Chapter 15
“Thank you, Mr Knight. It was a very pleasant dance.” Annie kept her tone polite as she stepped off the dance floor.
“I am glad you enjoyed it,” Mr Knight said distractedly and looked away from her. “If you would excuse me, I must see to my guests.”
Annie nodded and curtsied to him, bidding him goodbye. Once he was gone, she looked around the room, thinking of many things.
It had been two days since the garden tea party where she had crept away with Lord Yeatman. Since then, she had not seen him. She had come to Mr Knight’s ball hoping Lord Yeatman would be there.
The chance to see him again!
Yet he was nowhere, and she had danced twice with Mr Knight, setting off whispers between her friends that were now beginning to question just who she was setting her cap at. As Annie moved away from the dance floor, she overheard one such gossiping whisper from Lady Isabelle with Miss May.
“Do you think Miss Storey intends to charm all the men here? There will be no one left for the other young debutantes!”
Annie whipped round to face Lady Isabelle, who clearly had not realised she was so close, for when their eyes met, Lady Isabelle jumped and hastily fluttered her fan in front of her face, before drawing Miss May away across the room.
Annie didn’t know what to do, but she felt she had to escape. It was not just the fact that people were whispering about her that bothered her, it was the fear that they could be right. Besides, had she not danced with Mr Knight and encouraged his attentions? Meanwhile, there was another man she was thinking of entirely.
Glancing around, Annie ensured her mother was busy talking with her own friends before she made an escape from the room. Annie stepped out of the ballroom and moved through the corridors, determined to find somewhere quiet to think. She traipsed through candlelit corridors, trying her best to admire the fine furnishings of Mr Knight’s house.
She’d heard Mr Knight’s praises at length that evening on the way to the ball. Her mother had talked of it nonstop, clearly intimating that perhaps someday his fine home could be Annie’s home too.
“Marry Mr Knight?” Annie murmured aloud, unable to keep the shudder out of her voice.
She heard voices in the corridor and darted into the shadows, determined to hide. Some more guests to the ball passed her, returning to the ballroom, leaving her behind unseen. As they left, she hastened forward, searching for a room where she could be alone.
Annie found a parlour tucked away in the corner off a corridor. Stepping eagerly into the room with a candle she took from the corridor, she moved to the far end and placed the candle down on a table. That flame kept her company as she paced back and forth, thinking of all that had happened in the ballroom with Mr Knight.
He was perfectly pleasant and polite, but his conversation was so uninteresting that Annie’s sense of boredom was growing with each passing meeting.
“How rude am I?” she muttered in anger and paced back the other way. Running off and hiding in the recesses of Mr Knight’s house hardly seemed like an appropriate thing to do either, but she had little wish to return to the ballroom, not now.
When the door opened, she flicked her head round, wishing she could disappear into the shadows, so afraid she was of being caught hiding in the house. Then her eyes found the face of the person who had followed her, and her heart thudded harder.
“Lord Yeatman?” she whispered in surprise. He stepped into the room slowly and closed the door behind him, leaning on the wood. It left a vast chasm between the two of them, one that felt very unnatural when Annie remembered the way that they had kissed in that garden. “I did not think you were here tonight.” Annie tried her best to maintain a polite and reserved tone, even as her eyes danced across Lord Yeatman’s entire countenance.
His eyes never moved from her once, and his lips were parted as if hunting for words that would not come.
“My lord?” She encouraged him to speak.
“I did think about not coming.” He confessed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have hardly covered myself in glory as of late, and I feared being here tonight with you would be too much of a temptation.”
“A temptation?” Annie repeated, finding the word made her hands feel clammy.
Lord Yeatman abruptly pushed off the door and hurried to her. Annie wondered if he was coming for another one of those kisses. It didn’t seem to matter that her head knew it was wrong, her heart made her step forward regardless, hurrying to meet him in the middle of the room.
“Miss Storey….”
“Yes?” she urged him on as he stopped in front of her.
“I must speak with you. I saw you come in here, and I had to take this opportunity away from where anyone could see us together.” He gestured to her as he spoke. Annie grew aware of just how quickly she was breathing, thinking only of Lord Yeatman in front of her. She forgot the world beyond, she forgot Mr Knight, and she forgot her mother. “I owe you an apology.”
“An apology?” Annie said, so shocked by the words that her heavy breathing instantly desisted.
“Yes.” Lord Yeatman sighed deeply as if preparing himself to say something he had rehearsed. “You know my reputation well enough to suspect that everything I have said and done with you would be in the aim of seducing you, but I want you to know…no, Ineedyou to know, it wasn’t.”
Annie said nothing. Her mouth had gone dry. She lifted her chin higher, trying to keep any sign of disappointment out of her countenance.