Debutante's Daydream

Chapter Ten

        Her heart hurt immensely. 

        The week dragged by and with no word from John. She wasn't sure what hurt worse, he rejection or his silence. She had stayed in bed all week, much to her mothers dismay. The next ball had come and her mother was determined to find her a match, but she couldn't muster any excitement.

        She just kept hearing his words, the echoed in her head day and night. We've only just met. As if time would change her mind about him. Yes, maybe it was too early for notions of love, but she had thought it could turn into love. She had felt the blossoming shy feelings bubbling within her chest. 

        Even her forbidden romance novels hadn't prepared her for this. A breakup was always necessary, why she didn't know, and while it made her sad, it never ripped out her heart. Yet there she was, heart bleeding and no one could see. 

        Her lady's maid, Faye, tied her up in an elegant gown of crimson red, arranging her curls in a loose and bouncy updo that she had remarked would look alluring on the dance floor. Faye's blue-grey eyes softened as she applied a gloss over Carolyn's lips, fussing over the dried blood from where she had picked at them in her grief. If she was honest she would have admitted anytime she spoke it broke open the middle cut and hurt very badly. 

        "What's wrong, miss?" She asked softly, her fingers light on Carolyn's wounded lip. 

        Carolyn shook her head, eyes down cast. 

        "Miss, I have been with you ever since we were both old enough to dress ourselves, I know you. What is the matter?" Faye closed the container of gloss and took special care hiding the signs of her crying for the past week, delicately patting powder around her swollen and red eyes. 

        She let out a suffering sigh and pulled away from the powder puff. "At the last ball I met a man..." And she told Faye everything, the dancing, the garden, him stealing her away twice, the painting, her feelings and then the shift she had felt when he held her. The tenseness she could feel in his body as he had squeezed her, like a goodbye. The words that had wounded her so badly she braved the rain and ran home, unable to bare one more second in his company when he had thought so little of her. 

        Faye's brows had drawn together as she looked at her and took a seat on the settee at the end of Carolyn's bed. "He is a shy one?" She asked. "What's his name?" 

        "John Listworth, he is the son of the German viscount who conducts railways," Carolyn explained.

        Faye's breath caught. "Sir John? Why he's a recluse! Everyone knows that. He's a bit funny around people. Gets red in the face, stutters, it's like he cannot carry a conversation. You are sure this is the man you speak of?" 

        Carolyn did admit that sounded nothing like the man she carried feelings for, but she thought of the way he would rub his neck, or speak brashly like he hadn't thought his words all the way through. The intimate way he spoke to her, like he wasn't used to the formal talk of the ton. "I am sure this is the same man, but he did not act that way with me." 

        "Perhaps he wasn't wrong, miss." 

        But she still couldn't help but feel like he had been wrong.

~

        The ball was crowded, it was one of the most exclusive of the season and everyone who had a title was invited. She was passed from one wealthy nobleman to the next, all waxing on about things she gave no care for, things that they all had in common. They were all ancient and smelled of tobacco, the stench stuffed itself into her nostrils and gave her a headache.