“So short. And”—he wiggled—“lacking in elegant lines.”
“Lacking in elegant lines? You’ve not elucidated matters any further, I’m afraid.”
He frowned. “Why do you insist I view her?” He pulled his arm from her grasp. “And why do you keep touching me?”
She pulled her arms to her side, feeling stiff and unnatural. “Apologies, my lord.”
He inclined his head. “You are forgiven. You do not have the benefit of a proper upbringing like most ladies.” He smiled, his thin lips curving just a bit, not enough to show teeth. “I find it refreshing. But you must not touch a gentleman in public.”
Lillian focused on the fact that he found her refreshing. A good sign, that. Letting his other words eek through caused the stabby feeling to return. “Yes, my lord. I merely wished to share with you my hopes for Lady Abigail.”
She turned toward the girl once more and raised her voice in hopes she could hear. “That she will prove herself to be a diamond.”
Her words were wasted. Lady Abigail had disappeared.
“Blast,” Lillian mumbled.
Lord Littleton laughed, a tin kind of sound. “You are colorful.”
“Refreshing?” she asked, still staring at the spot where Lady Abigail used to be. Perhaps she had dissolved into the bush.
“Very much so.”
“Do you mind if I leave you for a short while? There is an acquaintance I must speak with.”
He fluttered a hand in her direction. “If you wish, but do not leave me long. I require your assistance to survive this tedious event.”
She glanced at him and allowed herself a small grin. She was succeeding. He thought her refreshing. He requested her attention. Perhaps it was not hubris to expect a proposal in the near future.
“I’ll return, my lord.” With another conversational companion in tow if she had any luck. She curtsied and left.
Where was Lady Abigail? She stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. No shivering debutantes anywhere. But that table laden with sustenance looked promising. For Lillian, not for Lady Abigail.
Lillian had a nice, steaming cup of tea in hand soon enough and traipsed through the garden. Perhaps she’d left entirely. Lillian likely would too after hearing a man call her curiously shaped.
Horrid! She’d wanted to beat Lord Littleton over the head with her reticule. She’d wanted to—
What was that? A splash of white in a wall of green. Lady Abigail wore white. Of course, most of the debutantes did, but Lillian would leave no clue unchecked. She marched toward the box hedge and peered through its branches. Definitely a girl behind there. She went up on tiptoe and peered over it to the other side.
Lady Abigail. She sat on the ground with a light pelisse draped over shoulders, and her legs pulled up to her chest under her skirt. She held her open book between her hands and read with it so close to her face, she seemed likely to fall in.
Oh dear.
Lillian loved a good book as much as anyone else, better probably, but even she had never brought a book to a social event. Not that she hadn’t thought about it. She just had too much to lose to ever attempt to do so. Her father was the youngest son of a landed but untitled gentleman and her mother a curate’s daughter. They’d dedicated their lives to his studies, his inventions, his career, and its progress. He had many claims to fame, including a life-saving, money-making steam train for mines and the approval of the Prince Regent. One more world-changing invention, and he expected to be made a baron. Or knighted at the very least. There were many in thetonwho courted him, respected him.
Respect had not bred acceptance. Even now, with a first season sponsored by a countess and two highly titled best friends, many considered Lillian an outsider. She was invited everywhere, her picture had even been painted and placed in the paper, many courted her, but it did not change that she had been born out of their sphere. She remained a pretender, an interloper.
The girl with the book hiding behind the box hedge, however, was one of them. Pretty enough to draw the attention of any man—despite Littleton’s misunderstanding of her perfectly curvy form—yet she desired anonymity so unlike Lillian herself.
Lillian had never wished to be invisible. She had simply found herself unable to communicate with the people in this new sphere of life. They did not boom like her father nor did they cluck and hum like her mother. The ladies spoke slowly and quietly, mostly through whispers behind fans, and they moved lazily, almost boneless, through the world, assured that everything would fall into place for them.
They looked at Lillian as if she were dirt beneath their slippers. The first time she’d encountered it, she had stammered and dropped her gaze out of shock. No one had addressed her with as much disdain as she had experienced in a single night at a ball. She’d kept her eyes down because she’d been baffled at her own behavior, and soon enough, it had become a habit. It had also become a habit for thetonto ignore her, to see her as a spot on the wall, unworthy of their notice except to flick it away, paint over it.
Sweet, rosy-cheeked,curvyLady Abigail did not have to live those experiences if she did not wish.
Yet here she was behind the box hedge, nose in a book. Lillian couldn’t quite blame her. No one would wish to be called curiously shaped. Thoughtless Littleton. One would think a perfect gentleman like him would know what words would be unacceptable to young women within earshot.
She remained on her own side of the hedge and pretended to look out over the rest of the party. She brought her teacup to her mouth and hissed, “Lady Abigail. Lady Abigail!”
