red your face is, Miss Mallon.” Betty was looking at her curiously.
“It’s very hot in here,” Margery said. She pushed the memory of the kiss from her mind and concentrated sharply on the crowd of guests now thronging the hall. Lady Rothbury, Lady Grant’s sister, was looking particularly stunning in a gown of eau de nil that shimmered with gold thread. Her gaze moved on, over the welter of colors and styles, the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans. The air was scented now with a mixture of hothouse flowers and perfume. The chatter of the guests rang in her ears. Margery craned forward for a closer look at a tall, thin woman in a striped gown that shrieked Parisian design. The movement caught the eye of the gentleman by her side. He looked up and their eyes met.
All the air left Margery’s body in a rush. The candles spun in the chandeliers like a wheel of light.
It was the gentleman from the brothel.
For one very long moment they stared at each other while the sound beat in Margery’s ears, and the light dazzled her eyes and she could neither move nor breathe. Then the gentleman inclined his head in the slightest of bows, and a mocking smile curled his mouth, and Margery knew he had recognized her. Movement returned to her body, and with it an intensification of the hot blush that spread through her so fast she felt as though she were burning up. The pencil slid from her fingers. The book tumbled off her lap as she jumped to her feet, smoothing her skirts with clumsy hands. She drew back behind the shelter of the pillar. Her heart was hammering underneath her bodice and her palms felt damp.
Who was he? What was he doing here? Would he give her away?
If he should mention to Lady Grant that one of her maids had been in Mrs. Tong’s brothel, that would be the end of her. She would be thrown out in the street without a reference and with no prospect of another respectable job. Her heated body turned cold. She would be forced to beg her brother Billy for work. She could not be a tavern wench or even a courtesan because she was not pretty enough, and anyway, that was no way to think….
“Miss Mallon!”
Margery’s frightened thoughts were scuttling around and it was a moment before she realized that she was being addressed. Mrs. Biddle, the housekeeper, was standing a foot away, glaring at them. Betty gave a little gasp and leapt up, pressing her hands to her reddening cheeks, horror in her eyes at being caught. Margery retrieved her pencil and notebook, trying to regain a little composure.
“Run along, Betty,” Mrs. Biddle said sharply. “You have work to do.”
Betty scrambled a curtsy and scurried away.
“I’m sorry,” Margery said. “It was my fault. Betty would like to be lady’s maid one day and I was teaching her a little about the job.”
“Lady Grant is asking for her silver gauze scarf,” Mrs. Biddle said, her tone softening. She was always respectful of Margery’s position as a senior servant. In other ways, she mothered her. “If you could take it down to the parlor, Miss Mallon, Mr. Soames will deliver it to the ballroom for her ladyship.”
“Of course, Mrs. Biddle,” Margery said. It would be unheard-of for her to take the scarf to Lady Grant herself. No one but the butler and the footmen could be seen at an evening function. The rest of the servants had to be invisible.
She hurried to Lady Grant’s bedchamber and found the silver gauze scarf that perfectly complemented Lady Grant’s evening gown. It was impossibly sheer and silky, embroidered with tiny silver stars and crescent moons. For a moment Margery raised it to her cheek, enjoying the soft caress of the material against her skin. She had never owned so luxurious an item in her entire life.
With an envious little sigh, she tucked the scarf under her arm and went out along the corridor and down the servants’ stair. She hesitated before pushing open the green baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the hall. She was not quite sure why. Her mysterious gentlemen, whoever he was, would be in the ballroom by now with the skinny woman in the elegant gown. There was no chance of meeting him.
Sure enough the hall was empty. She felt a slight pang of regret.
Mr. Soames was waiting for her in the parlor. She handed over the shawl and he took it as reverently as though it were a holy relic. Margery tried not to laugh. Mr. Soames was always so serious about everything, but then a butler’s job was a serious business, the very pinnacle of a male servant’s ambition. He had told her that, if she was lucky and worked hard, she might reach the top of her profession, too, and become a housekeeper one day.
Mr. Soames went out carrying his precious burden, closing the door softly behind him. Margery waited for a moment in the warm, silent confines of the parlor.
Margery had a hundred and one tasks waiting for her. Lady Grant’s dressing room needed to be tidied. Her nightclothes needed to be laid out for the moment, several hours ahead, when she finally retired from the ball. In the meantime, there was a pile of mending to be done, invisible work that required Margery’s keen eyes and nimble fingers. Her head ached to think of peering over tiny stitches in the pale candlelight.
On impulse she released the catch on the parlor door instead and stepped out onto the terrace. The mending could wait for a few more minutes.
It was cool outside, so early in the year. The air was fresh, the sky blurred with mist and scented with the smoke of all London’s chimneys. Beneath that was the sweeter smell of flowers mingled with perfume and candle wax. Margery drew in a deep breath. She could hear the music from the ballroom. The orchestra was playing the opening bars of a country-dance. She could picture the scene, the candlelight, the jewels, the vivid rainbow colors of the gowns. It was a world so close and yet so far out of reach.
The music called to something long lost inside her. In her memory, she could hear an orchestra playing and see an enormous ballroom stretching as far as the eye could see. Light sparkled from huge mirrors. The swish of silken gowns was all around her.
Her feet started to move to the music. She had not danced in years. She usually sat out the servants’ balls that employers insisted on holding each Christmas. She had no desire for her feet to be crushed by a clumsy coachman who fancied himself a dancer.
She twirled along the terrace, feeling lighter than air. It was ridiculous; she smiled to herself as she imagined quite how ridiculous she must look. It was also the sort of thing she never did. She was too serious, too sensible, to indulge in such a frivolous activity as dancing alone on a misty moonlit terrace.
The music changed, slid into a waltz, and Margery spun up against a very hard, masculine chest. Arms closed about her, steadying her. Her palms flattened against the smooth material of a particularly expensive and well-made evening jacket. Her legs pressed against a pair of very hard, masculine thighs encased in particularly well-made and expensive trousers. Margery noticed these things and told herself it was because she was a lady’s maid and trained to assess fashion, male or female, at a glance and a touch.
“Dance with me,” her dark gentleman said. He was smiling at her in exactly the way he had smiled in the hall of the brothel before he kissed her, that wicked, provocative smile. “You were meant to dance with me.”
Margery faltered. He was holding her in the way a man held his partner in the waltz, but suddenly she wanted to twist out of his grip and run away. She felt breathless and trapped and excited all at once.
“I cannot waltz,” she protested. It was a modern dance, new and more than a little scandalous. At least, it was the way that he was holding her. She
