Without thinking, she glanced around, still searching for Mr Fairclough, eager to see him. A very small part of her, the one that had been tricked by Preston, stirred before she stamped it out. The idea that she was chasing after a man again frightened her, but this wasn’t intended to be that sort of arrangement and she must be sensible and level headed in this matter. This was about a respectable marriage and a better future, not some clandestine tryst.
‘I’ll leave you two ladies here.’ Richard, removed her hand from his arm. ‘I’m off to the game room with the gentlemen.’
‘So soon?’ She hadn’t imagined facing the ballroom without the surety of Richard’s reputation to help bolster hers or to navigate the Mr Fairclough matter alone.
‘I trust you’ll be fine with Mrs Parker.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Jackson, I’ll watch out for her as if she were my own daughter,’ Mrs Parker assured him.
‘I don’t doubt you will. Ladies.’ With a bow, he made for the smoky gambling room where the married gentlemen and confirmed bachelors would hole up for the evening, leaving the single men of marriageable age to the debutantes and their mothers.
Those debutantes and mothers watched Mary who pretended not to notice their curious scrutiny as she waded into the crowd. She and Mrs Parker stood on the edge of the dance floor as the dancers twirled by during the rousing reel. The young women’s cheeks were flush with the thrill of the dance or the attention of the gentleman holding their hands. They were innocent in their white dresses of cascading ruffles accented with pink ribbons and bows and everything expected of well-bred young ladies, everything Mary no longer was. The men dancing with them gazed down at their simpering partners with an adoration verging on worship, as if they weren’t worthy to hold the gloved hands of these fair maidens.
‘I don’t know how I’ll compete with them for Mr Fairclough’s attentions,’ Mary said to Mrs Parker. The dancing women were only a few years younger than her, but they didn’t know disappointment, betrayal, shame and guilt as intimately as she did, and if they or their mothers knew the truth about Mary they’d promenade right out of the room to get away from her.
‘Chin up, Lady Mary. You’re a woman of experience, that’s more than most of them can say, although I could point out the ones who could say it but I won’t, at least not yet. You need to meet them first.’ She winked and Mary stifled a laugh.
‘Are you suggesting that they aren’t as innocent as they look?’
‘Most people aren’t, that’s a good rule for anyone to remember, especially you who has suffered enough for her mistakes and doesn’t deserve any more.’ Mrs Parker slipped her hand in Mary’s and gave it a comforting squeeze.
‘Thank you, Mrs Parker, that means a great deal to me.’
‘Smile, Lady Mary, and look merry, you have a man to catch.’ Mrs Parker levelled her hand towards the opposite side of the dance floor. There, Mr Fairclough stood with a young woman on either side of him. They peered up at him with eyes so round it was a wonder he didn’t fall into them. He smiled in delight at their adoration, making Mary want to gag. She’d seen that expression on a hundred young ladies’ faces during her Season, their hopeful mothers standing behind them wondering if they’d found a real catch. It was all an act she knew well. They wanted Mr Fairclough for nothing more than his money. They had no real interest in him, although Mary wasn’t certain her reasons for pursuing him were any more noble than theirs.
‘What do you think of Richard’s proposal of me and Mr Fairclough?’ Mary’s judgement had failed her once before. It was time to rely on other people’s more clearheaded opinions.
‘I’ve known him since he arrived in Baltimore and I haven’t a bad thing to say about him. My brother is the foreman at his machine shop and all the workers there speak highly of him, too. He’s good to his employees, paying poor Mr Stone who was sick and has three children at home who would have starved if his pay had been withheld. Unlike some of these hard-hearted businessmen in here who care only for profits, Mr Fairclough takes care of his workers. I think Mr Jackson is right, the two of you will suit, but not if you lose him to one of those gadflies flitting about him.’ Mrs Parker set her plump shoulders, hidden beneath the lines of her dark blue dress devoid of all ruffles and frills, and faced Mary. ‘Come. It’s time to shoo them away.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Bolstered by Mrs Parker’s support, Mary took hold of the sides of her skirt and accompanied her companion around the edge of the ballroom towards Mr Fairclough.
The music ended and couples entered and left the dance floor. The change in partners made Mary walk faster, afraid Mr Fairclough would escort one of those fawning women out for the next dance and give the little vixen a chance to snare him. Mary wasn’t about to lose out on becoming a wife just because, like the horses to Gretna Green, she hadn’t been quick enough. If she and Preston had arrived at the anvil a day or even a few hours sooner, it would have all been done, and then everything that had happened afterwards wouldn’t have mattered. She wouldn’t have been cast aside because she would have been wed.
‘Mr Fairclough, you promised me the next dance,’ Mary announced, stepping between him and one young woman and catching Mrs Parker’s congratulatory smile from where she stood just behind him. The women flanking him all but sneered at Mary. It wasn’t their reaction she cared about, but Mr Fairclough’s. He could easily laugh at her the way Preston had while she’d lain in the inn’s old bed, still in pain, asking if they’d continue on to Gretna Green when she felt better. Then he’d walked out the door, leaving her to the hard innkeeper’s wife who’d demanded payment from her father for the stained sheets and what little care she’d offered Mary. When her father had returned from paying the greedy woman, things had become far worse than she could have imagined when the bleeding had first started in the carriage or when Preston’s back had faded down the inn’s dark hall.
The memory of it nearly made Mary mumble her apologies and flee into the crowd, but she stood her ground. She wasn’t about to run, not with the mothers whispering about Mary’s forwardness. They must wonder who this young woman was who wasn’t a debutante judging by her dress and wasn’t married either given her bare ring finger. She shouldn’t have asked him to dance—it wasn’t done—but she’d made her statement and there was no backing down from it.
Mary’s stiff stance softened when Mr Fairclough’s surprise changed into delight. ‘You’re right, Lady Mary, I’d forgotten. Can you forgive me?’
The Lady before her name silenced the mothers and their daughters who gazed on Mary with more respect than they’d shown when she’d first trounced between them and the object of their hunt. If only her title had guaranteed her this much respect back home.
‘How could I hold such a small oversight against you?’ she answered with a graciousness to impress even herself.
‘If you ladies will excuse me?’ He offered Mary his arm and she took it, allowing him to escort her to the dance floor.
‘That was quite a bold invitation to dance,’ Mr Fairclough complimented as he laid one hand on her waist and faced her for the Viennese Waltz. Mary would have preferred a gallop or a vigorous polka to these slow steps, but she hadn’t exactly given either of them a choice. She’d simply demanded a partner. She was getting what she’d asked for.
‘I’ve learned the hard way that tarrying can lose one many opportunities.’
‘So have I. One does not form companies and forge ahead with a railroad by being shy.’
‘Nor does a woman secure a dance by standing near a wall.’
‘Something tells me you aren’t in the habit of standing by walls, Lady Mary.’
‘I’ve held up my fair share of them.’ Too many in the last four years, not that she and Ruth had ever attended anything like a dance, but if they had, Mary