The Firstborn

Chapter Eight

The ballroom was a press of too many bodies and too little air. Candles burned in every sconce, dripped from chandeliers above the heads of dancers who moved through patterns Haughton suspected had been specially choreographed to drive a man mad. Even the music reflected the repetitive nature of the steps, the quartet—carefully secreted behind a painted screen, lest anyone's delicate senses be offended by a vision of the working class—sawing away at their instruments in a manner that would have sent the original composers back to their graves, should any of them have been gifted with a chance at resurrection.

It was late in the evening, or perhaps early in the morning. Haughton reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, his fingers ready to grasp the smooth circle of his watch, but then he recalled that particular item's current location, approximately three hundred miles north, no doubt already well crusted over from grubby fingers and bearing numerous teeth marks from a chubby, nine-month-old boy.

He passed from one room into the next, the ballroom holding the majority of the overheated, over-perfumed guests. There were the remains of that evening's supper in one chamber, and in another several guests—many of them more advanced in years, and so had no need to parade themselves up and down the length of the ballroom in search of a marriageable partner—played at various games of cards. He lingered there for a few minutes, enjoying the muffled quality of the music this lack of proximity lent to it, but he chose not to take place at any of the assembled tables.

The truth of the matter was, Haughton had experienced some difficulty with paying attention to any single matter since his return from Northumberland six days earlier. He had attended to his business matters with some small amount of success, but when left to carry along with the remainder of his day's routine, to leave himself to his own thoughts and musings...

No, that was when it all went to hell.

At first, he wanted nothing more than to blame it on having been away from his London home for several days. It had unsettled his mind, all those hours of damp, miserable travel. The truth of it, though, and something he had no wish to fully admit to himself, was a bit more corporeal.

Sophia Brixton had got into his head. He wasn't certain how she had managed it. Never before had he permitted anyone, of either sex, to distract him to such an extent. Even his brother's libertine behaviors were best treated as another business matter, merely one of which he didn't wish for the public to obtain more than a cursory knowledge. But Mrs. Brixton...

She had succeeded in unnerving him. He liked to believe that he was capable of forming an accurate portrait of a person's character within the first few minutes of conversing with them. But Mrs. Brixton had surprised him at nearly every turn, from the first moment he'd set foot across her threshold.

He'd recognized anger in her, in the flash of her hazel eyes and the bloom of color in her cheeks, highlighting the sprinkling of freckles that decorated her skin. But he'd also seen fear, and strength, and humor. And far more intelligence than he was used to facing against in most others of his acquaintance.

He returned to the ballroom, skirting the main area of the floor where dozens of couples moved through a simple country dance. The wallflowers and matrons kept to chairs tucked beside potted plants or near tables set with crystal bowls filled with what Haughton could only imagine was a ghastly sort of punch or lemonade. A whiskey would have suited him quite well, but he doubted he would find any such refreshment in a room full of gimlet-eyed mothers and cosseted daughters.

The women—both generations—kept an eye on his progress around the edges of the room. He felt their attention, like the buzzing of an unwelcome insect. He shouldn't have come here, but he had wanted a distraction, any distraction, and a ball had seemed like a good enough idea. Well, at least it had at the time.