Winning a Lady's Heart (Danby #1)(4)

Silence filled the foyer and settled eerily around her. The orchestra plucked the beginning strains of a waltz, the sound echoing off the recess of her mind, blinding her with a headache.

Alexandra folded her arms across her chest and rubbed, although the friction provided little warmth. Even when a servant rushed forwards and dropped her green taffeta cloak over her shoulders, the chill refused to leave. It’s because it is your heart, you ninny. Your heart is frozen, and is freezing you inside-out.

At long last they were led outside, down the steps, and assisted up into the carriage. She’d been wrong. There had been an additional sixty-five steps to the sanctuary of the carriage.

She burrowed into the far corner of the coach and pulled back the curtains to stare out into the street. Except the panel was frosted. Swiping a hand in slow circles until the heat of her skin warmed the glass, she traced a distracted pattern along the frosted window.

“Alexandra,” her mother began slowly.

Alexandra’s finger paused. A discussion with her mother following the scandal she’d caused had been inevitable. Yet she’d desperately hoped that perhaps she’d dreamed the evening’s events and no discussion would be forthcoming.

“Mother.” The words came out as a hoarse whisper.

“Oh, my dear, whatever possessed you?” Her mother’s tone did not sound scolding, however. She sounded maternal, and it crushed Alexandra. Had her mother been the same woman concerned with the opinion of the ton, it would have been easier to bear than this warm, compassionate person before her now.

It was too much. A silent tear streaked a path down Alexandra’s cheek, then two, then three, and then she was blinded by a torrent of tears. They were the noisy, desperate kind.

Her mother opened her arms, and Alexandra launched herself across the carriage the same way she had when she’d been a small girl of five years and her father had given her puppy away because he was, as he’d said, ‘allergic to the things’. Oh why couldn’t it be as simple as crying over a puppy? Not this, not a broken heart.

The carriage ride home was remarkably short. Alexandra was grateful when they jerked to an abrupt halt. The driver lowered the steps, and her mother guided her to the double-doors, which immediately opened and she was swept inside.

Her mother tugged her gloves off. “I will join you upstairs shortly, Alexandra.”

It was a vague dismissal that told Alexandra next to nothing about what her mother was thinking or feeling. Accepting it as a reprieve of sorts, she hurried up the stairs, down the hall, and into her own chambers.

Leaning against the closed door, she closed her eyes, welcoming the solitude.

“Oh heavens, that is a dire expression.”

Alexandra’s eyes flew open to find her younger sister sprawled on her bed. Oh, Olivia. Dear, beautiful, vibrant Olivia. With her cheery confidence, she couldn’t be a starker contrast to Alexandra’s own plump, gloomy self.

Olivia’s cornflower blue eyes widened with concern. “You are positively ashen, Alex.” Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she rushed across the room. “Why are you home so—?”

Alexandra couldn’t help the sudden onset of a new wave of tears.

“He was there wasn’t he?” Olivia hissed, ushering Alexandra to the edge of the bed. “That cad. After the deplorable way he’s treated you, must he accost you at Lady Williams’s soiree? I told mother it was madness, just madness for you to go that blasted ball. I can’t countenance father even allowed it.”

Alexandra gasped. “Olivia, your language.”

“To the devil with my language. What did he say to upset you so?”

Alexandra swiped a hand angrily across her eyes. She hated tears. Since Nathan’s betrayal, they seemed to be all she was capable of.

Olivia sank down in the spot beside Alexandra. The mattress dipped slightly under the additional weight.

“Oh, sister, what did he do to you?” She took Alexandra’s cold hands between hers and tried rubbing warmth into them.

“O-oh, Olivia, it was awful. I confronted him.”

Olivia gasped.

“Y-y-yes…I confronted him before a sea of people. I threw a stack of notes in his face.”

Olivia’s hand flew to her mouth to conceal a sound that was part groan, part laugh. “You didn’t!”

“I did.”

Olivia paused before speaking. “Did it make you feel any better?”

She shook her head.

“Then I’m sorry for that.”

Olivia clambered to her feet, and Alexandra realized what her stiff formality meant.

Her mother, still gowned in her magnificent diamond-trimmed sapphire dress, stood inside the doorway. “I’d like a word with your sister, Olivia.” It was a command.

Of course, Olivia had never been easily cowed by anyone, certainly not mother or father. She did not leave Alexandra’s side. “I warned you attending Lady Williams’s ball was a horrible idea.” At just sixteen years, she delivered that pert rebuke with a wealth of knowledge packed into her tone.

Their mother’s lips tightened. “That will be all, Olivia.”

Olivia looked to her sister who gave a curt nod. Giving Alexandra’s hand a reassuring squeeze, she slowly took to her feet and sailed over to the door. She paused in front of her mother. “I’ll see to father,” she muttered and then closed the door in her wake.