Julia continued to shake her head in protest. She was being backed into another cage. An even smaller one than she resided in now. Once married, there would be no escape from it, not until Lord Gresham died.

Or she did.

“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “I could never bring myself to—”

“If you’ve any maidenish apprehensions, your poor dear mama will quell them. I’ve commanded her to leave Bath this very day.”

Her mother was coming home?

The prospect did nothing to alleviate Julia’s fears.

Her mother could be as tyrannical in her infirmity as her father. They both of them believed that children should obey absolutely. That the entire purpose of a daughter was to be of service to her parents. But unlike Papa, who dismissed Julia the moment she became quarrelsome, Mama didn’t flinch from enforcing her orders with a hard pinch or a slap.

“She’ll be home by morning,” he said. “And then you may speak with her on the subject.”

“What about tonight?” Julia asked. “I don’t wish to attend the ball with Lord Gresham. I’d rather go with Mrs. Major. Either that or not at all.”

“Enough.”

“Indeed, I’d much prefer staying home.”

“Enough. I’m too poorly to listen to your screeching. My heart aches and my head’s a misery. If you knew what I suffer you wouldn’t plague me so. Go on now, and leave me in peace.”

Julia rose, her legs unsteady beneath her. “My heart is aching, too, Papa,” she said quietly. “If you force me to marry Lord Gresham, I fear it will break.”

“Bah. You and your romantic claptrap.” He returned his hand to the shelter of his blanket cocoon. “Away with you before you send me to an early grave.”

Eleven

During the London season, there were many hostesses who measured the success of a ball by the number of fashionable bodies they were able to pack, sardine-like, into the confines of their home. To Julia’s vast discomfort, Lady Clavering was one of them.

There were easily more than four hundred people inside the Claverings’ lavish gaslit ballroom, with its gilded cove ceiling painted to resemble a cloud-covered cerulean sky. Couples swirled in harmony around the polished wood floor; gentlemen in understated eveningwear and ladies in extravagant gowns, their tinsel-festooned skirts floating out over enormous crinolines.

Music from the orchestra swelled from the dais, and the air was redolent with the scents of perfume and pomade. Those who weren’t dancing lined the walls, both sitting and standing. Wallflowers and matrons alike, staring, whispering, and wafting their fans.

Julia had never felt more stifled. As she moved around the floor in Lord Gresham’s arms, doing her best approximation of a polka, she found it rather difficult to breathe.

The earl was having no easier a time of it. He guided her ineptly through the crush of dancers, treading on the skirts of first one lady’s ball gown and then another.