“Bathilda.” A very thin lady with silvery gray hair leaned forward and almost touched her cheek to Cousin Bathilda’s. “How wonderful to see you again. And you brought your darling dog,” she observed with pursed lips as Mignon rumbled at her.
“Helena.” Cousin Bathilda put a soothing hand on Mignon’s head. “You remember my dear relative, Lady Hero Batten.”
“My lady.” Hero dipped into a curtsy.
“Engaged to the Marquess of Mandeville, yes?” Lady Widdecombe peered at her with faint approval. “A very good match, my dear. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Hero murmured. She felt a suffocating weight, as if a large boulder sat upon her chest. How scandalized everyone here would be if they knew what she truly was beneath her facade. She’d lost her perfection. She’d lost her place. For a wild moment she had the urge to simply turn and flee from the ballroom.
“There’s Mandeville now,” Cousin Bathilda exclaimed.
Hero glanced up and saw her fiancé, looking the same as ever. He was quite elegant tonight in deep brown velvet overembroidered in gold and red.
He made a leg at the sight of her. “Miss Picklewood, Lady Hero. You are the fairest damsel here tonight, I vow.”
“My lord.” She wondered what he would say if she asked him what feature he found so especially beautiful about her? Was it her eyes? Her neck? Her breasts? But then he’d never seen her bare breasts. Only one man had and it wasn’t her fiancé.
She looked away, biting her lip as guilt battered against her.
“I hope your dear sister is better?” Mandeville asked gravely.
“As well as can be expected, my lord,” Cousin Bathilda answered. “The doctor has prescribed bed rest, but he thinks the arm will knit.”
“I am so glad.”
“I see my good friend Mrs. Hughes over there,” Cousin Bathilda said. “If you young people will excuse me?”
“Of course,” Mandeville murmured. He held out his arm to Hero without really looking at her. “Shall we stroll?”
“Please,” she answered sedately, calming the hysterical voices in her head.
She laid her hand on his sleeve as he led her into the crowd. The room was too hot, it seemed. Lady Helena had chosen to decorate the ballroom with hundreds of roses, and the scent of the wilting flowers was almost overwhelming. She nodded her head and murmured inanities to passing people until she thought she might scream. Her world had tumbled off balance, and she didn’t know how to right it again.
And then, suddenly, Griffin stood in front of them, dressed elegantly in blue and gold, his wig snowy white. His arm was crooked, as he idly fondled something in his hand. His green eyes flicked from her face to her hand, laid on Mandeville’s sleeve, then rose slowly to his brother’s face.
Hero tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. Surely he wouldn’t say anything, do anything, here?
Griffin bowed stiffly. “Good evening, Thomas, Lady Hero.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Griffin,” she heard Mandeville say beside her. “I didn’t know you were invited tonight.”
“It’s amazing the places where I’m welcome.”
She lifted her eyes at his cynical tone. His green eyes clashed with hers, his expression grim.
She caught her breath.
“What have you got there?” Mandeville asked.
Griffin raised his eyebrows and opened his hand. Hero inhaled silently. Her diamond earbob lay on his palm—the one she’d thrown at him in the sitting room at her engagement ball.
He smiled thinly. “A trinket I found upon the floor. Do you think it becomes me?”
He held the earring to his ear as Hero widened her eyes in warning. Surely Mandeville would recognize it as hers!
“Or perhaps it’s better suited to a lady,” Griffin drawled. He reached out, and Hero felt the heat of his fingers as he dangled the earring near her ear.
Mandeville frowned, looking confused. “Don’t be an ass.”
“No?” Griffin’s smile had disappeared as he looked at her. “Well, maybe I’ll make it a keepsake.”
He pushed the earring into his waistcoat pocket.
Hero stared at him, her chest aching as if she’d been weeping. She’d lost him, she suddenly realized. They could never again be friends now.
Griffin looked at Mandeville. “With your permission, I’d like to offer your fiancée a dance.”
“Certainly,” Mandeville replied.
And just like that, she was handed from one man to the other, rather like a prize pony at a country fair.
Hero waited until they’d strolled some distance from Mandeville. “I don’t want to talk to you.”