Isabelle snagged the fan rudely from Westie’s copper fingers, nearly ripping it.
“This is your dance card?” Isabelle said. “Why is everything you own more beautiful than everything I own?” she complained while studying the list of names on the fan. She looked up with a mischievous grin. “I was wondering why none of the other girls had James’s name on their cards. It looks like someone is squirreling him away for herself.”
Westie snatched the fan back.
“It’s not like that. I have no interest in James Lovett.”
“That’s obvious enough.” Isabelle studied a glazed carrot round carefully and gave it a sniff before dedicating herself to eating it. “Everyone knows you’re waiting for Alistair.”
Alistair walked into the room just then. His mask was repaired and gleaming in the gaslight. Isabelle’s lip curled in disapproval.
“I don’t get what you see in him,” she said as she looked around the appetizer tray for more treats. “I just don’t get it.”
“He’s not yours to get,” Westie snapped.
Isabelle smiled, raising her hands to pantomime surrender.
When Alistair saw Westie, he waved. He moved through the crowd, politely acknowledging guests he knew, then breathed a sigh of relief when he sat down beside her.
With a roll of her eyes, Isabelle left the table to seek out more popular company.
“What’s her problem?” Alistair asked.
“She’s a bitch.”
He nodded.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
The compliment meant nothing. He told her she was beautiful each time she wore a new dress. It was good manners. Nigel used to say her beauty was like a spider’s web. Those poor, poor boys, he would say. But what good was beauty if it couldn’t capture the heart she wanted?
“I look stupid.”
He studied her dress without argument.
“Your face is pretty,” he said.
She waved off the shallow comment with a swish of the fan she held between copper fingers.
He took hold of it. “When do I get my chance to sweep the floor with that hideous gown of yours?” After reading the names, his face turned ashen. He had obviously found Cain and Hubbard Fairfield on the list. “I suppose it’s a good thing Nigel had me hide your parasol.”
“So that’s where it went to.”
“I agree it is good strategy to befriend James Lovett, but your dance card suggests he’s courting you.”
She thought about her dance with James, his unfortunate story, those deep eyes. “Spending time with James won’t be the worst way to get information about the Fairfields.”
Alistair gave her an intense look that made her fidget. “Sounds a little like you fancy the heir.” He turned away from her. “Wouldn’t that be something? Imagine the fortune you’d inherit if the pair of you wed,” he said.
“I hate it when you use Nigel’s British words. What man uses a word like fancy?”
He didn’t seem to care if she and James walked out together. The thought hurt her more than she cared to acknowledge. Suddenly she lost her taste for the food being carried out of the kitchen by servers, as well as the taste for music and dance.
James wove his way through the dancers to reach her. “There you are.” He held a champagne flute. “I had to calm Mrs. Fairfield. She’s a bit cross that she wasn’t seated at the debutante table.”
Westie took the flute from James, stared into the familiar bubbles, and heard her stomach gurgle. Alistair took it from her before she could get sick.
“It does seem rude,” Westie said. “I’ll have to make it up to her.” She looked around, noticing Nigel had put the Fairfields at the opposite end of the room from Westie’s table. Smart man, but she wouldn’t learn anything by avoiding them.
“I’m sure Lavina will get over it. She’s not one to hold a grudge,” James said.
No, but I am, Westie thought.
Alistair stood and pushed his chair back. He was a head taller than James and wore a similar tailcoat, with a black shirt beneath instead of white.
“I believe the Lovetts and Fairfields aren’t friends of Westie’s. They have no claim to her table,” Alistair said.
James didn’t seem intimidated by Alistair’s greater age and height and seemed not to fear the mask as everyone else did. Instead he smiled, washing his face in a brilliant glow.
“Yes, which is why I feel honored to be placed right beside the debutante,” James said.
Westie looked down at the place cards, and just as planned, James was seated next to her with Nigel on the other side. Alistair wasn’t even at her table.
Alistair’s mask began to hum with his heavy breathing. There was no sign of the gentle boy she was used to when his eyes narrowed. In that moment she could see why everyone feared him.
Twenty-Four
From across the room Westie watched Alistair and Nigel argue. Alistair’s face turned red as he maniacally pointed a finger in Nigel’s face.
“He looks mad,” James observed with a hint of amusement.