Until Parkington had mucked everything up. She waited, every nerve in her body screaming, for him to press toward her now, as he had that night last winter when he’d caught her alone in the shadowed corner of an art gallery.
But he merely walked away, content apparently to rattle her and nothing more.
Thank God.
She downed a glass of tepid lemonade, then stood by the table and waited. And waited. The string quartet played song after song, and couples changed partners again and again, and no one approached her. No one even looked at her.
She’d become invisible. Such a new sensation. At least last year they’d acknowledged her existence, whispering and looking and snickering. She’d retreated to the country, enraged. She’d done nothing wrong. But this… this silence paralyzed her. It meant an end. It meant the one thing she’d given her life, her future, over to had been shattered into such small pieces that she could never glue it back together.
Once, she’d almost had a husband.
Once, she’d wished for children.
All gone. What future was left to her now?
Her ribs constricted. Breath came stuttering, difficult, impossible. But she kept her calm as she made for the door.
Until she caught the disapproving eye of a patroness of the assembly rooms.
Then Emma ran. She gathered her skirts, darted between two tall, bald men she did not know, and made for the doors. One foot firmly on George Street, a voice called out behind her.
“Stop.”
She did. One did not disobey Lady Mercer, the dragon who stood sentry before the assembly room doors, one terribly tall feather towering above her, bobbing in the gentle evening breeze. She had a granddaughter ready to wed. A quiet thing with intelligent eyes who likely needed a stout man with protective arms. Aye, a good match, that. One Emma would never get to make.
“How dare you return here,” Lady Mercer said.
“I have done nothing wrong.” Emma held her chin high.
“You stole another woman’s suitor. You betrayed your friend’s trust.”
“Do you see me married?”
“You did not care if you married, only that she did not. Yours is a cold heart.”
Emma’s feet were cold, but her temper boiling. And her heart… well, she’d not consulted that organ in quite some time. “Absurd. I tried my best to save Miss Dunn from pain. She would not listen to me.”
“Do not come back to these rooms.” Lady Mercer’s voice held the finality of the grave. “You are not welcome. Not here. Not in our homes or gardens. Not in our lives. Do you think we’d trust you around our daughters after last winter?”
“But you’ll trust that snake, Parkington? He is the one who should be shunned. Not me.”
“You seduced him.”
Emma laughed. When she found breath enough, she let the sound die down the street and stood straighter. “Is that what he’s been telling everyone? I wouldnever.” He’d tried to seduce her. He’d failed. He’d sought revenge with the surest of weapons—gossip.
Emma strode down the street and into the fog.
Lady Mercer did not try to stop her, and after three steps, Emma heard the door of the assembly rooms slam shut.
Only then did she droop.
Utter failure.
The gas lamps on either side of the street flickered in the deep fog, and her brain could not quite cut through the haze of her situation. How to move forward?
One step at a time and closer to St. Andrew’s Square. Closer to her father, too, and he would not be pleased. Her shiver had little to do with the chill air, yet she hesitated when she stood before her family’s home. Perhaps he was not inside. Perhaps he was in the old town, losing money over cards or wine or women. That was better than facing him after such a spectacular failure.
Surely he’d be out carousing.
