"N-nothing, Matilda." She hated the betraying stutter in her voice. She also hated the telltale heat flooding her cheeks.
She could imagine what a spectacle she must make. She recalled Hamish’s appalled expression when he saw her in the anteroom. Not to mention, she was wearing his coat, and he was in his shirtsleeves. Any transfer of clothing between a well-bred young lady and a rakish young man reeked of scandal.
"You look like you’ve been crawling around a muddy shrubbery," Matilda said, still speaking in a piercing soprano. People crowded in behind Matilda, craning their necks to see what was happening.
"What a ridiculous idea," Emily muttered, consigning the younger Miss Conley to Hades. Her father was a brilliant man who edited a respected scientific journal. His three daughters didn’t have a brain between them.
"It’s not ridiculous. You’ve got twigs in your hair, and your dress is torn and wet, and your hem is all muddy."
"Miss Matilda, there’s no need for concern." Hamish’s deep rumble of a voice emerged from too close behind Emily. She heard the ironic weight he put on the word "concern," but she doubted Matilda did. "I was merely showing Miss Baylor a constellation we were discussing earlier."
"On your knees in the dirt obviously," Matilda said, and she didn’t sound hysterical at all. She wasn’t shocked at Emily’s breach of propriety. She was gloating at this public fall from grace.
As Emily met the girl’s sharp little eyes, she had cause to regret her former behavior to the Conley girls. She hadn’t hidden her dismissive attitude as well as she might.
Emily edged into the ballroom, further away from Hamish. Mortification and an utterly futile wish to turn the clock back created a sour mixture in her stomach. "I…I tripped," she said, with no hope at all that anyone would believe her.
"Into Mr. Douglas’s embrace, I’m assuming," Matilda said snidely.
Shut up, Matilda. What Emily would give to scratch the silly widgeon’s eyes out. The girl was clearly set on causing trouble.
As she observed the sea of faces turned in her direction, she saw trouble was exactly the result. Some expressions were concerned, some expressions were shocked. The majority were brimming with salacious curiosity.
People outside the rarefied world of science imagined that its denizens devoted their time to higher matters. From long experience, Emily knew that wasn’t the case. An interest in learning didn’t preclude an equally powerful interest in scandal. Catching the man of the moment skulking around in the dark with Sir John Baylor’s spinster daughter provided a tasty tidbit.
"The weather worsened while we were outside," Hamish said, stepping up beside her, plague take him.
Emily closed her eyes and prayed for control. Couldn’t Hamish see he only made things worse? She wished to heaven she’d thrown him to the wolves when she found that error in his calculations. What did she care if he faced professional criticism? It wasn’t as if they’d ever been friends.
"Why would you go stargazing when it’s raining?" This from Matilda’s older sister Cassie, who
now hovered at Matilda’s side.
"Just how long were you out there, young man?" Lord Pascoe asked, and Emily cringed when the question drew forth a muffled snicker. "Long enough to be grubbing around on your hands and knees, if the state of your clothes is any indication."
"Miss Baylor’s honor is untarnished," Hamish said, then spoiled everything by taking her arm. She stiffened under his touch and only just stopped herself from jerking free.
This whole disaster was all Hamish’s fault. Damn him.
Except it wasn’t. She knew better than to go out into a dark garden alone with a young man. His arrogant dismissal of her concerns had made her so cross that she’d given no thought to how all this would reflect on her reputation. It was so unfair, the restrictions the world placed on a woman of brains and spirit.
Except right now, she could lay no special claim to possessing brains. She might call Matilda Conley a nitwit, but Matilda wasn’t the one facing a wall of disapproval and nasty curiosity. Matilda Conley wasn’t the one feeling sick with humiliation and self-hatred. No, it was that intellectual prodigy, Emily Baylor.
Then the worst thing of all happened.
"Emily?" The crowd parted as her father tottered up to her. "What’s all this fuss?"
"Nothing, Papa." She broke away from Hamish and rushed forward to take his arm. She’d been too angry to cry before, but the bewilderment in her father’s voice had her blinking away tears. "It’s time we went home."
He’d been so good this evening, almost like his old self. Seeing his friends and hearing praise for his protégé’s brilliance had sparked some of his former fire.
Now he frowned in incomprehension. "But Hamish hasn’t made his speech. I’d dearly like to stay for the presentation."
"My speech has been delayed," Hamish said, taking her father’s other arm.
Emily cast Hamish a killing look that he ignored. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t escape him, it seemed.
"Delayed? Why delayed?" Her father glanced around the packed room, and she watched him retreat into the mists of confusion.