Page 68 of Trouble

‘She asked me to stand at one end of the ballroom next to a candelabra and pretend I was having a private conversation with someone,’ Akia said, when their paths crossed in the hall after the tablecloths incident. ‘And then I had to move away inch by inch, so that she could work out exactly how far you had to go before you were in shadow. Apparently clandestine shadows arekeyto throwing a good ball.’

It seemed that Captain Edwards had also been busy, although Emily doubted that Meera had managed to get him measuring tablecloths or standing next to candelabras. She came across him completely by accident a few days before the ball, when she had been sent into the strawberry drawing room in search of a particular vase that Meera wanted for her flowers. He was hiding in that same corner again, reading.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I was just .?.?. Meera sent me for something.’

‘No, carry on,’ he said.

She went to the windowsill and located the vase in question. It reminded her too strongly of the night he’d caught her stealing; she could only hope that it did not jog his memory, too, and prompt a conversation with Meera about the box that had never quite made it to her.

‘Everybody seems very busy,’ he remarked, now only pretending to read.

‘Yes,’ said Emily. ‘As you may recall, you announced a ball.’

‘I did,’ Captain Edwards said gravely.

‘And yet it is not you who is being sent to find vases, or trim the tassels on the drawing room curtains.’

‘Trim the .?.?. ?’ He glanced up from his book, horrified for a moment, before he realised that Emily was joking and his face softened. ‘Yes. You’re right. I have not been of much use. I have .?.?. also been busy.’

‘Doing what?’ said Emily.

‘Talking to my children,’ the captain said, with such a nervous twist to his expression that Emily laughed.

‘Oh, the horror,’ she said. ‘I hope you will recover in time for your dance.’

‘It has not actually been .?.?. quite as difficult as I had anticipated,’ he said. ‘They are very funny. They take after their mother in that regard.’

‘I could have told you they were funny a month ago,’ said Emily.

‘Yes. Well. The next time we quarrel about my failings, you may strike this one off the list of complaints.’

‘That will barely make a dent in the list.’

Captain Edwards raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Fascinating.’

Emily did not really know what to do with this, or with the odd little jump of her stomach when he looked at her like that.

‘I’ll just .?.?.’ She gestured towards the door. Captain Edwards nodded, but he did not seem quite done with her yet.

‘You haven’t been avoiding me?’ he said, phrasing it somewhere halfway between a statement and a question. He seemed to be compensating for how vulnerable it was by trying to make it sound like an order.

‘No,’ said Emily firmly. ‘If only I had thetimeto avoid you. When my days clear up a little, I’ll see if I can schedule it in.’

He smiled at her – a true smile, relieved and open and warm – and Emily allowed herself to wonder if that moment in the kitchen when he had been injured, their conversations in his study and the garden, his arm bumping hers as they prepared endless soup, had actually .?.?.meantsomething. Not the casual drunk advances of a lonely man, or an ordinary rapport between master and governess, but something fragile and important that she had not fully grasped, busy as she had been trying to ruin his life.

But the thought was only fleeting, and then it was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Emily really did consider feigning illness when the evening of the ball finally came. She would have been content to slink off to her room and enjoy an evening of peace and quiet while the others made merry, but none of the servants would hear of it.

‘What do you usually do with your hair?’

Akia had cornered Emily and somehow herded her up into her bedroom. She had been gently forced down on to the footstool in front of the mirror, and not allowed to get back up again.

Emily’s hair had a loose, uneven natural curl, and she usually pinned it up in the simplest bun possible, not bothering to try to shape it into something more extravagant.

Apparently, this would not do.