There Will Be Phlogiston Read Online Free Page B

than with grace, but
there was something just a little thrilling about the way he
moved.
    Or not.
    No. Certainly there was not.
    But would it make one feel fragile to be held in
such powerful arms? Or powerful too?
    And fuck. The marquess was talking to her.
    “Oh yes,” she breathed. “I am enjoying the ball so
very much.”
    “Quite,” he returned.
    After a moment or two, she offered, “I think it is
not too warm tonight.”
    “Quite,” he returned.
    That would probably do. She let her gaze slip past
him to the other dancers, noting with some pleasure that Lady
Mildred (Lord Copper’s second daughter) was wearing a deliciously
ill-advised gown: blue silk taffeta trimmed with so much Chantilly
lace that her bosom looked like a badly iced cake.
    There was, however, no sign of Anstruther Jones.
    Only his friend, Lord Mercury, who was standing by a
potted palm, looking as bored and miserable as Rosamond felt.
    Men were so fortunate. They could do that sort of
thing, and everyone admired them for it. A grumpy-looking woman,
however, was inelegant and inappropriate, and nobody would want to
marry her.
    Rosamond adjusted her smile. Deployed it briefly at
the marquess.
    Most of the other debutantes were in love with Lord
Mercury. He had a lineage as old as Gaslight, and he was beautiful.
Too beautiful for Rosamond’s comfort. What control could she
possibly maintain over a husband who surpassed her?
    When the dance was done, the marquess thanked her
for the honour, and asked if she would like to walk with him a
little.
    “Oh yes,” she said again, “I would like that so very
much.”
    They walked.
    “You dance divinely, Lady Rosamond.”
    She had perfected several useful social arts over
the years. She could cry prettily and swoon on demand, but she had
never quite succeeded in mastering the blush. She dipped her head
as though she were, which was almost as effective. “You are too
kind.”
    They walked a little more.
    A breeze from the terrace rustled her flounces.
    The marquess paused by the open doors. “Would you .
. . It’s terribly forward of me . . . but would you care to take
the air?”
    It was, indeed, terribly forward, but the marquess’s
attentions towards her had been quite marked. He always made a
point of dancing with her, and he had called upon her twice. Twice . She couldn’t remember a single word he’d said—or
anything she might have said back—but they’d been seen together,
and that was the important thing.
    She cast a swift glance round the ballroom,
wondering if her absence would be noted. She knew she shouldn’t
dally (or at least be observed dallying) with gentlemen on moonlit
terraces, but she wasn’t going to let a marquess slip through her
fingers for the sake of propriety.
    That was how spinsters happened.
    She faux-flushed—faushed, as they’d called it at
Miss Githers’s Finishing School—again, and pretended to hesitate.
“Perhaps . . . perhaps just for a few moments? It is rather
stifling with so many couples . . . and I am a little faint.”
    “Please, let me help you.”
    Solicitously, the marquess guided her outside, and
Rosamond took the opportunity to cling to his arm, allowing the
edge of her skirts to brush very lightly against his legs. Once
outside, however, she quickly revived. The line between sensitive
and sickly was itself rather delicate, and men did not marry
inconvenient women.
    “That is much better.” She presented a dazzling
smile, hoping the marquess would be able to admire it properly in
the uncertain light.
    “Quite,” returned the marquess.
    Rosamond stifled irritation. Truth had lent her
words an unseemly fervour, something she would have to be more
careful with in future.
    But it was much better. The ballroom had been
hot and crowded, loud and bright, and it had reeked of sweat and
phlogiston. The night was cool and empty, and smelled of jasmine
and wood smoke. She stretched her neck—largely to demonstrate its
swanlikeness—but was