“Someone like Nathaniel.”
Evelyn shot her a look. “I do not wish to discuss it. The guests are arriving. We should go.”
The four women made their way back to the main house from the dower house. Carriages had indeed begun to arrive. Music spilled out of the open windows, and Evelyn spotted Nathaniel standing at the entrance as host, welcoming guests.
It was perhaps best that she had moved into the dower house. Otherwise, her position tonight might have been even more ambiguous. Would she have stood beside him? Wouldn’t that have raised more gossip?
As it was, she, her aunt, and her sisters made their way up the steps. She greeted Nathaniel with a curtsy.
“Your Grace.”
“Your Grace,” he replied and bowed, then greeted her sisters as though they were strangers passing on the road. No civil whispers. No small talk. No one even asked how she was settling in.
Things were different.
She made her way inside, into the ballroom, which was already teeming with guests. She noticed there were far more gentlemen than ladies and wondered if that was by accident or by design. Of course, this ball was meant to help her find a suitor.
“Evelyn!” a familiar voice said. She turned to find Lady Annabelle approaching.
“Annabelle,” she said. “How good to see you. How are you?” They hadn’t seen one another since finishing school.
“I’m very well. Getting well, I hope. Lord Cinder might soon make an offer,” she said, casting a glance at the gentleman she’d been courting for several months. “Do you remember Charmaine? My sister?”
Charmaine Avery. A full head taller than both Evelyn and Annabelle, she approached with a practiced smile. Evelyn knew Charmaine well. She was a year older than the other two and had also attended finishing school.
She was also a dreadful gossip.
While Annabelle was sweet, kind, and graceful, Charmaine was the opposite. Evelyn often thought that, if it were permitted, Charmaine would happily take a post at one of the scandal sheets—reporting on, or inventing, Society’s dirtiest secrets.
“Charmaine,” Evelyn said, smiling, waiting for her to curtsy.
She didn’t, not until Annabelle elbowed her in the side.
Then she performed the most half-hearted curtsy Evelyn had ever seen.
“How good to see you,” Charmaine said. “I would say you’ve done well for yourself, but then I must remind myself that none of this is actually yours.”
Evelyn forced a smile. “No, it’s not. It all belongs to my husband—or rather, to his heir. But I have the dower house, my jointure, and my freedom.”
“Oh yes,” Charmaine said, voice syrupy. “There is something to be said for being a one-day bride. Or was it two?”
Evelyn ground her teeth, forcing herself to stay composed. This woman was as insufferable as Nathaniel had been on his worst day, without the benefit of being handsome.
“Charmaine,” Annabelle said. “Envy does not suit you. Green is not your color at all.”
Evelyn chuckled. Annabelle beamed. Charmaine gave them both a flat smile, muttered her farewells, and stalked off.
“She’s never changed, has she?”
“Not at all. I must beg your pardon for bringing her. She wasn’t invited, but my mother insisted—and Julian?—”
“Julian?”
“Yes.” Evelyn had almost forgotten the connection. Annabelle and Charmaine Avery were cousins to Julian—Nathaniel’s closest friend.
She spotted Julian across the room, standing with Nathaniel, both holding flutes of champagne. Nathaniel was watching her again. Not subtly. His eyes flicked her way repeatedly.
“You know,” Annabelle said quietly, “if Julian is to be believed, all of this could be yours once more.”
