A Taste of Desire(9)
She searched the sea of faces at Lady Stanton’s ball, hoping to spy Miss Crawford returning with her refreshment. Of the many she viewed, her chaperone wasn’t among them.
After her former chaperone had abruptly left her post, her father had hired Miss Melinda Crawford as her eminently qualified replacement. This had been all well and good until Amelia discovered the woman regularly apprised her father of her every move like a brigadier reported troop field positions to his generals. If the woman had not slept like night fell but once a year, Amelia would never have managed her last—subsequently doomed—elopement attempt with Lord Clayborough.
But even with the objectionable woman in tow, the opportunity to attend the evening fête had been heaven-sent—one Amelia had pounced upon to fend off the sheer boredom of her own company. After spending the last three days staring at four pink and gray walls when the only books left unread were the dry offerings from various Greek philosophers, spending an evening out had been a rainbow cresting the horizon following forty days and nights of nothing but unremitting rain.
Several young gentlemen, all of them in their evening white tie and tails, lingered close, their regard intent upon her. Amelia quickly yanked her gaze away from the group, uneasy with the heat in their eyes.
“Lady Amelia.”
The high feminine voice came from behind her, sounding tentative, almost unsure. Amelia turned in its direction and spotted Miss Dawn Hawkins only feet away, near the back wall beside two other ladies whose faces she vaguely recognized but names she could not recall—if in fact she’d ever had knowledge of them.
Miss Hawkins was a pleasant miss, and much more timid than the standard fare of maidens on the husband hunt. As it appeared Miss Crawford had had to travel to the opposite end of the Continent to fetch the refreshments, she could stand some tame female conversation. It would certainly be more welcome than being measured and weighed by the young bucks entering the marriage mart who were mentally calculating her worth.
“Good evening, Miss Hawkins,” Amelia said, reaching her side in a few short steps.
“Oh, please, Miss Hawkins is so formal for people I consider my friends. Do call me Dawn,” she said, casting a brief gaze downward.
Amelia smiled. Dawn really was so unaffected. A refreshing change from forced smiles and feigned interest into the status of one’s well-being. “Then you can hardly address me as Lady Amelia.”
Dawn’s countenance fairly glowed at the invitation. Quickly, she turned and introduced Amelia to the two ladies at her side: Miss Catherine Ashford and Lady Jane Fordham.
“We were just conversing about the men we most want to ask us for a dance. Not that any gentlemen will, mind you,” Dawn added, her smile and tone self-deprecating.
Amelia’s heart gave a forlorn beat at the commiserative look the three women shared at the comment, that silent bit of communication that bespoke a secure and trusting bond. With her only friend, Elizabeth, the Countess of Creswell, whom she’d met during her first Season, currently in confinement in Kent, Amelia had no one with whom to share that sort of intimacy.
Shrugging off her momentary pang, Amelia had to agree with Dawn as much as she wished it wasn’t so. She could not remember a single instance when she’d seen the poor girl grace the dance floor. Dawn was plump, moderately plain in the face with a diminutive stature, and had been the only female to befriend her since their introduction earlier that spring.
Her friends also appeared to be suffering a similar fate, perched along the periphery as if the yellow walls they propped up lacked beam support, and the threat of falling hung ominous in the air. The poor women undoubtedly had little in terms of a dowry, the death of any marriage-minded lady not blessed with a comely visage or an enviable figure.
“Naturally, you have no such problems or worries,” Dawn continued in her high-pitched little-girl voice. Miss Ashford and Lady Jane added their staunch agreement with vigorous nods.
“I do not dance much at these affairs either,” Amelia said, managing an expression she believed must have been something between a grimace and a smile. Most thought that with her looks and dowry she never lacked for male attention. Unfortunately, the majority of the gentlemen who sought her hand in marriage were more suitable to fill the role of her father’s son-in-law than that of her husband.
“But that is because you do not care to, not because you lack the opportunity to do so.” Dawn gazed up at her with a mixture of envy and admiration.
“Do tell, which of the esteemed gentlemen in attendance tonight had you hoped would beg a dance?” Amelia forced a light laugh, while shifting uncomfortably under the younger woman’s regard.