“Oh, don’t worry. I know he isn’t really,” Penelope said. “You’re far too old. But it’s the principle of the thing, don’t you see? He has to wantme.”
Elinor gritted her teeth. “You are sending your mother awaytonight, Penelope. The news is bound to spread, no matter how hard you and your father work to keep it quiet. In fact, the news has probably”—definitely, she amended silently, as she thought of Miss Armitage’s busy pen—“already spread to London, even if your neighbors haven’t yet found out. If you wish to find a fiancé before the gossip goes wild, you haven’t any time to lose.”
“You’re right.” Penelope nodded firmly. She straightened her shoulders and tossed her hair, making the golden curls bounce on either side of her determined face. “It has to be tonight. There isn’t any way around it.”
“Good,” Elinor said, and let out her breath with a whoosh of pure relief. “That’s good. As soon as we go downstairs, you can tell Mr. Armitage—”
“First,” said Penelope, “I’ll get my proposal from Mr. Hawkins…whether he wishes to make it or not.”
And, with a sweep of her skirts, she was off, pushing her way to the front of the closest mirror while Elinor stared after her with a sick feeling of mounting dread.
Chapter 29
There was no time for Elinor to warn Benedict before the ball began. As the great Mrs. De Lacey and the most honoured guest anyone in the neighborhood had ever known, she was required to stand in the receiving line between Lady Hathergill and Sir John to greet the long stream of lesser guests whose carriages rattled up outside Hathergill Hall at eight o’clock.
Two more hours…
Elinor’s skin twitched with impatience as she touched her gloved fingers to hand after hand, nodding to each new guest with a smile that felt more forced with every passing minute. At least Penelope was trapped in this receiving line as well; that was her only consolation. As long as Elinor found Benedict the very moment the ball began, to warn him of what her cousin had in mind…
Penelope leaned up to whisper in Sir John’s ear, with an imploring look, just as old Mr. Adams from the next village clasped Elinor’s gloved hand.
“Enchanting, enchanting,” mumbled Mr. Adams. “Now whenIwas a lad, and went to London…”
Beside her, Lady Hathergill said loudly to Mr. Adams’s granddaughter, “Good God, but I pity the bird who died to make your hat!”
But Elinor still caught Sir John’s words to his daughter. “Of course you can, puss. Take all the time you need.”
Penelope curtseyed prettily to the line of remaining guests, and hurried away with a determined bounce to her step. A moment later, she was lost in the crowd.
“I beg your pardon,” Elinor said to Mr. Adams, “but if you’ll excuse me—”
“Nonsense,” said Sir John, overhearing. “You won’t abandon us at the post, will you, Mrs. De Lacey?”
The guests around them might have missed the warning in his tone. Elinor did not. She gritted her teeth.
The queue had to end soon. There weren’t that many people in this entire county, for heaven’s sake. All she had to do was wait a few more minutes.
“Of course not,” she said, and smiled fixedly at Mr. Adams’s granddaughter as the receiving line moved forward.
As usual, nowadays, her aunt had been perfectly correct: the huge, goggle-eyed stuffed pheasant that weighed down the girl’s bonnet looked as if it wanted to weep with outrage at its own indignity.
Sir Jessamyn, however, had the opposite reaction. He leaned forward, golden eyes fixing hungrily upon the bonnet. His tongue darted out from his mouth. The muscles in his legs bunched as he prepared to leap.
“What a pretty dragon!” Miss Adams said. “May I pet it, please?”
“It would be wiser not to.” Elinor put a steadying hand on Sir Jessamyn’s neck before he could lose all control, lunge forward and snatch himself an after-supper snack.
“Never mind,” she whispered to him consolingly, as Miss Adams moved forward in the line. “It was old and rotten anyway.”
Sir Jessamyn subsided, grumbling.
Fortunately, there were no more dead animals on the headpieces of the remaining guests. Only ten more minutes passed before the last guest had been greeted, and Elinor was free. She started forward through the crowd.
“Oh, Mrs. De Lacey—”
“Mrs. De Lacey, if I may—”
“Excuse me,” she said, and then raised her voice as her uncle’s neighbors clustered closer. “Pardon me!”
