duchess’s ball.’
Yet even as he shook hands with Gilesworth to make their devil’s bargain, he knew something momentous was going to happen.
Whether for good or ill, he could not say. He only knew Mary Manning had suddenly made him feel alive again.
Mary watched her reflection in the mirror as her maid put the last touches on her coiffure for the Duchess of Thwaite’s ball. Usually, she saw none of the elaborate process of braiding and pinning. There were too many other things to go over in her mind. The people her father wanted her to talk to at the party; remembering everyone’s names; organising their own dinner parties and who would require return calls and invitations later.
She knew the maids knew their jobs and trusted them to make her look presentable. She knew that she herself could always be called ‘presentable’. Pretty enough, always suitably dressed, knowledgeable enough of fashion. She had always been taught to be appropriate.
But she was certainly no stylish beauty like Lady Louisa, or like her own mother. Maria Manning, with her dark Portuguese eyes and musical laugh, had always dazzled everyone. Mary knew she didn’t have it in her power to be like that, so she did all she could otherwise. Studied, watched her manners, tried to be helpful.
But tonight she found herself peering into the looking glass as the maid twined a wreath of pink-and-white rosebuds through the braids of her glossy brown hair. She felt so unaccountably nervous tonight, almost unable to sit still. Her thoughts wouldn’t stay put on her duties for the duchess’s ball, but kept darting all around like shimmering summer butterflies. And she knew exactly why she felt so flighty tonight.
Lord Sebastian Barrett.
Just thinking his name made her want to laugh aloud. Mary found she couldn’t quite quell her confusion, that feeling of warm, bubbling anticipation mixed with the twinge of fear. Would he be there that night? She knew Lady Alnworth had said he would. The duchess’s ball was the event of the Season, and Lord Sebastian was the hero of London at the moment. Surely she would see him there.
Yet if he were there, what would she do? What if he talked to her—or didn’t talk to her? He was so very handsome, so very sought after, he could certainly have his pick of feminine company.
She remembered the way he had smiled at her in Lady Alnworth’s drawing room, the easy way they had talked together. When she was actually with him, there hadn’t been this fear. It was only now, thinking about him in the silence of her own room, that she felt so uncertain about everything. And Mary hated being unsure of what to feel, what to do.
She closed her eyes and remembered that morning, when she had gone to take the air with Lady Louisa in the Smythe carriage at the park and she had glimpsed Lord Sebastian in the distance. He had looked so distracted and solemn on his horse, dressed in dark riding clothes, and she had wanted to go to him.
Yet he had seemed somehow to want to remain unobtrusive. He did not wear his dashing regimentals and was alone at the park at a quiet hour. He seemed so distant, as if his thoughts were not on the present moment at all. She hadn’t even had the heart to point him out to Louisa.
She had been thrilled at the unexpected sight of him and had longed to call out to him, yet something about his very stillness, his solitary state, had held her back. But then he looked up and saw her, and a smile touched his face. There was only time for him to nod and tip his hat to her, and for her to raise her hand in answer. Then he was lost to sight.
It was that look on his face at that moment that haunted Mary now. That expression of stark—loneliness. It was a feeling she knew very well.
‘What do you think, Miss Manning?’ the maid said, pulling Mary from her daydreams.
She opened her eyes to look again into the looking glass. She was quite startled by what she saw.
The maid had tried something new with her hair, a twist of braids and curls with the roses and a few pearl pins, and it seemed quite transformative. Her cheeks seemed pinker, her eyes shining.
‘You are quite a marvel,’ she told the maid, twisting her head to get another view. ‘I don’t look like myself at all.’
The girl laughed. ‘Of course you do, Miss Manning! You just look extra-happy today, if I can be so bold to say so. It must be a very grand ball you’re going to tonight.’
‘It is indeed grand,’ Mary said, but she knew very well it wasn’t the prospect of the ball that made her cheeks so pink. She had been to magnificent courtly festivities in St Petersburg, all gilt and pageantry, and they had never filled her with such a tingling excitement of anticipation. It was Lord Sebastian.
There. She had quite admitted it to herself. She was excited to see Lord Sebastian.
Mary laughed, feeling rather giddy.
‘Come on, miss, let’s get you into your gown now,’ the maid said.
Mary nodded, and pushed herself back from her dressing table. Her gaze caught on the miniature portrait of her mother she kept there on a gold stand. Maria Manning had been a true beauty, with a pale oval face and laughing dark eyes, her black hair twined atop her head beneath the intricate lace of her mantilla. Maria’s smile seemed to urge her daughter to go dance at the ball, to be bold for the first time in her life. To follow in her mother’s passionate Iberian footsteps.
Mary remembered the story of her parents’ meeting, of how her father had seen her mother at a ball and they had fallen instantly in love. Mary had always loved hearing those tales and deep down in her most secret heart she had wondered how such a love must feel. As she grew up and saw more of the world, she had known how rare feelings like that really were. She had known she would never find such a thing for herself and would have to be content with a match made of friendship. With a useful, contented marriage.
Now—now it felt almost as if the sun had burst out from behind grey clouds, all surprising and brilliant and glorious. A man like Sebastian Barrett was in the world!
Surely even if he never spoke to her again, that would be enough to give her hope.
But she did hope he would talk to her.
Mary smiled back at her mother and hurried over to let the maid help her into her gown. It was a new creation, straight from the most sought-after modiste in London. Lady Louisa had been quite envious when she heard Mary was to have her new gown in time for the Thwaite ball, but for Mary it had been only one more correct thing to do. She had to look right as her father’s hostess.
But now she was very glad she had the new dress. It was much lighter than the heavily embroidered court gowns she had had to wear in St Petersburg, a fluttering, pale-pink silk trimmed with white lace frills and tiny satin rosebuds. The short, puffed sleeves barely skimmed the edges of her shoulders and white satin ribbons fluttered at the high waist. There was even a matching pair of pink-silk slippers, trimmed at the toes with more roses.
Mary couldn’t resist a little spin to make the skirts froth up, making the maid laugh. She felt as light and pink and rosy as the gown itself.
She just hoped Lord Sebastian would like it.
* * *
‘Mary! Mary, over
