Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 116547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Twenty-six, your ladyship.”
“And your family, do I know of them? Is your mother here?” she pressed in the most obvious of manners, and for some reason, I could not help but feel a tad embarrassed.
“My mother has long since passed, and my father…my father is the Marquess of Whitmear.”
There was silence. I was unsure why the marchioness’s eyes widened and her shoulders dropped, but I did not like it.
“Oh well, he must be greatly pleased by your education.” She tried to recover and then took hold of Hathor’s arm, ready to leave. Before the marchioness could speak, Lord Fancot interjected quickly.
“Henry, how rude of you not to ask Lady Hathor for a dance!”
Henry’s eyes widened as he looked to his father. When the man nodded to Hathor, he was forced to look to her once more.
“Lady Hathor, would you honor with me a dance?” he asked, outstretching his hand to her.
“Only if Lady Verity takes to the floor as well.” Hathor smiled brightly and shifted her gaze to me. It was now I whose eyes were in danger of falling out of my head. I glanced once to the doors, wishing to escape but knowing it was not possible, before glancing back to Hathor.
“Effort.” She mouthed to me.
This…she…AH! I screamed on the inside.
Smiling back, I said, “I am without a partner, so—”
“That is not a problem at all, now, is it, Theodore?” Henry looked to him, and now like some sort of comedy act we all stood in a circle staring at one another under the heated gazes of our parents and guardians.
“Well? What are you all waiting for!” Lord Fancot pushed once more.
Hathor nodded, taking Henry’s hand, and when Theodore’s hand outstretched to me, I met his gaze.
“Lady Verity, may I?” he said gently.
I could not speak. I merely took his hand once more and it was so warm, though not uncomfortably so, nor was it sweaty, but like holding your hand up to the sun. Gently and quietly he led me to the center of the marble floor. So quietly that when I turned to face him again I felt my throat go dry, and I swallowed.
What on earth is the matter with me?
His hazel eyes peered into mine as we began to dance. I expected him to say something, make any sort of conversation, as one normally would in this situation. However, he did not, only stared at me unflinchingly…and with each turn, with each touch of our hands, it felt like pressure building within my chest. So much so, I felt slightly light-headed. Gradually, everything else faded away, the world around me distant, and I was just floating with this strange man to the sound of Bach—Prelude and Fugue in C Major.
Everything felt so…bright.
I was not sure how to explain it but when I finally found the air in my lungs to speak again, the movement was over and we had returned to our places across from each other. Theodore bowed his head and I curtsied slightly, but before I even rose fully he had walked away from me.
“I wish they had played something more joyful,” Hathor said as she returned to my side, blocking my view of his retreating figure.
“What?” I asked her.
“For the dance?” She pressed glancing me over. “Are you all right? You seem rather short of breath. Do you not dance often?”
I was not short of breath from the dance, I was sure of it. But I did not want to attribute it to my partner, for that would mean twice my breath had caught because of him.
“I am fine,” I lied to her.
“Good, see, a little effort does no harm.” She huffed and walked back to her mother and father.
“Verity.” I looked to Silva as she met us. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that you must accept a dance from a few other gentlemen this evening.”
“What? Instructed by whom?”
She nodded her head back toward the marchioness, who offered me a smile and nod.
“I believe she is worried what talk there will be if you dance only with Dr. Darrington this evening. It would be rather…troublesome.”
“Why? And what happened earlier? The mood changed so drastically before we went to dance.”
“The Marquess of Whitmear has been married to Lady Charlotte for the last twenty-five years,” she whispered back to me, taking my arm. But Dr. Darrington had said his mother had passed on.
“So his father remarried? Why would that be troubling?” Granted, a year later was relatively soon.
“The Marquess of Whitmear was never married before then,” she answered, and when I still stared at her, unable, or maybe unwilling, to put the two together, she said it clearly. “He is the marquess’s bastard.”
The very first thought that came to mind was my now departed father and how his unfortunate choices had impacted all of our lives. The most public suffering was that of my brothers, of which I had three—Evander and Gabrien, who were considered legitimate, and then there was Fitzwilliam, the eldest and the bastard of Everely. I had rarely ever spoken to him, and it had been years since I had seen his face. I was not even sure if I would recognize him if he walked past me in town.