The dandy guided her, clumsily it must be admitted, through the final refrain of the waltz. He relaxed noticeably at the end and whisked her to the punch bowl, taking proprietary control of her dance card so that she could not find her next partner. As it happened, she had no partner. She was, after all, not out, and could really only dance with her escort or her brothers.
Sophronia glared at him, waiting for some kind of sign.
“You’re awfully friendly with that young man,” said a horribly familiar voice from behind the velvet mask.
“Soap!” hissed Sophronia, backing them both away from the punch and into a corner behind a potted plant. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Swilling punch with the aristocracy. Keeping an eye on you.”
“I can take care of myself!”
“Not from what I hear. Rumor around the floor is that you got yourself engaged!”
“Oh ho, trust you to be in on the gossip.”
“The ladies like me, what can I say? What do you have to say for yourself?” He was glaring at Felix, who held court across the crowded ballroom and raised his glass at them in a challenging, cocky way.
Soap inclined his head.
Sophronia could almost feel the sharpness of Felix’s glare.
Sophronia was convinced these two shouldn’t encounter each other when Soap was pretending to be a gentleman. Dueling might result.
“Silly Soap, it’s not to Felix. Mumsy has decided to engage me to Pillover.”
“What?” That took the coal out of Soap’s boiler.
“Misunderstanding.”
“I should hope so. He’s a child.”
“Sadly, he doesn’t look like it anymore.”
Soap stopped staring angrily at Felix and turned to follow Pillover’s slouched form as he led an excited lady through a reel in a competent—if desultory—manner. The young woman clearly thought he was the most wonderful thing.
“Oh, dear,” said Soap.
“Who knew Pillover would turn into a lady-killer?”
“Who indeed?” Soap could do a fair imitation of an upper-crust accent when he put his mind to it.
If Sophronia hadn’t been so annoyed with him for putting himself in danger, she might have said something complimentary on this subject. “I think it’s the general air of bleakness and dyspepsia; women want to save him and administer good cheer.”
“Poor old Pillover.”
As if knowing he was the object of their discussion, Pillover spotted them lurking behind the palm and, with an air of desperation, began to bend his set in their direction. Felix extracted himself from a flock of eager young ladies and desperate mamas and circled in on their location as well.
Sophronia panicked. “Soap, you have to get out of here! You haven’t been invited. What if someone finds out who you are? I’m sure there’s a law against it. You could be cashiered or whatever it is they do upon encountering unsanctioned mixing of the classes.”
“I thought my accent was rather good!”
“Soap, and I don’t mean to be rude, but you do know you are of African descent, don’t you? What if your mask slips?”
Soap shrugged. “I like your costume, miss. You look a treat, almost like you was one of us down below.”
“You’re impossible! Why, I… Wait a moment. You were Roger’s friend, on the box! How did I not know it was you?”
“I bundled completely up and I slouched so you wouldn’t recognize my posture. And I stayed quiet so you wouldn’t know my voice.”
“How did you persuade Roger to go along?”
Soap grinned. “You think I don’t have just as many tricks as you, for all your education?”
That was fair; he had taught Sophronia a whole mess of dirty fighting techniques.
“Who are you? You upstart poodle faker!” demanded Felix, interposing himself between Soap and Sophronia in an overbearing white knight way.
Sophronia was instantly annoyed. Felix should know she was perfectly capable of dealing with things!
“That is none of your concern,” replied Soap, sounding even more the toff, his speech patterns influenced by Felix’s upper-crust accent.
“Oh, now, if you are focusing in on my lady here, I should make it my concern.”
“Ho there!” said Sophronia, in a low hiss, attempting to get both young men to lower their voices and not cause a scene. “I’m no one’s lady, thank you kindly. Despite what my mother thinks.”
The boys ignored her, squaring off rather like two hounds after the same smelly old carcass.
“Oh, really,” said Sophronia, annoyed at being ignored. “I’m not really important in this situation, am I? You two simply wish to bicker.”
This was probably unfair to Felix, who didn’t recognize Soap. Where did Soap get such an outlandish outfit? Felix would consider a sootie so far beneath him as to be unworthy as a rival, if he knew.
Soap, on the other hand, had taken an active dislike to the young viscount the moment Felix entered Sophronia’s life.
Things might have gotten quite out of hand, except that Pillover pulled up, panting. “Oh, Sophronia, thank goodness. Save me? Please? All those young girls, in pastels, talking about the weather. I shall go jump off a bridge, I swear I shall. Do you have bridges in Wiltshire? They chatter, they chatter worse than Dimity ever did. Oh, the chattering! The chattering, it haunts me.”
That broke the tension.
Felix looked at Pillover as if he were some yappy dog.
Soap chuckled.
“Well,” said Pillover truculently, “if we’re secretly engaged, she’s obliged to save me.”
Sophronia did not want to leave Soap and Felix together. “Oh, Pill, I really would like to help, but we seem to be in the middle of some kind of whose-top-hat-is-the-biggest contest.”
Pillover looked between the two young men in question. “Well, I don’t know who you are, sir,” he addressed Soap, “although I respect the courage of a man who wears satin breeches that tight, but in the end you’ll have to cede to Lord Mersey. He’s too much of a peer, you understand? And a bit of a prick as well.”
“Pillover!” gasped Sophronia.
“Well, he is. Girls never see it, but it’s true. All I’m saying is, he’s going to win no matter what you do, stranger. So you might as well give up.”
Felix looked as if he had been given some kind of caped weasel—part gift, part insult, part utter confusion. “Thank you, I think.”
Pillover glared at him. “Pistons! Trouble, the lot of you. Now that’s settled, you’ll save me, Sophronia?”
“Pill, I don’t think you’ve solved the problem.”
“People tell me that all the time.” He turned about. “Oh, belter, here they come!” A gaggle of pastel puffs mixed with wings and very pretty flowered masks headed purposefully in his direction. Though, to be fair, they might also be after Lord Mersey.
Sophronia followed Pillover’s gaze, only to have her attention caught by a hubbub at the door to the ballroom. Within a very brief space of time, it escalated into a loudly voiced argument of the type that ought never be conducted in public, not even between tradesmen. It had everyone’s attention. Even Felix and Soap left off their animosity to focus on the astounding breach in social etiquette.