There was a certain sameness to everything, Annie thought as she moved unthinkingly through the now familiar pattern of the cotillion. Not only a sameness to the dances, of course, but to all the crowded and exhausting days of the season, during which she hurried breathless from one event to another.
There was usually only enough time to accomplish the required change of costume before she was due at the next function. And despite her initial doubts that she would wear half the gowns that had been ordered for her, she had found herself already rewearing some of them.
The demands of the rigorous schedule Lady Laud had insistituted had, however, two much to be desired results.
During the round of dinners and routs, where she was introduced to and required to converse with perfect strangers, she did not have time to think about Ian. And at night she was so exhausted that she could almost always fall asleep without weeping. Almost always.
With his innate kindness, her guardian had made the days since his brother's departure as easy for her as he could. She supposed she should have appreciated his efforts, but since they consisted of his staying out of sight on the rare occasions when she was at home, she was torn between gratitude and an unspeakable pain.
At first he had used the injuries he had suffered in the street brawl as an excuse to keep to his rooms, freeing her from having to face him during those first few difficult days. And then, as the Season progressed, he was careful not to dine at home on the evenings when she did not have an engagement.
She never asked, of course, about the particulars of where he was on those occasions when Williams declared her guardian to be 'out'. She suspected, as often as not, he was eating a solitary dinner in his rooms as she ate an equally solitary one in lonely and elegant state in the dining room below.
Had it not been for the Earl of Dare's abrupt departure, she might have suspected her guardian was avoiding her because her declaration had embarrassed him. Instead, she finally concluded that the break between the brothers had occurred because Ian believed Dare's indiscretion had been painful to her.
He was not wrong about that, of course, but she had never blamed the Earl. Obviously he had been mistaken in what he had told her. However, she had been more than willing to grasp his words as the truth because they had fitted so well with her own fantasies.
"Some refreshment?" her partner suggested.
The question jerked her out of the familiar cloud of abstraction in which she spent far too much of her time.
She realized belatedly that the music had stopped.
"How very kind," she said, opening her fan.
In spite of the pleasant temperature of the night outside, the ballroom was overcrowded and overheated.
There didn't seem to be a breath of air stirring within it, despite the fact that all the French doors leading into the gardens were open.
And they looked incredibly inviting, Annie thought, feeling a trickle of perspiration slide downward between her breasts. The darkness beyond the doors seemed to beckon, offering a brief escape from what had become a nightly ordeal of too much heat, too much scent, and too many bodies vying for the same limited space.
She had resorted to marking off the passing days of the Season, as a prisoner might keep up with the slow passage of his sentence. That was almost what it had become, she acknowledged. Something to be endured until she could return to Fenton school and the life she had planned for herself there, long before she had known any other.
And now there would be no other. Nor did she wish there to be. Although she seldom lacked for a partner at any event, she was well aware that she had excited no undying passion in the heart of any of the gentlemen she had encountered. That was, of course, with the possible exception of Mr Travener, who tagged after her with such remarkable devotion that even lady Laud had commented on it.
Annie had assured her sponsor that her feelings were not mutually engaged, and indeed they were not. However, Doyle's presence did protect her from the unwanted attentions of those few suitors who were so lacking in town bronze that they didn't realize she had nothing to recommend her... Neither beauty nor wealth nor birth.
And without some combination of the three, she was, thankfully, unlikely to receive any respectable offer.
She glanced again towards the opening that led to the garden, wondering if she dared evade Lady Laud's vigilance and slip outside. Only a moment...