Page 81 of Pandora

“Oh, good!” She smiles widely, reveals a set of small pearl-like teeth. “Lady Latimer said I should speak to you. About your jewelery designs?”

“Oh!” Dora raises a hand to her throat. “Why yes, please, I—”

“I’ve been looking all over London for something unusual and have been disappointed at every turn.” The woman looks to where Dora has rested her hand. “Is that one of your own too? So lovely! I wish to commission you. The necklace you created for her ladyship, it is like nothing I have seen before.” She looks to Edward and Sir William. “May I steal her?”

Dora turns to her companions—disinclined now to leave them when her instincts tell her something is amiss—but she is already being pulled along on Ophelia’s arm and soon she is lost in a crowd of whirling skirts and fluttering fans.

***

Not in her most fanciful dreams did Dora expect to be the recipient of such a deluge of praise.

They came from all sides—from the young girls who had chosen Lady Latimer’s soirée as their “coming out” event, to countesses, to Lady Hamilton herself. Even a duke praised her work, enquired if her talents stretched as far as men’s fripperies, and all Dora could do was smile and nod and smile and laugh and smile and...

She presses now her fingers to her temples, tries to find her way back to the entrance hall from the powder room to where she made an escape. It is all too much; not just the unexpected attention, the shock at seeing Sir William again, but the heat of bodies, the gaudy decorations, the blinding glow of candles, the chatter of the inebriated, the noise of the orchestra, the squawk of parrots in their gilt cages—Lady Latimer has even acquired a pair of capuchin monkeys to sit on a red cushion either side of the refreshment table, one of which let its tail dangle in the punchbowl.

Oh, but what all this could mean! Dora tries to keep her wits. Nothing may come of it, she scolds herself. But if it did! All she has ever wanted, finally in her grasp—

Dora stops.

Which way? Should she turn left? Or was it right? She cannot remember. She should not have accepted that glass of wine from Ophelia. Straight on? Just as she begins to panic there is the sound of boisterous laughter and in relief Dora follows it to the end of the hall, turns a corner, only to barrel right into a footman coming the other way who is fumbling at the buttons of his britches.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I...”

The apology dies on her tongue, for on the heels of the footman appears Cornelius Ashmole, long fingers at his cravat. In surprise Dora takes a step back. He in turn does the same. The footman—two pink spots high on his otherwise pale, powdered cheeks—rushes past them both without a word.

For a long moment Dora and Mr. Ashmole simply stare at each other. Then Mr. Ashmole clears his throat.

“Miss Blake.”

“Mr. Ashmole.” She stops. “I needed some air.”

“Quite.” He lazily finishes tying the cravat. Like herself and Edward, he chose not to wear a costume. “Are you recovered?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m—”

He cuts her off by taking her hand in his, begins to stride in the opposite direction. “Then let’s dance, Miss Blake.”

Dora cannot argue; he is sweeping her along as if she were a mere ribbon trailing behind him and all at once they are within the bright lights of the ballroom, coming up on the opening bars of an allemande.

“Sir,” she hisses, “I do not know how.”

“Just imitate what the others do,” Mr. Ashmole says tightly.

Before she can say anything else the dance has started, and Dora finds herself trying to replicate—rather poorly—the steps of her unwanted partner. She is relieved, at least, that her skirts hide her feet.

Mr. Ashmole guides her around in a slow circle, clasps her arm to his.

“And how are you enjoying your first soirée, Miss Blake?”

That hint of condescension again. Dora sets her teeth.

“It is like nothing I have ever experienced, I admit.”

“I have no doubt. Go right, now.”

Mr. Ashmole indicates her to follow another woman before circling back to her original position, and for a full minute they say not one word to each other. Dora watches the lady next to her—dressed in pale flamingo pink and a feathered mask to match—orchestrate an intricate series of steps that Dora cannot even hope to copy. When Mr. Ashmole takes her hand again to spin her, she draws a deep breath.

“You are very protective of him.”

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