.
Why did she feel as if she were going to an execution rather than a ball? Emily had to take a deep breath and tell herself that she was being ridiculous. The Hartleys were throwing what promised to be the biggest event of the Season, and the fact that she and Winnie had gotten invitations so easily should have thrilled her.
Instead, as the maid dressed her hair into a graceful fall of curls with a lovely set of jeweled pins, Emily could not shake a certain sense of dread.
She had chosen the finest dress she owned for the event, a blue gown embroidered with a delicate motif of silvery stars at the cuffs, hem, and necklines. The silk rustled with every move she took, and despite her worries, Emily felt an almost girlish delight at how pretty the gown was.
She forcibly reminded herself that what she was doing was as much work, in its own way, as that of a clerk or a seamstress. She had to take tonight seriously. If she failed, if this plan proved bootless at this early stage... she had no idea what she was going to do.
Aunt Winnie was waiting for her, humming a soft tune in the foyer. When Emily came down the stairs, her aunt sighed with pleasure.
“What a beauty my dear Emily is,” she said. “It does my old heart good to see you so well turned out.”
“You look wonderful yourself, Aunt Winnie. I take it Sir Eugene is going to be in attendance?”
“Oh, well, it is important to present oneself elegantly no matter the occasion or the audience... but yes, he will be there.”
Emily laughed at her aunt’s slight blush, linking her arm through Winnie’s. They walked together to the street, where Victor’s coach waited for them.
Victor was handsome enough in a dark red jacket and spectacularly cut trousers that it quite took Emily’s breath away.
“You needn’t look so surprised,” Victor said, mildly aggrieved. “Even if I don’t know quite what I am doing, my valet is quite competent.”
“Well, my compliments to your valet, then,” Emily said with a smile, “but you do look quite the catch tonight, Victor.”
“You look like the stars come down to earth.”
Victor uttered the sentence so flatly that it took Emily a moment before she realized what he had said.
“I... thank you.”
“Well. You will be receiving many such compliments tonight, I shouldn’t wonder. I thought... perhaps I should be the first.”
“I doubt I will like any as well as I like yours,” Emily said softly.
Victor frowned and turned to the window, but the entire ride to the Hartley house on Park Lane was charged with a kind of expectation in the air. Emily did not quite know what to do with her hands, and by the time the driver opened the coach door for them, she was almost relieved.
That relief turned to a nearly stomach-churning anxiety when she saw the lights of the Hartley house, the windows brilliant golden rectangles against the night. A small mob of people were already jostling for entrance, and this early in the evening, Emily knew that that number could easily treble or quadruple by the time the ball ended at dawn.
Victor seemed to sense her dismay. He reached over and below the normal line of sight, he squeezed her hand gently.
“Take heart,” he murmured. “It’s just a party, after all, and if this does not serve your madness, we will find something that does.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
For some reason, that made Emily feel more like crying than anything had before, and she had to stare hard at the glowing windows before her before she was quite certain she wouldn’t disgrace herself by weeping in the streets.
The Hartleys’ ball was just as luxurious as Emily had supposed it would be. Every corner of their enormous ballroom was lit up, and in the balcony above, what looked like at least a dozen musicians were tuning up their instruments. The women of the ton fairly glittered in the light, their colors bold against the darker hues of their male counterparts.
Emily felt a pang when Winnie spotted Sir Eugene, his back to the wall to keep his balance and a glass of punch in his hand.
“My dear, do you mind?”
“Not at all, Aunt Winnie,” she said, only fibbing a little. “His grace, the duke, and I will get along fine.”
“I wouldn’t, but I want to be sure no one knocks into him, and he did promise to finish telling me that delightful story about the time he went to all the way to Mersin in Turkey...”
“We will, you know. Get along fine, I mean.” Victor offered her his arm, and Emily took it gratefully.
“I am glad of that, your grace,” she said. “But really, how in the world are we going to find anyone in this crush?”
“The same way we would try to locate insurgents in the mountains, I am afraid.”
“A deep and laborious search that stretches you to the point of madness and despair?” she guessed.
Victor turned that bright grin on her again. Dear God, who in the world could think of a thing like a scar when he could smile like that?
“I’m very much afraid you are right. Come. Let’s get this over with.”
Emily was braced for a deluge of people, for feeling crushed and breathless and as if she were wading through a mire made of silk and velvet and satin. There was certainly some of that, but it was so much easier to bear on Victor’s arm. He was like a bulk she could rest against, and sometimes, when the crowd grew especially bad for her, she could look at him and take some comfort in his grim face. Some of it was the realization that he truly liked all of this as little as she did, but there was more than that. It felt like as long as she had him on her side, nothing else in the world mattered.
They found one of her first candidates fairly quickly, a Lord Kinnock, but a hawk-eyed young woman camped out on his arm, laughing at his every word and looking around her as if she would cheerfully eviscerate any and all comers.
“I’m not saying she acted badly,” Emily said from the shelter of one of the rear walls. “I’m just saying that now I’m too scared to get close to Lord Kinnock in any situation. Did you see that she had somehow cleared three square feet around them in this mess?”
“I’ll tell you what, if you want Lord Kinnock that much, I’ll provide you with a rapier. That’ll even things up a bit, but I warn you, I am still betting on her.”
“Thank you for your support, but I do not want Lord Kinnock enough to fight for him with a rapier. We are moving on.”
For a while, it felt as if they could go less than ten feet in any direction in ten minutes, but when the crowd opened up, Victor glanced over and gestured with his chin.
“There’s Lord Dunnering. I think he was a maybe, and I don’t see an assassin perched on his arm. Shall we?”
“Yes, let’s.”
They made their way across the floor toward Lord Dunnering, but before they could engage the elderly marquess, someone bellowed, “Colonel Sommerset! Didn’t expect to see you in this mess!”
The shouter was obviously used to parade ground formation, but his call barely lifted above the din of the Hartleys’ ball. The man cutting through the crowd toward them was hale and hearty, twice as wide as Victor and possessed of a rather manic look in his eye.
“He’s a no,” Victor hissed in her ear. “He’s got half a dozen illegitimate children in Spain, and he spends all his money at the races.”
“Oh, dear...”
The military man hit them like a storm striking the shore, clapping Victor hard on the back and bellowing for some drinks. Of course, it was at that moment when the crowd around them surged again, and Emily found herself separated from Victor as neatly as an apple was plucked from a tree.
She thought about trying to get back to him, but she decided that she was not such a baby as to need his minding at all times. Emily decided he had not looked at all pleased to see the man, which meant that he would likely be disengaging himself soon. She knew instinctively that Victor would come find her again. She could wait.