Page 19 of A Devil in Silk
“No.”
“What about your fiancée? As a staunch supporter of reform, surely Miss Woodall is happy to mix with people of every station.”
“Miss Woodall is not my fiancée.” And he prayed she never would be. He just had to break the news to his mother while causing minimal distress. “I’ve not spent more than a few hours in her company this past year.”
No doubt a multitude of questions filled Miss Dalton’s mind, but she stopped abruptly as the alley gave way to a small garden, where trees formed a soft canopy overhead. A wide circle of glowing lanterns marked the edge of a grassy dance floor. Couples moved in time with the three violinists, swaying together in the candlelight, closer than propriety would normally allow.
Miss Dalton’s lips parted as she drank in the scene, her expression softening with wonder. She looked at him, then at the musicians, almost breathless. “I’ve never seen anything so magical. Should we place our lanterns beside the others?”
“We place the lanterns if we wish to dance,” he said, knowing she would refuse. “We can listen and watch. Absorb the atmosphere.”
She nodded. “I’d rather not trip over your feet and ruin the experience.”
He was just glad of her company, and relieved she wasn’t wiping tears from her cheek or suffering strange looks from those who suspected she’d poisoned the medium at the seance.
With luck, Sergeant Brown would soon make an arrest and expose Lavinia Nightshade for the fraud she was, a fraud who’d tried to fool the wrong person.
“Tomorrow night, I thought we could race my new curricle,” he said, desperate to know if she would include him in future outings.
While moving to the music and soaking up the atmosphere, Miss Dalton said, “I know what I’m running from. But again, I find myself questioning your motive.”
He wasn’t clear himself.
He wasn’t sure if he was trying to escape his own troubles or helping Clara Dalton escape hers. Perhaps it was nothing more than a strange familial bond, though a part of him wondered if that was just a convenient lie.
“I told you. I have a limited time to make merry before the guillotine falls.”
“So you’re still planning to announce your betrothal in a fortnight? Shouldn’t you spend more than a few hours with a woman you mean to marry?”
He looked at the men on nature’s dance floor, more absorbed by the women in their arms than the music. “There are times I wish I were a tailor or a tavern landlord. Then the burden of obligation might not be so heavy, and I could marry someone of my own choosing.”
She gave him her full attention. “Feeding a family on a meagre income is a heavier burden than marrying for convenience. It’s easy to believe someone else’s life is simpler, but you never truly know until you’ve lived a part of it yourself.”
Instead of thinking about his predicament, he thought of her. Clara Dalton entered his mind more often than she should. “Is that why you’re running away? Because you don’t like the feel of new shoes?”
She gave a half-shrug. “They hurt every time I leave the house. No matter how long I wear them, the leather never softens.”
“Perhaps it’s not the shoes but how you’re walking.” Like she had given up on life at the tender age of five and twenty.
She shot him a curious glance. “Is this where you say dancing is good for the posture and persuade me to waltz in this pretty garden?”
“I’m not foolish enough to think your mind could be swayed.”
She found that amusing, chuckling to herself as she placed her lantern on the ground and took the flask from her reticule. “Then let us drink to sore feet and stubborn souls.”
He watched her sip sherry from the flask amid the stirring music and glowing lanterns, knowing he would never forget this night. Not because a poor woman had died, but because Clara Dalton had remembered how to smile.
Chapter Five
Bentley arrived at his mother’s house later than intended. After sharing Miss Dalton’s flask of sherry last night, they listened to the music before blowing out the lights in their lanterns and taking a hackney cab home.
But sleep had not come easily.
He’d spent restless hours in bed, heavy with a sense of foreboding after the incident at the seance. Fragments of Miss Nightshade’s cryptic warning to Miss Dalton echoed through his mind like a dream half-remembered.
Still grappling with unease and a pressing need to recall the medium’s message, he entered the dining room and stopped short.
Miss Woodall sat at the table, her spine straight, her expression demure, her mother beside her smiling like a cat with the cream pot.
