led to the terrace.
The terrace was empty, and it gave her a moment to collect her thoughts.
She had arranged a ball and invited a good man and she had put on the green dress that fit exactly, only to come downstairs and stand by the window. She felt nothing in particular, and it was supposed to be a moment of pure bliss for her.
Elias Talbot was inside waiting to finish a sentence she did not want to hear.
Could she live a life, always cold? Never full of love?