No matter whom Mabel's darting gaze landed upon, she met eyes glistening with merriment and speculation. She had to extricate herself immediately, and with as much of her pride intact as possible. She plowed through, affecting to look past anyone stepping in her way, as if searching for a friend in the crowd. As if she had friends left!

Let the detractors and gloating rivals think she wanted to shelter with her mother. Mrs. Walton, with her propensity to discuss everything twenty times, was the last person whose company she craved.

And so, she sailed around the hands reaching out to take her by the elbow—she didn't care if their compassion was pretend or genuine—and repeated with the mindless persistence of a paroquet, "I beg your pardon."

The sound of her voice came from afar, dull, dead... and that's how she'd speak for the rest of her life, begging pardons for her existence. But she didn't want to think of the future now. All she wanted was solitude on the veranda.

Fortunately, the announcement of the Boulangere sent a wave of warmth through the crowd. The would-be-dancers paired up for this old favourite and milled toward the middle of the ballroom. Nobody wanted to be left out this time! Where were they for the waltz, those cowards? Their glee bounced off her as she stubbornly swam against the current of excitement.

Her hand found the door handle when the musicians played the first notes to cover up both the murmurs of conversation and her escape. A premonition graced her: she saw in her mind how she would grasp the handle, and it would turn.

Breath caught in her chest. She reached with trembling fingers. Gripped the warm brass of the handle. It rotated. Sweat beaded her forehead, as if she was escaping into the enchanted land, not a garden. She pushed the glass-paned door—and it opened without a squeak. A single step separated her from freedom.

She slipped sideways through the crack and shut the door gently, then leaned against it with her back. The night air refreshed her lungs and chilled her skin where it grew moist. The corset wouldn't let her breathe as deep as she wanted, but might as well. If she did, the sobs would surely wreck her body.

After the stuffiness, lights and noise of the ball, the garden was dizzyingly quiet and dim.

More by feel than by sight, Mabel crept along the veranda's railing until she found a wicker chair. Her knees gave out, dropping her into it like a sack.

With each breath, and each blink that fought the welling tears, her heartbeat slowed.

The last of the sunset's thrilling colour had gone from the sky. The trees and shrubs guarded the lawns. They needed such guarding indeed, for each grass-blade was generously bedewed, and each drop of dew was a gem reflecting starlight. Taken together, the multitude of them created a foggy glow that hung just above the ground. The pond loomed black with a silver track left by the translucent moon. On a night like this, it didn't take much imagination to see the faeries coming out to dance.

Luckily, Mabel was spared further humiliation by Terpsichore's worshipers. The dancing faeries didn't appear. The garden stood quiet, soothingly quiet, apart from the hushed sounds drifting from the ballroom.

Assured that she was completely alone, Mabel finally dared to draw in a deeper breath. It was shuddering, but didn't end in weeping.

Alas, she was not fated to take her nerves completely under control.

The door banged open, and the cacophony of the ball's sounds crashed through it into her starlit sanctuary.

Worse, an angry voice right next to her shouted over the music and laughter.

"Radcliffe, I did everything you asked of me. I stewed here for months, I charmed your guests, I—"

This passionate voice, unmistakably, belonged to Everett. Oh, she would know it anywhere! His one-two-threes still echoed in her head.

Hidden in the high-backed chair, Mabel pulled her hands and feet further in, squeezing into a small ball. The back was turned to the door, so if she didn't betray herself with a sudden movement, the quarrelling men wouldn't spot her.

"What else would you have me do to earn your permission to return to London? Woo the flower of the local womanhood?"

A deep sigh responded to this tirade, then the closing door shut off the sounds of the ball again. The wood creaked as someone—Radcliffe, presumably—leaned heavily against the door with another sigh, this one relieved rather than frustrated.

Mabel, who had done exactly the same thing only a few moments ago felt a momentary bond with him. What was more, they both seemed to have done it because of the same man.

But there the resemblance ended.

"Do not pin a tyrant's mantle on me, Everett," Radcliffe said gravely. She wished she could talk to Everett like that, without dissolving into a quivering mess whenever he frowned. Why shouldn't a woman speak like that?

"I merely asked you to be civil—hardly a burden for anyone of your age and breeding. Instead, you throw fits and make mischief worthy of an adolescent," Radcliffe went on with the scolding.

"That's the praise I get for jumping out of my skin to please the gathering and you!" Everett exclaimed.

"Very well, I will allow you the benefit of the doubt, and suppose that you didn't intend to scandalize the society or mock this unfortunate girl—"

The 'unfortunate girl' bit her lip in the dark.

"I've told you already, I had no way of knowing that the Walton girl is such an unmitigated disaster," Everett argued hotly. "I've only met her once, and she seemed... I don't know..."

She didn't even know if she wanted to hear what she had lost, but she had no choice. Save for revealing herself to the two men, she had to eavesdrop.

"There was a spark in her, unlike the rest of this dull-eyed lot."

Mabel's fingers twisted together—must he turn even a compliment into an insult?

He scoffed, obviously scratching her out of his books. "My chief point is that this calamity could have been averted, if you didn't command me to act a hermit."

"For a good reason."

"For whatever reason! Devil take you and your reasons, Radcliffe."

Mabel's chest only just relaxed, but now it ached again in response to the despair in Everett's tone and vulgarity. She heard him pace with fast, bouncing steps.

"That's the problem, Everett. That you never consider anyone's sense or sensibility but your own."

"Bollocks. I think I suffered enough of both today. And more. I might be lame for a week after tonight, Radcliffe."

The steps froze, and a heavy pause stretched between the two brothers.

Mabel regretted that from her hiding spot she couldn't see them.

Of course, she could imagine that they were facing each other. And that Everett's hands squeezed into fists, because of how his passionate tirades broke against the iceberg of his brother's demeanour.

Yet, she wanted the confirmation in his features that this was only an unfortunate turn of phrase, not a deliberate jape about his brother's ailing leg. She would hate for him to be this cruel.

At last, Radcliffe said, "I shouldn't think it was you who suffered the most."

"I never do, in your opinion. Whatever befalls me is never enough. I am shot by cannonballs—and it's not enough. I linger in pain on death's door—and it's not enough. Somehow you always suffer more than that without even leaving your bedroom."

"You can't be further from the truth."

"Trully? When will you forgive me for our Father's affections?"

"My concern is only for the living. That girl, Miss Walton—"

Everett scoffed at the mere mention of her name. There was a rustling sound, maybe his brother reaching for his shoulder in vain.

"You know the effect you have even on the most sophisticated women in London, and Miss Walton isn't one of them. She was mortified."

"You would be surprised what flowers bloom in the quiet lanes of the countryside," Everett replied through gritted teeth. "Would you like me to reveal the depth of the rustic dipping wells to you?"

"Discerning the ladies' qualities is your department entirely, so I bow to your expertise without further evidence," Radcliffe said with an almost disturbing presence of mind. "But whatever possessed you to arrange for a waltz?"

"For the sake of having fun, Radcliffe. Fun! If only you could have grasped what it is."

"Maybe I am incapable but, since you grasp it so well, then it should be nothing to you to step back into the ballroom, put your winning smile on and dance again with Miss Walton, smoothing over the insult—"

Mabel pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle the exclamation of dismay. If they went searching for her in the ballroom, her absence would be discovered.

"Oh, no, brother. No. I have had enough of Miss Walton."

She didn't know she could be relieved and devastated at the same time. The last of her delusions crumbled into dust. Everett hated her. Hated!

"That was our last dance," Everett said. The only way she knew her heart was not dead yet, was because it ached again from this crushing blow.

"And you have made it the best one," Radcliffe muttered.

"Naturally."

"Suit yourself. Do not dance with her, dance with someone else, but put away this sardonic persona. It does not behoove you."

"Why? Why is it so important to you?" Everett marched up and down the veranda while his brother was speaking, coming to an abrupt stop within a mere yard of Mabel, crouching in the darkness.

She stopped breathing, desperately curious to hear his answer.