“Miss Storey.” He bowed to her formally as he said her name.
“Mr Knight.” She hastened to curtsy, then stepped back again, praying he had not seen how excitedly she strode forward in anticipation of the person coming to meet her. “We are alone, sir, without a chaperone. This is rather inappropriate. I should return to the ballroom.” She gestured to the door, but Mr Knight made no effort to stand aside.
“How strange, because I could have sworn that you were waiting to meet a gentleman in here, allalone.”He emphasised the latter word, looking at her with such a frown that Annie wrung her hands together, feeling they were suddenly clammy with nerves.
“I merely wished for a break from the ballroom. It is quite stuffy in there this evening.”
“Yes, Lord Yeatman said the same thing when I found him just now in the corridor. He seems to have gone outside, though I could have sworn his feet were trained in quite another direction until he found me following him.” Mr Knight looked at her with such intensity that Annie felt trapped. It was as if she were a pheasant at the end of a hunter’s gun, scared of which way to go for fear of what would happen next.
“I should return to the ballroom,” she said and stepped forward, yet she was headed off as Mr Knight stepped forward too, moving toward her.
“I am not blind, Miss Storey, though I fear you may be.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean, the way you and Lord Yeatman have been looking at each other all evening is hardly what I’d call subtle. If you think it has been, then it is a good job I have cause to disappoint you.”
“I….” Annie struggled for words. She wished to deny it, but what could she say? It seemed Mr Knight had observed all her looks, despite her confidence that those looks were hidden.
“Tell me this now, Miss Storey, for I am the one who has been dancing with you at so many events and paying you attention. My reputation is now tied up with yours.” He gestured to her sternly, making her flinch.
“Our reputations are not bound together.” She found the words came in something of a hiss. “We are not courting. You never expressed an interest in courting, and if I am not mistaken, your heart lies somewhere else entirely.”
“That is not what this conversation is about.” Mr Knight waved a hand in the air as if attempting to dismiss that particular discussion entirely. “We are talking about you and Lord Yeatman.”
“Me and Lord Yeatman?”
“Enough false surprise!” Mr Knight snapped. The sharpness in his words was so strong that Annie backed up, a little afraid. She nearly collided with the brass globe she had been admiring and rounded it instead, putting it between her and Mr Knight as some sort of shield. “Tell me once and for all, what is happening between you and Lord Yeatman.”
“Nothing.” Annie felt the lie made her tongue dry. Deep down, she wished to declare that Luke had won her heart, that she loved him, more than she had ever thought it possible to be devoted to another, but she couldn’t. To confess to such a thing would be confessing to their affair. Her reputation would well and truly be torn to shreds then.
“Nothing?” Mr Knight repeated, scoffing.
“Yes. If you have seen any looks between us, that is because we are acquittanced, and to speak frankly, he irks me.” Annie pushed forward with the lie, praying it was believable. “He has a habit of teasing me and making fun of me. I think he finds me too proper for his liking, but that is all. He simply irritates me.”
“What lady would look so much at a man that upsets her so?” Mr Knight shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, clearly in plain disbelief.
Annie parted her lips to add more to her lie, but no words came. Something in her heart stopped her from uttering such words, as if it would be a betrayal to Luke to say such things.
“You are hesitating, Miss Storey.” Mr Knight nodded his head in her direction.
“I….” She struggled again, but still, no words came.
“Your hesitation tells me all it needs to.” He threw down his arms and walked toward her, stopping when he reached the other side of the globe. She braced her hands against it, wishing at that moment that she could escape across that globe, be somewhere in the continent with Luke, far away from theton,and far away from Mr Knight’s suspicions of her. “Miss Storey, I did not think you so great a fool.”
“A fool? Mr Knight! I am not here to be insulted by you.”
“Then open your eyes to what you are doing, I beg of you,” Mr Knight pleaded with her. “If Lord Yeatman has seduced you, then you do not know what you have done to your life.”
“What do you mean?” Annie whispered as he leaned toward her across the globe.
“It is not only your reputation which will lay in tatters, thrown there by a man like Lord Yeatman who has no honour in him at all. Your family will suffer. Your mother’s name, your friends’ names, too, will be tainted by association. You have condemned yourself to a life of loneliness, for who would marry one of Lord Yeatman’s conquests? Tell me that, Miss Storey.”
Annie stared at him, uncertain what to say.
Has it really come to this?