“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Miss Hereford reproached. “How can you call yourself a lady, believing he would want someone like you? What did you do? Place yourself in his bed?”

Emily bristled and she bit back a nasty retort. Oh, she could easily argue with Miss Hereford, but this was a battle of words not worth fighting.

“I believe there is nothing left for us to say to one another.” With a curt nod of farewell, she returned to the ballroom.

She found an empty spot against a wall and took deep breaths to calm herself. Miss Hereford’s spiteful words were meant to wound her, to make her doubt herself. And they raised questions she’d tried to avoid.

Why had Stephen married her when there were so many other women to choose from? Miss Hereford embodied everything a lady should be: graceful, poised, and completely at ease in society.

Emily, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine feeling comfortable amongst the ton. Like vultures, the society matrons would peck at her confidence until there was nothing left.

Stephen crossed the ballroom, heading straight toward her. Although he made brief eye contact, he did not speak to her, as if she weren’t there. His deliberate evasion made her anger rise another notch.

He kept walking past her, until she heard his voice saying, “I believe the next dance is mine, Miss Hereford?”

No. He was not going to dance with that woman, was he?

As they passed, Miss Hereford shot her a triumphant gaze. Emily was sorely tempted to throw something. The dessert spoon, perhaps, or better, the remains of the lemon cream.

But then, a true lady would never cause such a scene in public, even if it did wound her feelings, watching them.

That was it. She wasn’t going to stay a second longer. Stephen swept Miss Hereford into a dance, but even as he moved her across the ballroom, his gaze remained upon Emily. She recognized the look of possession, but she took no comfort from it.

Instead, she saw Miss Hereford at ease among the gentry, gliding across the floor in Stephen’s arms. She saw the marquess’s nod of approval.

Would anyone notice if Emily drowned herself in the lemonade bowl?

She handed a servant the remains of her dessert and strode toward the terrace. Never again. Though she’d mistakenly believed she could fit in, it was useless. She was not, nor would ever be, a woman who could belong at such a gathering.

Her imagination conjured up a vision of what it would be like to have gentlemen vying to dance with her. What must it be like to receive pretty compliments instead of warnings that she needed a better dressmaker?

She wanted to dance in the earl’s arms, to wear an ice-blue satin gown with jewels, knowing that she belonged. And if he dared court another woman, his toes would suffer for it.