“You must be reading some peculiar lies, my lord,” she said, smiling. “I have never been happier, and as for my “unsavory friends,” I suppose you must have missed the latest news.”
Jonathan frowned. “What news?”
“One of my friends has recently become a Duchess,” Leah replied proudly.
Jonathan’s expression relaxed, his smug smile returning. “Not you, though?”
“Not yet,” she countered, grinning until her cheeks ached, “but I do not expect it will be long before I am as blissfully married as you and your wife seem to be. Then again, if I wanted to leave an uncomfortable situation,mybeloved would not make me stay so that he could taunt a poor woman for his own amusement.”
Jonathan paled while Dorothy’s hand shot to her mouth, stifling a gasp. Meanwhile, Leah’s insides churned, and her heart punched the inside of her ribcage, punishing her for her stupidity in saying such an outlandish thing. Not the insult, but the mention of a beloved and soon becoming a wife.
What did you do that for?she scolded herself, cursing the man before her. It was his fault, riling her up like that.
“I approached you out of the goodness of my heart,” Jonathan said, visibly struggling to maintain his calm. “I approached you for your father’s sake, and this is how you would speak to me? Evidently, youareunwell, for only a madwoman would make up such… awful untruths.”
Leah held her nerve, tilting her head to one side. “Oh, I do apologize. Which part is untrue? Perhaps, I could clarify it for you.”
“Who is this beloved gentleman?” Jonathan asked haughtily as Leah had known he would.
“Goodness, you are inquisitive for a gentleman who barely knows me,” Leah shot back, scouring the surrounding area with desperate eyes for anyone who might be suitable. Better yet, anyone who might play along if it came to it. Daniel, perhaps—she knew he was in attendance somewhere.
Dorothy nodded. “Let us leave her be, darling.”
“No, let us hear her, for if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a liar,” Jonathan replied curtly.
Leah raised an eyebrow. “How ironic.”
“Pardon?” Jonathan’s eyes narrowed.
Leah forced her brightest grin and lifted a hand in a wave though there was no one else in the room. She was more or less praying for a miracle while Jonathan and Dorothy had their backs turned to the main entrance. “I said, “how ironic.” As in, how strange that my beloved should appear at the very moment he has been mentioned.”
Neither of the supposedly happy couple turned, both clearly doubting everything that came out of Leah’s mouth. Jonathan’s smirk of satisfaction had returned too, the wretch likely savoring the moment when he would finally turn around and find no one standing there, for that would assuredly confirm his suspicions that Leah had become quite mad since the jilting.
Please, please, let someone walk through the door. Even if it is the footman, I shall pay him handsomely to pretend,Leah begged inwardly.
“Come now, Lady Leah. I have heard of no such man,” Jonathan insisted. “You do not have to lie to spare your pride. All you have to do is apologize for your uncouth words to me and my wife, and we shall part ways on agreeable terms.”
Just then, as if sent by the heavens themselves, the door behind the heavy brocade drape burst open, and a figure tumbled into the refreshment room. Leah’s reprieve had arrived in rather dramatic fashion, prompting Jonathan and Dorothy to whirl around sharply.
“There he is,” Leah said, clasping a hand to her chest to try and prevent her racing heart from jumping free of her body altogether. “He has always had impeccable timing, which is more than can be said for some gentlemen I know.”
Jonathan flashed her a nasty look, but she was already breezing past him, heading for the figure who was in the midst of a wrestling match with the drape that had snarled around his leg.
One more miracle,she pleaded, for if she could not get the fellow to play along with her charade, there would be one more person in the world who thought she was mad… and Jonathan would never have that smug smile wiped off his face.
CHAPTERFOUR
Nathaniel was utterly lost. The doorway he had entered in order to avoid his mother and Lady Kate had not led him to the refreshment of the outside world, nor anywhere close to his carriage, so he could make an escape. Instead, it had thrown him into a labyrinth of narrow corridors that seemed never-ending, where he could hear the sounds of the ball but could not find his way back to it or away from it.
I should have just danced with the girl,he lamented, turning yet another gloomy corner in the endless maze.One dance to make Mother happy then I could have feigned a stomachache.
But, deep down, he knew that one dance would not have been enough to appease his mother. His mother would have insisted upon a second dance and then conversation with Lady Kate and perhaps a meeting with Lady Kate’s mother and father, who were undoubtedly also in attendance. It had been the same rigmarole with all of the other ladies that his mother had tried to nudge him toward, and he was tired of disappointing so many people in one fell swoop. After all, it would continuously boil down to one major incompatibility: they wanted marriage, he did not.
At that moment, he saw a crack of light shining at the end of the corridor. An escape, at last.
He hurried toward it, but just as he was about to push the door wide, his foot caught on something. Or, rather, something caught around his foot. He kicked out, trying to free himself, his shoulder knocking into the door and swinging it open. Losing that last shred of support offered by the door, he tumbled out into a familiar room, struggling with every breath to keep his balance as a thick drape did its very best to take him down.
As long as my mother does not see me, all will be well,he told himself, glimpsing three other people in the room. Only one seemed to have noticed his embarrassing jig though he could not see her properly in the low light of the refreshment room.
