She was just standing there, shoulders slumped, as though she simply did not care what anyone thought of her, or said of her. As though she wasn’t even fully attending to the vitriol being poured upon her innocent head.
Right up until the moment when Miss Waverley’s mother said, ‘But, then, what can one expect from somebody hailing from such a family as yours?’
At that, the change which came over her was remarkable. She lifted her head and stepped forwards, so that she was for the first time fully illuminated by the light streaming from the ballroom windows. All the colours of autumn glowed in her wild tresses. Rich conker browns, threaded with gold and russet of leaves on the turn. And her demeanour was so fierce, it was like witnessing a storm whipping up out of nowhere, blasting away all shreds of one of those drear November mornings which so depressed him.
‘One can expect honourable behaviour,’ she said. ‘I was concealing myself only because I did not wish anyone, especially not a gentleman, to see that I had been crying.’
Now that he could believe. Miss Gibson did not weep prettily. Her nose, which was a shade too large for her rather thin face, was red and running. Her cheeks were mottled and streaked with what looked like not only tears, but horrifically like the effusions from that abomination of a nose.
It made it all the more remarkable for her to have exposed herself to view, in order to intervene in the affairs of two people who were neither her friends, nor, in his case, even a remote acquaintance.
‘I might have known,’ the matron snapped. ‘I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself, young lady. You see what comes of giving way to such a vulgar display of emotion? Not only do you look an absolute disgrace, but your selfish, wilful behaviour has exposed my own, blameless daughter to a situation that might very easily have been misinterpreted!’
Miss Gibson clenched her fists. She looked at the blameless Miss Waverley and took a breath. She was just about to blurt out the truth that would send shock waves rippling through the tranquillity of Miss Twining’s come-out ball, when he saw a look of chagrin cross her face.
Ah. She had just worked out that she could not now tell the complete truth without exposing herself. That was what happened when a woman began to spin a web of lies. She only had to put one foot wrong, to run the risk of becoming hopelessly enmeshed herself.
At least she had the intelligence to see it. She closed her mouth, lifted her chin and regarded the mother in stony-faced silence.
He felt his lips twitch as the gale blew itself out. Really, this was better than a play.
It was perhaps unfortunate that Miss Gibson glanced at him at the exact moment he began to see the humour in the situation. She caught his amused expression and returned it with a scowl that could have curdled milk.
‘Well,’ said the matron, who had missed the exchange of glances, because she’d been busy placing a comforting arm about her thwarted daughter’s shoulders. ‘I can see that you were motivated by the kindness of your heart, my dear, but really, it would have been better to have sought out Miss Gibson’s chaperon and let her deal with it.’
His brief foray into amusement at the absurdity of it all was over. The matron’s attitude was almost as offensive as that of her daughter. Here was a young female, so distressed that she’d run outside to give way to her emotions, and all she was getting was a lecture. It was not right. Somebody ought to be offering her some comfort. After all, females did not weep with such abandon, not in private, without having very good reason. They must know that, surely?
He looked at the mother. At Miss Waverley herself. And frowned.
He did not have much in the way of empathy for the sensibilities of females, but he was clearly the only person out here who felt even the tiniest scrap of it towards the bedraggled Miss Gibson. Not that he would dream of attempting to deal with her personally. He’d never had any success soothing weeping females. On the few occasions he’d attempted to offer consolation to one of his sisters when indulging in a fit of tears, his brand of rational argument had thrown them into something bordering on hysterics.
She needed a sympathetic female. The chaperon that the Waverley woman had mentioned—that was the woman who would know how to deal with her.
He pushed himself off the balustrade. ‘Allow me to rectify that error,’ he said, ‘by performing that office this very minute. If one of you would be so good as to furnish me with her name?’
‘Oh,’ said the matron with a sneer, ‘she is a Mrs Ledbetter. I dare say you would not know her, my lord. Indeed, I cannot think how a woman of her station in life came to secure an invitation to an event such as this.’
He smiled. ‘Indeed. One attends private balls in the expectation of only encountering a better class of person. Mrs Waverley, is it?’
‘Lady Chigwell,’ she simpered.
‘Lady Chigwell,’ he replied, with a bow of acknowledgement. As he straightened up, he caught Miss Gibson’s eye and gave her a wink. But if he had thought she might have relished the thinly veiled snub he had just administered, he was disappointed, meeting only disapproval in her gaze.
Perhaps she had not understood the gesture he had made on her behalf.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said, closing the distance between them so that he could take her hand, ‘may I tell Mrs Ledbetter you will wait for her out here?’ In an undertone, he added, ‘What does she look like?’
Miss Gibson blinked up at him with eyes that, at close quarters, he could see were still swimming in unshed tears. He squeezed her hand gently, trying to offer her both his gratitude and, somewhat to his surprise, some reassurance. There was not another female in the world, to whom he was not related, who could testify that Lord Deben had shown the slightest hint of concern for her welfare.
But no man, not even one as immune to fellow feeling as people often accused him of being, could fail to be moved by her plight. She had come out here to indulge in a private fit of tears, only to find herself obliged to have her breakdown exposed, and, to crown it all, to have not only her own character, but that of her chaperon quite unjustly ripped to shreds.
‘She is wearing a purple turban,’ she hissed in an undertone, ‘with one white and one purple ostrich feather in it. You really cannot miss it.’ And then, snatching her hand from his, she said, ‘I think it would be for the best if I wait out here.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ put in Miss Waverley in a sugary-sweet voice. ‘You would not want to walk across that ballroom, not as you are. You really need to give your face a good wash before you let anyone see you.’
Miss Gibson hastily swiped at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. The effect, since her gloves were as badly soiled as her gown, was unfortunate.
‘Allow me,’ he said, producing a square of monogrammed white silk from his tailcoat pocket with a flourish and offering it to her.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said gruffly and proceeded to take it from him with such reluctance that he suspected she would have refused it altogether were she not so desperate.
Why was that? he wondered. If she had taken a dislike to him, as seemed to be the case from the way she glared at him, after blowing her nose with a very unladylike thoroughness, then why had she come to his aid in the first place?
Or perhaps, as she had stated, it was just that she did not like to have any gentleman see her in such an unbecoming state of distress.
That must be it.
He turned, satisfied that he had accounted for the unwarranted hostility he could detect in her attitude, and made his way along the terrace, back to the ballroom.
Now all he had to do was find a woman of advancing years, in an ostrich-feathered purple turban, pass on the information that Miss Gibson was outside awaiting her assistance and he could lay the whole matter to rest.