There Will Be Phlogiston by Alexis Hall

Author:Alexis Hall [Hall, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-912688-82-1
Publisher: Alexis Hall

6

Rosamond was not enjoying anything.

The visits. The dinners. The balls.

They whirled around her like a carousel until they were nothing but a moving haze, the colour of the Gaslight smog.

Lack of enjoyment had somehow developed from a passive state to an active one. And was manifesting in headaches.

She was on her way to the retiring room—where she had been spending increasing amounts of her time—when voices in the antechamber arrested her retreat. She was not a natural eavesdropper, being insufficiently interested in the lives others, but she hesitated when she recognised the marquess’s southern drawl. It was surely just prejudice for an unfamiliar accent, but it was hard not to perceive an undertone of contempt when one lengthened one’s As so excessively.

“—return soon,” he was saying. “And thank God for that. I cannot abide this pissant little backwater with its delusions of grandeur.”

“Ah, but you’ll be a married man.” That was one of his friends, the Viscount of Whatever or Sir Thingamy. “Linked by ties of blood and family to this pissant little backwater.”

“Hardly. It’s nothing more than money.”

“And your wife-to-be. She’s a pretty little thing.”

The marquess gave a less-than-elegant snort. “If your taste runs to shopkeepers and coalminers, certainly. But she’s docile, I’ll grant you. She’ll be comfortable enough at the Hall, and I daresay I’ll do my duty on her.”

“You can close your eyes and think of England.”

“I’ll be thinking of the divine Angelique.” The marquess laughed. Rosamond had never heard him do that before, and she didn’t enjoy it now. “Perhaps she’ll consider my protection now since pockets are no longer to let.”

Rosamond had heard enough. Too much, far too much. She slipped away.

He had expressed nothing she did not already know. Or, at the very least, suspected. Expected. But now it was all clad in words; it seemed real in ways it hadn’t before. And, she realised, what he’d taken from her was hope.

It should not have been so devastating.

Surely it was better to have this certainty now than have to come to terms with it later.

But God. God.

She couldn’t face the retiring room. It would be full of women faffing with their flounces and powdering their décolletages. She reeled blindly down the corridor, and barged into . . . oh . . . somewhere.

What did it matter? It was dark within and quiet. And she was alone. She dropped onto a sofa, covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears.

Crying was part of her skill set. She did it very beautifully indeed.

This was not beautiful.

It was more like hiccoughing, and the tears came not in delicate droplets but in a damp and snotty deluge. And, worse still, having permitted herself this weakness, she could not seem to bring herself back under control. All she could do was sit there, gulping and wailing, and rendering her complexion blotchy and horrific.

And then, of course, someone opened the door on her, spilling light into the room. She gave a little scream and threw up an arm as if she could protect herself from being seen.

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