“I’m not angry,” she bit off.
Most people would have retorted that she sounded angry, but Marcus just looked at her in that annoyingly self-composed manner of his.
“I’m not angry,” she muttered, because his silence practically demanded that she say something.
“Of course not.”
Her head snapped up. That had been patronizing. The rest she might have been imagining, but not this.
He said nothing. He wouldn’t. Marcus would never make a scene.
“I don’t feel well,” she blurted out. That, at least, was true. Her head hurt and she was overheated and off-balance and all she wanted was to just go home and crawl into bed and pull her covers over her face.
“I will take you to get some air,” he said stiffly, and he put his hand at her back to lead her to the French doors that opened onto the garden.
“No,” she said, and the word burst forth overly loud and dissonant. “I mean, no, thank you.” She swallowed. “I believe I will go home.”
He gave a nod. “I will find your mother.”
“I’ll do it.”
“I’m happy to—”
“I can do things for myself,” she burst out. Dear God, she hated the sound of her own voice. She knew it was time to shut up. She couldn’t seem to say the right words. And she couldn’t seem to stop. “I don’t need to be your responsibility.”
“What are you talking about?”
She couldn’t possibly answer that question, so instead she said, “I want to go home.”
He stared at her for what felt like an eternity, then gave her a stiff bow. “As you wish,” he said, and he walked away.
So she went home. As she wished. She’d got exactly what she’d asked for.
And it was awful.
Chapter Nineteen
The day of the musicale
Six hours before the performance
“Where is Sarah?”
Honoria looked up from her music. She had been scribbling notes in the margin. Nothing she wrote made any sense, but it gave her the illusion that she knew a little something about what she was doing, so she made sure to have some sort of notation on every page.
Iris was standing in the middle of the music room. “Where’s Sarah?” she said again.
“I don’t know,” Honoria said. She looked one way, and then the other. “Where’s Daisy?”
Iris waved an impatient arm toward the door. “She stopped to attend to herself after we arrived. Don’t worry about her. She wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Sarah’s not here?”
Iris looked about ready to explode. “Do you see her?”
“Iris!”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but where the devil is she?”
Honoria let out an irritated exhale. Didn’t Iris have something more important to worry about? She hadn’t made a complete fool of herself in front of the man she’d only recently realized she loved.
Three days had passed, and she felt ill just thinking about it.
Honoria couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said. Instead, she recalled the terrible sound of her voice, all jerky and choked. She remembered her brain begging her mouth to just stop talking, and she remembered her mouth having none of it. She’d been completely irrational, and if he had considered her a responsibility before, now he must think her a chore.
And even before that, before she had started spouting nonsense and acting so emotional that the men of the world must surely think themselves justified in considering women the flightier sex, she’d still been a fool. She’d danced with him as if he’d been her salvation, she’d looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, and he’d said—
Nothing. He hadn’t said anything. Just her name. And then he’d looked at her as if she’d gone green. He’d probably thought she was going to cast up her accounts and ruin another perfectly good pair of his boots.
That had been three days earlier. Three days. Without a word.
“She should have been here at least twenty minutes ago,” Iris grumbled.
To which Honoria muttered, “He should have been here two days ago.”
Iris turned sharply. “What did you say?”
“Perhaps there was traffic?” Honoria asked, making a quick recovery.
“She lives only half a mile away.”
Honoria gave her a distracted nod. She looked down at the notes she’d made on page two of her score and realized she’d written Marcus’s name. Twice. No, three times. There was a little M.H. in curlicue script hiding next to a dotted half note. Good Lord. She was pathetic.