An Unlikely Proposition by Rosalyn Eves

Author:Rosalyn Eves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

* * *

How did one remove the mask she had been wearing for so long?

That thought rang in Eleanor’s head two days later, standing in line for a country dance at Almack’s, watching a pair of dancers move up and down the dancing line. Her partner—she had already forgotten his name—smiled toothily at her from across the gap, and she smiled back, but she felt as though she were the puppeteer pulling strings on a marionette. Or perhaps she was the marionette. She moved, but the movements felt divorced from herself.

When the dance finished at last, Eleanor thanked her partner, checked the ballroom to make sure that both Anne and Thalia were happily occupied (when had she added Thalia to her mental list of people she cared about?), and made a beeline for the refreshments in a small room off to one side. True to its reputation, the refreshments at Almack’s were dreadful: watered-down lemonade, tea, and orgeat, with only thinly sliced bread and cake without icing. Eleanor scarcely tasted her lemonade though. She simply needed something to do, an excuse to move through the room and not think about how little the glitter around her touched her. To not think about how much happier (she was beginning to hate that word) she had been at Sophia and Owen’s.

Eleanor finished the last of her watery lemonade and handed the cup to a passing servant. Nothing else on the table tempted her, so she reluctantly returned to the ballroom. At the same time, George Lockhart emerged from the card room that had been set up in a neighboring room, and she nearly backed up into the refreshment room.

But no, she would not be so craven.

“Good evening, Mr. Lockhart,” she said. There, that was civil.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lockhart,” he said, with an unsettling smile. “How is your evening?”

“Well, thank you. And yours?”

“Quite good, thanks.”

“I take it you’ve had a run of luck at cards,” Eleanor said. She was rather surprised he endured the gaming tables at Almack’s—they could scarcely be called such, as the patronesses did not allow cards to be played for anything but paltry chicken stakes.

“I have not. As a matter of fact, I’ve been losing rather dreadfully. But I’ve made some progress in a venture that cheers me immensely.”

Eleanor wanted to ask him what venture, but she would not give him the satisfaction of fishing for information.

“How are your marriage plans proceeding?” Mr. Lockhart asked. “Where is your fiancé, anyway? Ah, there he is—dancing with Miss Aubrey. If you’re not careful, Eleanor, your own companion will cut you out and then where will you be?”

“My plans are none of your business.”

“Do you know, I believe they are? Your marriage directly affects my material prospects. I have seen no announcement in the Times, heard no whispers of banns being called. I am beginning to believe your engagement is a sham, meant only to tease me.”

Eleanor stilled. “Ask Mr. Salisbury, if you don’t believe me.”

“Perhaps I will.” He stroked his chin, as if in thought.

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