She stumbled again, and someone caught her arm before she could fall. Dazed, she glanced up to see it was one of those cloaked men. A black satin mask covered most of his face, giving him a slightly sinister air, like a demon dropped suddenly into the bright fairy revel.
She instinctively drew back from his touch, frightened. But then she glimpsed the eyes behind that mask. Surely only one man could have eyes of that certain shade of blue.
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered. She willed him to speak. If she heard his voice, she would know for sure it was the duke. But he merely nodded and moved on, disappearing into the crowd.
“Hurry up or you’ll fall behind!” Jane called.
Emily shook away the strange spell the gardens and the blue-eyed man cast on her and followed Jane into their box. It was a small space, open on one side so they could watch the concert, made even closer by the long table and close press of chairs. Mrs Barnes’s friends waited for them, and to judge from the clutter of empty wine bottles on the table they had already begun the revels. They called out uproarious greetings, waving their goblets in welcome.
As Emily squeezed on to an empty seat between Jane and a lady dressed as a voluminous Queen Elizabeth, she caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass hung on the back wall. At first she leaped up again, sure she was about to sit on some unfortunate woman, but then she laughed. It was her, that black-haired lady in green satin. She had forgotten she wasn’t entirely herself tonight.
If that was really the Duke of Manning, surely he did not know her either. If only she could find him again, and try to find out for certain.
“Here, Emily, have some arrack punch,” Jane said as she pressed a glass into Emily’s hand. “Vauxhall is quite famous for it.”
“As they are famous for the paucity of their refreshments? “ Emily murmured as she watched the footmen in Vauxhall livery deliver their supper. Platters of tiny, bony chickens, paper-thin ham and little wedges of pale cheese.
“It’s better than Almack’s, I dare say,” Jane said, drinking deeply of the arrack.
Emily sipped at hers—and coughed as her eyes watered. “It’s—quite good.”
And it certainly was, once she got past that first sharp kick. Spicy and sweet at the same time. She drank some more and nibbled at a little dry chicken as she studied the passing crowd. There were so many men in black cloaks, all of them too far away for her to see the colour of their eyes. She would never find him again! She should have followed him when she had the chance.
So distracted was she by her search that she hardly noticed when she finished her punch and her glass was refilled. She felt quite pleasantly warm and tingling, and everything seemed so very funny. Even the chicken was suddenly tastier.
The orchestra launched into the opening bars of an aria, and the famous Signora Rastrelli swept on to the stage amid a storm of applause. She held out her arms and curtsied deeply, a tall, bosomy woman in purple velvet and vast white plumes towering over her bright red hair.
She launched into her first song, an old lament of lost love, and everyone fell silent to listen.
“‘I pass all my hours in a shady old grove, but I love not the day when I see not my love! Oh then, ‘tis oh then that I think there’s no Hell like loving too well …”’
Emily rested her chin in her hand, watching Signora Rastrelli in something like envy. What would it be like to look like that, sing like that? To feel things so very deeply? To have such great passion? It would surely be quite uncomfortable, but also perhaps rather marvellous.
“‘Where I once had been happy and she had been kind, when I see the print left of her foot in the green, and imagine the pleasures may yet come again …’”
But I love not the day when I see not my love. Emily had never felt like that at all. She loved her family, of course, as exasperating as they could be. She wanted to please them and help them, and she knew they loved her, too, and wanted what was best for her in her life. She loved the women she taught and her work at Mrs Goddard’s, it was very fulfilling. She loved trying to do the right thing, trying to do her best and help people. But she had never felt like that, swept away by sweet emotions so much larger and greater than herself.
And she probably never would.
Her eyes suddenly itched, her throat tightening as if she would cry. She stared down into her nearly empty glass, blinking furiously to hold those foolish tears back.
Not that anyone would notice if she did start crying. Everyone else was sobbing at the song’s passion. But Emily felt like the walls of the box were closing in on her. The press and heat of the other people was too much, and she could not breathe.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Jane,” she whispered to her friend.
Jane glanced at her from behind her white feathered mask. “Are you all right, Emily? Your cheeks are all red. Should I come with you?”
“No, no. You’re enjoying the music and I—I just have to find the necessary.” Emily cringed at the indelicate excuse, but it was all she could come up with quickly. Jane nodded and went back to watching the concert.
Emily slipped out of the box and away from the crowds on the well-lit walks. The punch seemed to be working its sorcery on everyone else, too, for there were many flushed faces and loud laughs, and much leaning on each other as couples strolled past.
She still felt dizzy and silly, and on the verge of tears. She didn’t know where she was going, she only knew she had to be alone for a moment.
“Why does this always happen to me at parties?” she whispered.
She saw a narrower, darker pathway through the trees ahead and stumbled towards it on her cursed heeled shoes. There were far fewer lamps here, just a sprinkling set high in the trees, and the darkness closed around her in blessed quiet. She could hear whispers and soft laughter from the shadows, but she saw no one else. A cool breeze swept along the path, rustling the leaves and branches, and she shivered in her thin satin gown.
Up ahead, she glimpsed the pale marble of a fountain, shimmering in the starlight like an oasis. Perhaps she could sit down there, get off her aching feet and breathe deeply at last. She lurched towards it, and was nearly there when her heel caught again in the gravel. This time it snapped right off, and sent her pitching head-first to the ground.
She didn’t even have time to panic, let alone scream. A strong, well-muscled arm caught her around the waist and lifted her up.
Cold fear rushed through her like ice in her veins, freezing her in place. She had heard the tales—she should have known better than to wander away on to the dark walks by herself! Now something dreadful was going to happen, something even worse than what happened when she had to fight off Mr Lofton in the garden.
Emily kicked out wildly, but her feet tangled in her heavy skirts and threw her even closer to her captor. She twisted and shrieked. By sheer luck, her fist flew backwards and collided with a solid jaw.
One arm tightened around her waist while one hand clamped over her mouth. Even in her haze of fear, Emily remembered the words of Sally, her pupil at Mrs God-dard’s: You have to bite if anyone tries something with you, Miss Carroll. Bite and kick them as hard as you can. And then run.
That had been merely a rhetorical conversation on a situation Emily was sure would never happen, but here she was. She blessed Sally’s hard-won wisdom as she tried to bite down again.
But the man’s hand pressed even tighter. “Be easy, minx! I mean you no harm, I promise.” His voice was low