Page 71 of Trouble

Emily turned, trying to push down all that wrath and outrage until she was a slate wiped clean.

It didn’t really matter that Captain Edwards’s face changed when he saw her – that his eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open maybe a quarter or a third of an inch. It didn’t matter that his eyes swept down her body and back up again, from her ridiculous dress to her silly hair, and then came to land on her face with an expression that looked almost like quiet wonder.

It didn’t matter because she was marching upstairs to change back into her own clothes and be where she belonged. Deluding herself that it meant anything that he might like herdress, or be somewhat impressed by what Akia had managed to do with her hair, was folly.

‘Miss Laurence,’ he said again. He had to clear his throat before doing it. ‘Meera was asking after you in the ballroom.’

‘Are you a messenger, now?’ Emily said, apparently throwing caution not just to the wind but off the edge of the cliffs.

Captain Edwards barely seemed to register the slight. He had the same half-dazed look that Emily had once seen on Amy, when a large bucket had fallen from a shelf and knocked her hard on the temple. He wasn’t wearing his uniform tonight, but he was wearing an unfussy blue-black jacket fitted perfectly to the lines of his shoulders, which was almost as bad.

‘More like a gooseherd,’ he said benignly. And then, far less benignly, ‘Or a lion tamer.’

‘I am not a goose.’ Emily knocked back the wine and walked reluctantly back down the stairs.

‘Jury’s out on the lion, though,’ Captain Edwards said in a low, resonant voice as she passed him.

It made her feel oddly hot and shivery all over. She was keenly aware of him at her back as she re-entered the drawing room, and felt the loss when he peeled away to talk to somebody else.

By the time she reached Meera and Akia, Emily could feel that her face was flushed without having to touch it. Meera looked from the glass in her hand to her pink cheeks and made a jovial attempt at disapproval.

‘Three sheets to the wind, is it? Or have we lost count of sheets.’

‘This is only my second drink,’ Emily said defensively.

‘Of the past two minutes,’ said Akia.

‘What was it that you wanted?’ Emily said. ‘Captain Edwards said you needed me.’

‘Oh, I don’t need you,’ Meera said, smiling wickedly. ‘I just saw you leaving, and after all our hard work, I couldn’t stand forthat. Come on, they’re starting another dance.’

She all butshovedEmily into the line, and Emily didn’t have time to protest that she didn’t really knowhowto dance, which was only number three on her list of reasons why this was her worst nightmare come to life.

Luckily for Emily, the dance was not complicated. Luckily for Meera, she’d had the presence of mind to push Akia into the fray, too, so that Emily was not on her own, and was therefore slightly less inclined to murder the housekeeper later. She was certain she made a few very obvious missteps, but everybody else was too soused to notice; she ended up being swung around on the arms of two different gentlemen, one young and giddy and the other older and very, very drunk.

The younger, giddier one, who was likely five years Emily’s junior, had the audacity to ask her for another dance after the first had finished. Emily stared at him, convinced he must be joking, and only believed this wasn’t some elaborate trick when the music started again and he reached for her hand.Hewas not a good dancer, but that only helped to soothe Emily’s nerves; she wouldn’t have admitted it with a bayonet to her throat, but there was something freeing about dancing like this, blending into the row of ladies on either side of her, as if she too had not a care in the world.

It was probably just the wine.

Her high spirits abated when she saw who had joined the end of the line. Captain Edwards was dancing with Mrs Augusta Spencer.

They looked .?.?.perfecttogether. Mrs Spencer’s elegance and poise were the ideal match for Captain Edwards’s solemnity and stature, and Emily could see some of the guests watching, muttering among themselves and smiling, enjoying the spectacle of an exciting union about to come to fruition.

Emily tried not to look at them. She tried not to notice when Mrs Spencer smiled at Captain Edwards, and Captain Edwards smiled back.

She went to get some more wine between dances, and had only taken one sip when Meera removed it from her hand and gave it to Akia, who drank it down in one.

‘Excuse me,’ Emily said. ‘That was very rude.’

‘Letting you drink unabated in polite company feels rather like handing a torch to a child and sending them off into a hay barn,’ said Meera. ‘You set plenty of fires without needing libations, Amy.’

Amy. Emily was suddenly on the verge of telling her the truth, for no reason she could fathom.

‘Meera .?.?.’ Emily started, but both Meera and Akia had seen something over her shoulder and immediately buried their faces in drinks and pivoted away as Emily turned to see what the matter was.

‘Miss Laurence.’ There was that errant thrill of pleasure again, finger-walking up the length of her spine. Captain Edwards’s colour was up from the dancing. Perhaps he had also been drinking. ‘Would you .?.?. ?’

It took Emily such a long time to grasp his meaning that she would not have been surprised if he had given up and walked away. Once she did, however, the part of her that always longed topushat him won out again.