These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(5)

“You were right, this is absolutely dismal,” he said.

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” I replied. “Here comes the exciting part, where we continue to twirl in the exact same manner as before.”

Mr. Kent scoffed. “Would you like to reverse our direction? Knock a few couples down?”

“But then there’ll be nowhere to dance, with bodies all over the floor.”

“My God, you are impossible to please.”

As we bounced to the swells and dips, the room and its crowd revolved with us. Poor Rose whirled by in a flash of silks as another infatuated dance partner tried desperately to win her approval with his footwork. Robert stood idly on the side, eagerly awaiting his next turn with her. Mother, breaking away from her group of matchmakers, made her way along the outskirts of the room. And Mr. Braddock stood determinedly by himself, a slight space between him and a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls. He seemed to be directly in my mother’s path. Or even worse, her destination.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I told Mr. Kent. “We’re dancing forever now.”

“Ah, that’ll be a difficult life, but very well, I will let no other claim you.”

“Good, for I can see my mother getting ready to arrange a dance with Mr. Braddock.”

“I see.” Something lit behind his eyes as they landed on Mr. Braddock, and I couldn’t tell if it was amusement or jealousy. “Would that be the fellow over there? He certainly seems to have gathered a following.”

“Indeed, it is.” And Mr. Kent was right. It wasn’t just my mother and a few young women. Every mother in the county was eyeing him, fans fluttering and bosoms quivering. Simpering misses subtly pinched their cheeks and smoothed down their hair. How absurd.

A tall, plain girl bravely stepped from the pack and marched toward him. She turned and stared daggers at her companions, who had renewed their giggles. Mr. Braddock scanned the crowd closely, as though looking for someone, but his stiff posture suggested that he knew what a stir his presence had created and wanted to leave immediately.

Mr. Kent and I watched with some delight as the brave girl came up behind him and very impolitely grabbed his arm. By reflex, he wrenched his arm away, but the girl held on as she fell into a paroxysm of coughing. And though Mr. Braddock tried to step away, she managed to climax her performance with a none-too-graceful faint directly onto his person with some well-practiced gasps for breath in his arms.

For his part, Mr. Braddock seemed unequal to the task of dealing with the creature and unceremoniously let her drop to the ground, where it seemed her false swoon became a true one. He hovered above her, shock and guilt lacing his features. The ballroom lay deathly still for a brief moment until he wordlessly whirled and dashed straight out of the room, guests hopping out of his path. I looked at Mr. Kent and saw my own puzzlement mirrored on his angular face. Then a small, gloved hand grabbed my own, and Rose pulled me toward the fallen girl.





THE GIRL SHOT up from the divan.

“Whe—what’s happened?” she asked. “Why—”

“Slowly, slowly,” Rose said, easing her to a comfortable position. “You had quite a fall.”

Rose held her fingers on the girl’s wrist, taking her pulse. A slight wrinkle appeared between her brows. “Your pulse is still quite fast, Miss—”

“Reid.” The girl looked around the drawing room dizzily.

Rose held up her hand. “How many fingers do you count?”

“Three.”

“Good. Are you in any pain?”

Miss Reid looked quite distraught still, though that was likely embarrassment. Many guests had trickled into the room to stare. “No, miss.”

Rose nodded. “Then there’s no reason to be alarmed. You just have a mild fever, and I suspect a day of rest is all you need. I will call on you tomorrow morning to be sure your condition has improved.”

Behind us, the crowd murmured their approval. Some even began to clap, which our mother seemed to take as a personal affront to our family. Bursting through the spectators, she called with operatic tones, “Evelyn, Rose, come along. I am sure her family will help her to the carriage.”

Rose and I exchanged looks but quietly obeyed. We followed Mother out of the drawing room and into a long, empty corridor, where she stopped and turned her full height upon us like a wrathful Hera.

“Rose, I am ashamed of you. While I expect this stubborn disregard for decorum from your sister, it is an extremely unpleasant shock to see you display yourself in such a way!

“I have allowed you to nurse our friends and neighbors so long as it was modestly, humbly performed as an act of ladylike charity. But to commandeer the room in front of all those eyes, actually ordering men about! I daresay you were excited, and your innate good sense took leave for a moment. It will not happen again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Thank you, Rose. Evelyn, I expect you to set a better example.”

“I’ll insist Rose lets her die next ti—”

She interrupted me with her deadliest glare and snapped, “We will return to the ball, and there will be no such spectacle again.”

With that, she drew herself up, pasted on a sickening smile, and took our arms. After hauling us back to the bright lights of the ballroom, she immediately called over a nearsighted young lord, who eagerly asked Rose for the next dance. With Mother’s attention on them, I escaped unnoticed to the dining room.