Page 90 of The Viscount Who Vexed Me

Hattie was about to tell her what she could do with her question when Flora appeared. She smiled. “You look beautiful, Hattie.”

“Thank you.”

Queenie frowned at Flora. “Where were you? I looked everywhere.”

“Getting some air, Queenie. Hattie... Why did he dance with you?” Flora asked.

That seemed to be the burning question on everyone’s mind. “I think because...he...didn’t see you,” she blurted.

Flora’s expression flooded with relief. “Do you really think so?”

“I do. He as much as said he was looking for a familiar face.”

Which could have been anyone, but Flora didn’t know that. She smiled triumphantly at Queenie.

Queenie, however, was not fooled. “Then why isn’t he looking for her now?”

“Why? Oh, he, ah—”

“Miss Raney?”

The three of them turned at once, surely all of them thinking it was him. But it wasn’t him, it was another gentleman who asked if they might spare Flora for a dance. She accepted, and went off, leaving Queenie and Hattie once more.

Queenie was eyeing her closely.

Hattie sighed. “What, Queenie?”

“It doesn’t add up, that’s all. You’re not...you’re simply not—”

“You don’t have to tell me my place in this world,” Hattie interrupted.

“Well, I didn’t meanthat,” Queenie insisted.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Hattie said, and turned away from her, disappearing into the crowd. She was constantly reminded that she wasn’t in her “place.” But where was her place? What room, what house, what city was that? She would dearly love to know where it was quite all right with everyone that she simply be herself.

The evening dragged on as she knew it would. No one asked her to dance. No one introduced her, although she saw introductions being made all around her. She saw Daniel a few times, dancing with different women. She didn’t know he knew how to dance or even liked it. It was so unfair—because he was a man with a handsome face, he was allowed to enter the private kingdom of the elite.

She tried desperately not to look for Teo every time she turned around, but her heart defied her head, and she kept seeing him in the company of attractive, wealthy women—blonde, brunette, ginger, it was all the same. They were women of privilege and standing, of child-bearing years, and she had no doubt any of them would make a fine duchess. And Teo? He played his part beautifully. He nodded at things they said, held their gaze when they talked. And he danced.

It was hard to imagine this regal man was the same one who had been mixing dough in the kitchen one night.

At long last, one gentleman introduced himself to Hattie. He was a captain in the navy, he said, and wore a worn coat. He was at least three decades older than her. She danced with him and listened politely as he complained about the closeness of the room and theorized why Lord Abbott had not hired a hall. She escaped him and retreated to the potted ferns with a glass of champagne.

That’s when she saw Flora and Teo dancing. They were smiling at each other.

Her heart sank like it had been weighted with rocks. She wasn’t surprised, and in a strange, impossible way, she was happy for them. They would make a lovely couple.

But at the same time, she felt sick. It was just her luck to have fallen in love with a man so far above her as to be on a cloud.

“Miss Woodchurch, you are quite far away to be admiring the dancing.”

Hattie turned; a very handsome man smiled down at her. She knew him at once—he was Mr. Donovan from the Iddesleigh House. He used to come round to the school with tarts. “Mr. Donovan!” she cried, thrilled that there was someone here she knew.

“You look luscious, madam, if I may say. But a little forlorn. Now tell me,whyare you hiding in a corner? Have your suitors exhausted you?”

Hattie laughed. “I have no suitors, Mr. Donovan.”

“What?”He pressed a hand to his heart and pretended to be shocked. “Then how lucky I am. Will you do me the honor of this dance?”