Miss Lindel's Love by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

walked by. Maris had been introduced to them earlier in the evening and she gave them a nod and a smile. The smile faded when one looked at her with half-closed eyes and gave a small but audible sniff. The other murmured, “Some girls waste no time.”
    Puzzled, Maris looked at Lord Danesby. He stared after the ladies, an eyebrow lifted. “What was that about?” he asked.
    “I have no notion. Do you know them?”
    “Very well indeed. One is a distant cousin on the distaff side, the other her longtime bosom companion.” His smile returned. “Never mind. Shall we dance again?”
    Maris wanted to accept, very badly. But she felt chilled, not by the temperature of the room itself but by a change of atmosphere. Everywhere she looked, she met censorious gazes. “I had better return to Mrs. Paladin. She’ll wonder what became of me.”
    “I’ll take you to her at once. Er ... where is she?”
    He tucked her arm under his own and held her to a pace more moderate than she would have chosen. “Slowly, slowly, Miss Lindel. If the world wishes to stare, let it look its fill.”
    “Why should they wish to stare at me?”
    “You may wrong yourself. It may be myself they wish to observe. This new way of tying my cravat is most unusual. No doubt everyone wishes to study it in detail.”
    “ Yousound like a coxcomb, my lord.”
    “Dandy, my dear child, dandy. Alas, that I forgot my quizzing glass for I’d soon make a few souls look blue.” Lord Danesby may have sounded like a lazy-voiced dandy but his eyes were that of a giddy boy.
    “They’ll never believe me at home when I write them about tonight,” Maris said, hardly realizing she had spoken aloud. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
    “I’ve never been the hero of a fairy tale before,” Lord Danesby said, the faintest tinge of bitterness seeping into his tone. “We viscounts are usually found in fiction as wicked uncles trying to chouse the heroine out of her fortune.”
    “I only meant... they think of you as someone so unapproachable and haughty. You don’t mingle very much with the townsfolk, after all.”
    “I hope I do my duty by them.”
    “Oh, you do. The new pulpit is very much admired. Dr. Pike hurt his shin so badly when the old one gave way. No one had had any notion of how completely it had rotted.”
    “Fifteenth century, wasn’t it?”
    “I believe so.” Maris felt a little guilty for never listening when Dr. Pike droned on about the history of their little church.
    “I did try to find some craftsmen who could make something in keeping with the period of the original but the war made it impossible to import Italian artisans, as my grandfather would have done.”
    “The modern one is more to my taste,” Maris said. “Antiques are so gloomy.”
    ‘Yes,” Lord Danesby said, his steps slowing even further as he pondered this. “Finchley Place is full of antiques and it’s very gloomy indeed. I don’t believe my ancestors ever discarded anything, from a full suit of parade armor to my school reports.”
    “You should have seen all the dress material my mother had hoarded against the day of my debut. Trunks and trunks of it, all dragged out into the middle of the floor and strewn about the room.”
    “She must regret, very much, not being here tonight.”
    “I regret it more but my sister’s constitution, cannot support London at present. I only hope she recovers her strength before she must appear herself.”
    “Will you attend a Drawing Room this year?”
    “I don’t know but I certainly hope riot,” she said, leaning in to speak more softly. Mrs. Paladin had been shocked by her radical notions. “The thought of making my curtsy to the Queen while wearing hoops and feathers terrifies me. I’d be bound to go over like a ninepin!”
    His eyes laughed at her image. “Does Almack’s also terrify you?”
    “Even more so than a Drawing Room. Besides, Mrs. Paladin says it’s impossible to acquire vouchers lately. She has been turned