A Season of Masks and Masquerades

Chapter 6: The Eventful Morning

Lady Sherborne was incensed.
After all that she'd arranged, her daughter ensured a perfect distance of more than many common metres from the Duke of Dales the entire evening while every other, less eligible, if she must be brutally honest, debutantes left no opportunity to throw themselves on the man.

Meaning Esther was in trouble.

By some fortunate trick of fate, she managed to avoid her mother throughout the night and when the ball ended she was so terrifically tired that she could hardly keep her senses aligned when it came to walking or talking. She slept her way home in the carriage and sneaked straight up to her room at arrival, in which, not to Lady Sherborne's surprise at all, she did not require any assistance.

Although, she was all fine and healthy the following morning. Not just her, but the whole house was full of life. Servants ran all around the Sherborne house with clothes, accessories, delicious food items, dry snacks and whatnot. If it hadn't been for Nathaniel's warning that he will leave it all and mount the horse without a thing if they did not stop loading every possible item in his luggage at once, Lady Sherborne would've perhaps even tied herself along.

Tears ran down the cheeks of both the women as Nathaniel's horse rode away out of their sight, the mother's more than the sister's, but his parting jokes ensured smiles on both their faces. Esther held her mother in a warm hug and walked her back into the house.

She rang for tea for her mother and they both waited on the sofas, tired of the morning rush.

"Grey seems to suit you well."

"Huh?" Esther looked up to her mother with curled eyebrows. The first sane conversation that she'd imagined them having was surely about the ball and the Duke.

Lady Sherborne studied her confusion and gestured to her day dress. A light fabric gown in a light shade of grey.

"Oh!" Esther breathed. "Yes, I love it."

"Hmm." Lady Sherborne took a sip of her tea. "I wonder if that is the only reason for Mrs Lewis discovering a man's coat in your room this morning, in the grey of course."

When she turned to look at Esther her face had started to lose colour but at the back of her mind she had started working on a clean lie. "Oh mother, that's actually-"

"Well, I have confirmed and it certainly does not belong to Nate or your father."

"It doesn't," Esther confessed with a sigh.

"So?" Lady Sherborne tilted her head in her sharp motherly fashion, her gaze cutting across Esther's eyes.

"It belongs to a friend." Esther looked away and started surveying the rich fabric that covered the sofa under her. She was not sure of her mother's reaction to her spilling wine over a fellow gentleman but it surely wasn't pleasant so far as she could picture.

"A male friend." Lady Sherborne added. "Surely not Lord Gardiner?"

"No, mama!" Esther all but spat.

"Hmm." Lady Sherborne took another sip of her cup. "Then who?"

"You probably don't know him." She did not know what else to tell her. She herself had not the faintest idea about the man.

"I certainly do I'm sure. I am acquainted with pretty much everyone who was present in the dance, tell me his name."

"I-" If only she could.

Lady Sherborne studied her with curious eyes and Esther couldn't take it any longer.

"I do not know!" She blurted out and stood off the seat leaving her back to her mother.

"Whatever is that supposed to mean?"