Page 49 of Romancing Daphne

“It seems, Mrs. Bower,” the duchess continued, “we are to deprive you of your company rather than the other way around. I hope you will forgive us.”

“You will return and dance after calling the carriage, I hope.” Mrs. Bower was not one to give up her cause easily. If she and Father ever joined forces, they could wreak havoc across continents. “Any number of young ladies are quite counting on you.”

She motioned to a group gathered not many paces removed. Young ladies and their mothers, every last one of them. James had never wanted for willing dance partners at any ball, though he had never been particularly in the market for any.

Mrs. Bower smiled. Miss Bower smiled. The crowd nearby smiled.James, however, held his hand out to the Duchess of Kielder, helping her rise to her feet. He wove her arm through his. Miss Lancaster set her hand beneath her sister’s other elbow.

“I am not an invalid,” Her Grace objected.

Miss Lancaster dropped her hands away, leaving only James to assist the duchess. Their eyes met. He offered a smile, hoping her sister’s rebuke,however quietly made, hadn’t wounded her. She did look a bit disappointed but not truly hurt.

“I believe we should be on our way,” Miss Lancaster said.

“Let it never be said I failed to recognize a damsel in distress,” James said.

No sooner had they reached the anteroom than Her Grace spoke up. “While I will admit I am not feigning my current less-than-desirable state of health, I will say that I think it a bit much to deem me a damsel in distress, or Daphne, for that matter.”

“You misunderstand, Your Grace. I was referring to myself.”

She swatted at him playfully, if weakly.

He led her to a chair in the entryway, leaving Miss Lancaster at her sideas he instructed Lord Percival’s servants to call up the Kielder carriage.

“I am well aware that you hardly need me to do so,” he said to theladies, “but I would appreciate if you allowed me to accompany you home.It will set my mind at ease, especially knowing His Grace is not in residence.”

“And also allow you to avoid doing the pretty at this ball,” Miss Lancaster added with a laugh in her voice.

“Two birds, one stone.”

“I will accept your offer most gratefully, Lord Tilburn,” the duchess said. “And I thank you for it.”

“You are most welcome, Your Grace.” He was very seldom thanked for his efforts. He found the experience a wonderfully novel one.

Chapter Eighteen

By the time they reachedhome, Persephone appeared very nearly done in. Her complaints were of a vague nature: malaise, fatigue, a gnawing but not urgent hint of nausea. Not knowing the source of her sister’s illness, Daphne struggled to recommend a tisane or tonic to ease her suffering. In the end, she instructed Cook to prepare a ginger tea to settle Persephone’s stomach and charged Persephone’s abigail with laying a rag ever so slightly damp with warm lavender water across Persephone’s shoulders to help her relax and, Daphne hoped, sleep.

The next morning, by virtue of Artemis being in Shropshire, likely locked up in whatever makeshift version of a dungeon Adam had managed to scrounge up, and Persephone being yet asleep, thank the heavens, Daphne found herself walking about a small fenced square several blocks from their London residence, with only Fanny, the maid Adam alwaysassigned to accompany his wife and his sisters-in-law on any and everyexcursion, along for company.

“You’ll forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, Miss,” Fanny said but a few minutes into their sojourn at the park, “but that appears to be young Lord Tilburn up the path a bit.”

It was indeed James. Techney House did not sit in this square, but young gentlemen often had rooms of their own away from the family home. Did he live near here, then?

I should go bid him good morning. Surely he would welcome my company.

Or was she simply being inexcusably presumptuous? Some of her most difficult memories were of dismissals like the one she feared awaited her up ahead.

“Must you always be underfoot, Daphne?” Persephone had more than once asked in tones of exasperation.

Athena had now and then rejected Daphne’s attempts to offer help, insisting she was too little or simply making more trouble. In the years before he and Evander had left for the navy, Linus had often simply overlooked her.

Even as a very young child, she’d known her family hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, and most of their interactions were kind and loving, but those moments when she had felt so expendable resurfaced in her memory during times of doubt and worry. Though she had learned to guard herself against the possibility of dismissals by fading into the background, by being quiet and unobtrusive, she’d been trying a different approach of late,one she wanted to believe was better even if it was more of a gamble.

Being overlooked when one was hiding did not hurt nearly so much as being abandoned when one was asking to be loved.

“Do not fear, Little Sparrow,” James’s voice echoed across six years of hopeful recollections.Do not fear.

She took a fortifying breath. James had never been unkind nor outright dismissive. Surely he would not be now. But, then again, at timesher own family did not always wish her nearby. Even her father, who had eventually come to shun her entirely, had not turned her away in her earliest years. Past kindness was not always a guarantee against future rejection.

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