The captain of dragoons made a jest. The ladies laughed a little more loudly than necessary.
Lady Harbury leaned forward from her vantage point, sending him a look meant to be maternal and landed just shy of calculating.
We are all quite amazed to see you, Your Grace, she cooed. I had quite given away your place in despair an hour ago, but Providence is kind.
Adrien smiled, the practiced, pleasant curve of his mouth that revealed nothing.
I am glad Providence and I are occasionally in agreement.
A young lady to his left, Miss Alicia Ashford, as she quickly supplied, blushed becomingly.
London would starve for conversation if Your Grace stayed away too long.
I suspect London is more resilient than you believe, Miss Ashford, he replied lightly. It seems in robust health tonight.
He engaged, because it was his duty to be neither rude nor dull.
But part of his attention remained, lodged with that folded napkin.
When the footman reached past him to clear it away along with the place card, Adrien's gaze flicked, too quick to be considered deliberate.
The card turned just enough for him to catch a single word before it vanished into the servant's hand.
Helena.
He did not see the surname, only the flowing H, the elegant curve of the L.
Helena.
Odd, he thought faintly, that her absence should feel more real to him than the presence of half the table.
In the dim side corridor, Helena had no notion that the Duke of Everre now occupied the chair where she had so carefully arranged her hands.
She leaned near the open window, drawing in the cool air, willing her cheeks to lose their betraying flush.
It was foolish to be so affected. No one had said anything truly cruel to her. No scene had been made.
A simple thing, a late invitation, a distant seat, a pair of pitying glances, little cuts, nothing more.
She ought to be accustomed to so much by now.
And yet it was never only the cut itself, was it? It was what it confirmed.
They do not see you. You are a number, a name to complete a list, a body to fill a chair.
Footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor.
Helena straightened hastily, lifting her fan.
Miss, it was only a young footman, his arms loaded with folded cloths.
He started when he nearly walked into her.
Beg pardon, miss, I did not see you.
Few people do, she said lightly, then colored, realizing how it sounded. That is, think nothing of it. Pray go on.
He bobbed an awkward half-bow and hurried past, the faint scent of starch and soap trailing after him.
Helena watched him disappear, then drew a steadying breath.
She could not hide indefinitely like a child. She must go back in, reclaim her place, and pretend she had not heard those women whisper.
When she reentered the dining room, the scene had subtly shifted.
The air seemed thicker with excitement. Laughter pitched higher.
The reason stood out instantly, even to her unpracticed eye.
The Duke of Everre sat in her chair.
Helena paused just inside the doorway, her fingers tightening around the fan so sharply the ribs bit into her skin.
For a single breathless second she felt as though she were looking at a stage upon which her role had been quietly reassigned.
He was, she had to admit, exactly as Alicia had described him, tall, dark-haired, with features that would have been too stern were it not for the faint, ironic amusement that softened his mouth.
There was something self-contained about him, a stillness amidst all the fluttering and pining around him, and he was sitting where she had been meant to sit, his coat sleeve nearly brushing the lilies that had crowded her elbow.
A footman materialized at her side with the uncanny instinct of well-trained servants.
Miss Ashford, he murmured, so quietly she almost did not hear over the clatter of cutlery. Her ladyship begs your pardon. The arrangement has been slightly altered. If you will be so good as to join the small table in the morning room, it is quite more comfortable.
Helena's gaze flicked to the corner where two older ladies and a pale, timid gentleman of uncertain rank sat at a smaller spillover table half hidden behind a screen.
More comfortable. Somewhere she could be entirely out of sight.
Heat crawled up her throat.
Of course, she said, because what else could she say? Pray, do not trouble her ladyship with apologies. I assure you, I am perfectly content.
She was not, but she had learned to wear contentment like one of her plainest gowns, serviceable, colorless, impossible to remark upon.
As she moved quietly toward the morning room door, no one at the main table glanced her way.
No one, except for the briefest moment, the Duke.
He had been answering some remark from Miss Ashford, Alicia, though he did not yet anchor the name in his mind, when a slight movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye.
A young woman in dove gray, pausing just at the threshold, her profile turned toward him.
Not beautiful in the loudly obvious way that drew rooms like moths.
But something in the line of her neck, the way her hand clenched around her fan struck him as wrong somehow. A cord plucked out of tune.
Who is she?
The thought flickered, swift and uninvited.
Before he could look more fully, a laugh rose nearby. Someone addressed him directly, and he turned back out of habit.
When he glanced again, the doorway was empty.
Later, much later, as the gentlemen lingered briefly over port and the ladies withdrew to the drawing room, Adrien stood apart for a moment, swirling dark liquid in his glass.
A folded scrap of card lay forgotten on the sideboard, where a footman had set it down and not yet cleared it.
His gaze rested on it idly, then sharpened.
Helena Ashford.
So the ghost of the seat had a full name, after all.
He set down his glass, the decision forming before he had even quite named it in his own mind.
Tomorrow he would send a note to Lady Ashford paying his respects and inquiring after her niece's health.