do hope that you are allowed to enjoy yourself a little, Miss Filmer. Standing around keeping an eye on that timid little thing must be dull work.”
“Oh, Mr Tenison has been extremely kind to me,” she ventured prettily. “Did he not ensure that I have not lacked for a partner tonight by recommending me to you? I trust that by doing so when Emma had her crise de nerfs just now he has not discommoded you.”
Adrian, who was not at all sure that he knew what a crise de nerfs was, and hoped that it was not catching, said artlessly, “Dear Miss Filmer, I was absolutely charmed by my first sight of you when you lost your ugly cap, and was delighted to have you for a partner instead of the mouse.”
Suddenly aware that in being so gallant to Athene he had impolitely slighted her charge, he added hastily, “Not that I meant anything wrong about Miss Emma, not at all…” He rapidly ran down, aware that anything he said might make matters worse.
“Oh, quite,” said Athene. “Poor little thing, it is quite an affliction with her. Crowds always seem to depress her.”
“But not you, I’ll be bound,” offered Adrian. The dance temporarily parting them, he spent the next few moments thinking up compliments which would not offend and congratulating himself on having found a real beauty. No chance of not being able to provide Clan Drummond with the wanted heir if he married, and bedded, her!
By the time the dance ended Athene had managed to convey that if Lord Kinloch was charmed by her, she was charmed by him. She had given him the address of the Tenisons’ town house after he had informed her that he wished to further their acquaintance. He was not so stupid as to be unaware that the only way in which he could see more of Athene was by showing an interest in the mouse.
Or perhaps he could persuade Nick to appear to pursue the mouse whilst he cultivated Athene. On second thoughts that was not a good idea. Nick would never agree to deceive a woman by pretending to admire her. He was too stupidly honest for that.
Nick, meanwhile, was further cultivating Mr Tenison by discussing with him Plato and his notions about morality, until Mrs Tenison returned, a somewhat recovered Emma in tow.
“A drink of water with a little brandy in it has restored the dear child,” she announced, before looking around her to discover that Athene and Lord Kinloch were both missing.
“Where in the world has Filmer disappeared to, Mr Tenison? I trust that she is not ailing, too. That would be the outside of enough. Emma needs her protection.”
Mr Tenison allowed apologetically that he had suggested that Lord Kinloch having lost his partner, he might still enjoy his dance if Miss Filmer acted as a substitute for Emma.
“Indeed,” said Mrs Tenison frostily. She looked at Nick and decided that he would not do as a partner for Emma. He was not a lord, and she had never heard of him. He was not on the list of eligible young men which she and her sponsor, Lady Dunlop, had drawn up between them.
Nick was saved by the return of Adrian and Pallas Athene from asking Emma, to whom he had offered his chair, to be his partner in the next dance. Athene, delighted that Lord Kinloch was so obviously taken by her, adopted a suitably demure manner when he gallantly insisted on handing her to a chair instead of restoring her to her usual humble station behind the Tenisons. She had no wish to offend Mrs Tenison more than was necessary. If she were to do so she might find herself sent back to Northampton.
That lady took one look at her radiant face—so different from Emma’s pale one—and barked at her, “Where is your cap, Filmer? What have you done with it?”
To Athene’s amusement, Adrian, wounded a little on his beauty’s behalf, said tactlessly, “It fell off, madam, because it did not fit Miss Filmer properly, and she is not a dull old thing who needs to wear something to hide her lack of looks!”
If this reproach both pleased and amused Athene, it stung Mrs Tenison, who now had the task of placating the young man whom she had mentally marked down as a prospect for Emma.
“Oh, quite,” she said, while looking to her husband for guidance, something which she rarely did. “Most proper of you, Lord Kinloch. You may leave it off in future, Miss Filmer.”
Oh, so she was Miss Filmer now, was she? And Lord Kinloch had just saved her from the humiliation of wearing her dreadful cap. She had barely time to take in these two momentous concessions when she registered that Mr Cameron was looking at her with the oddest expression on his face. If Nick was experienced in the art of reading other people’s expressions well, Athene, who was a novice just acquiring this necessary skill, was already acute enough to grasp that, for some reason, Mr Nicholas Cameron did not approve of her.
Well, pooh, to that, he was not the man in whom she was interested, although judging by the manner in which the cousins spoke to one another it would be as well not to antagonise him.
She had scarcely had time to think this before she was astonished to find Nick bowing to her, and saying in his deep, gravel voice, quite unlike Lord Kinloch’s charming, light tenor, “I trust that you will do me the honour of standing up with me in the next dance, Miss Filmer.”
Here was another splendid opportunity to cement her new-found friendship with Lord Kinloch and all his hangers-on.
“I should be delighted, sir,” she replied, casting her eyes innocently down.
If she was not fooling herself in her pursuit of Adrian, neither was she fooling Nick. He could scarcely suppress a grin when he put out his hand to take her on to the floor.
“Athene,” he said to her charming profile. “Grey-eyed Pallas. May one ask if you own an owl as well?”
He wondered if she were educated enough to catch the allusion. Athene turned towards him, and if grey eyes could ever glitter, hers glittered. Conversation with Mr Cameron was obviously going to be of quite a different order from that with his cousin. She wondered what Mr Tenison had been saying to him.
She decided to be honest and not pretend charming innocence. “I only possess the name of the Greek goddess of wisdom, Mr Cameron, not her attributes. Owls are in short supply in our part of Northampton.”
“But not wisdom, I suppose. Tell me, does your young charge frequently suffer from these fits?”
There was something slightly cutting in his tone. They had reached their set, so she turned to face him before the dance began.
“They are not fits, Mr Cameron,” she told him coolly, “and I am sure that when you and Mr Tenison conversed he spoke to you of them. I am merely her companion, not her physician, but they are, I am sure, nervous only and when she becomes more confident will pass in time.”
“And do you intend to help her to be more confident, Miss Filmer? I would have thought that the presence of another young woman as much in command of herself as you seem to be might have the effect of distressing, rather than helping, her.”
“Then you thought wrongly again,” she told him, sure now by his tone of voice and his expression that he was her enemy, although why she could not imagine. “I happen to be able to comfort Miss Tenison. I have done so since we were at school together. It is others who have the opposite effect on her.”
She did not say, most of all her dominant mother, for that would have been neither proper nor polite. She was surprised that Mr Nicholas Cameron, who seemed a perceptive young man, had not noticed how much Emma’s mama extinguished her.
