Lenore looked as though she might protest, but she gave in. “If that’s what you want.”
Ellen smiled and took her sister’s arm, heading over to one side of the room, where a jeweler had set up a display of necklaces, bracelets, and brooches for the women in attendance at the parade.
It was the strangest thing. Ellen knew that a portion of the ladies in the room were talking about her. She could tell from the glances that were sent her way. But none of them seemed interested in talking to her.
“Good morning, Lady Kettering,” she greeted one middle-aged woman with whom she’d had several cordial interactions in the past. “What a lovely entertainment this show has turned out to be, do you not agree?”
Ellen was certain she’d been perfectly polite and done everything just as she should, but Lady Kettering said, “Yes, it has been lovely. Please do excuse me, I’ve just noticed a friend of mine has arrived.”
She walked off without a backward glance.
Ellen frowned. “That is strange,” she said. “Lady Kettering has been so friendly to me in the past. She was so eager to introduce me to her son.”
Lenore hummed, but she didn’t make any further comment.
“Oh, there’s Lady Pepperidge,” Ellen said, tugging Lenore closer to the table of necklaces. “I know she’ll speak to me. She was quite interested in hearing about Papa’s ranch when I spoke to her at the theater two weeks ago.”
But Lady Pepperidge only had the most cursory of greetings for Ellen before wandering off to speak to the jeweler.
Ellen tried again with Lady Imogen Lawless and Lady Genevieve Purcell, who were much closer to her own age, but the two women seemed on the edge of giggles through their entire brief conversation. Still, Ellen tried her best.
“What do you think of these diamonds?” she asked Lady Imogen.
“They look quite expensive,” Lady Imogen replied.
Ellen grinned. “Money is no consideration for me,” she said with a haughty smile, rather like the one she’d seen Lady Margaret wear while telling the same two ladies about the new carriage her father had purchased specifically for her use. “I have more of it than I could spend in one lifetime, thanks to my father’s generosity, and a bit of my own ingenuity.”
Out of the corner of her eyes, Ellen caught Lenore wincing.
Lady Imogen and Lady Genevieve burst into scandalized laughter. “How gauche,” they said, then scurried away, heading in Lady Margaret’s direction.
Ellen’s shoulders dropped, and her heart sank to her feet with it. “I don’t understand,” she sighed, scanning the room for a sign of anyone from society who would speak to her. “I’ve done everything right. I am wearing the right, modest clothing, I am engaged to the son of a marquess, I have an invitation to the Duchess of Westminster’s ball, I have money, a father who is an important man. Everything is precisely as it should be. Why don’t they like me?”
Immediately, she regretted how pitiful she sounded. It was unbecoming. Perhaps that was the problem.
But Lenore gave her another reason to be concerned when she said, “Dearest, I hate to say this, but I believe one of the reasons the likes of Lady Kettering and Lady Pepperidge no longer wish to speak to you is because you are engaged.”
Ellen dragged her eyes from searching the room for friendship and validation to stare forlornly at her sister. “But isn’t being engaged a good thing?”
“Not when it means you—and Papa’s fortune—are no longer available for their sons to marry,” Lenore said.
Ellen’s heart sank lower than ever. “You cannot be suggesting that the only reason those ladies were being nice to me was because of my dowry.”
Lenore patted her hand. “This is the problem that many an American heiress has been facing when they come to London in search of a titled husband. The likes of the Ketterings and Pepperidges need our money, but they see us ourselves as interlopers and outsiders.” She sighed. “I wish I could say it isn’t so, but I know of far too many dollar princesses who have come to England with dreams of fairy tales that ended with Shakespearean tragedies instead.”
It was a terrible thought. One Ellen refused to accept. Whatever her reasons for coming to London, she had found Joseph, and Joseph was wonderful. He didn’t see her as a cash cow, he saw her as a woman and a friend.
As those desperate thoughts came to her, she spotted Joseph stepping into the room from one of the doors at the far end. There were a few husbands and sons in attendance at the show, and Joseph had mentioned he was planning to join her, but seeing him came as such a relief to Ellen that she nearly sobbed.
“I must go to him,” she said, letting go of Lenore’s arm and pushing away from her, through the wandering crowd of gossiping old biddies.
She turned more than a few heads—and bumped into more than a few bodies—as she made her way across the room to Joseph in as direct a line as she could. The very idea that all of her efforts could be for naught was too much for her to bear. No matter how hard she tried, she would always be on the outside, always be laughed at.
“Joseph, I’m so glad you’re here,” she greeted him, knowing full well she was showing too much emotion as she reached for his hands.
She should have noted immediately that Joseph was also out of sorts. He didn’t wear his usual, kind expression, and when she reached for him, he frowned and flinched away, quickly scanning the room to see who was watching them.
“You shouldn’t show so much exuberance in public,” he said in a quiet, aloof voice, standing taller. “It isn’t seemly, and it makes people see us as children.”