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managed to choke out. Oddly, she experienced the exchange as if she were an observer outside her body. The dowdy spinster and the dashing scholar. If the miracle weren’t happening right before her very eyes, she’d never believe it.
    Bowing, he offered his hand. Isadora took it, glad for the moleskin gloves her mother insisted she wear, for that way Chad would never know how icy and clammy her palms were.
    Since he stood a few inches shorter, she hunched her shoulders a bit, breathless with surprise and delight. So this is what it feels like, she thought, letting the melody enter her veins like fine wine. This is what a dream come true feels like.
    Chad’s attention lifted her lighter than air; she felt more graceful than a swan on still water. Finally, finally she had broken through his indifference. Finally he was going to dance with her.
    But instead of leading her out onto the parquet floor, he brought her into the domed alcove that had been her refuge at the start of the ball. Ye powers, an assignation? Was that what he wanted? She almost laughed aloud with delight.
    A gold-fringed drape concealed them. Moist-eyed, tingling all over, she nearly burst with expectancy as she pushed down her spectacles and watched him. “Yes, Chad? What was it you wanted?”
    He began rummaging in the pocket of his waistcoat. “This will take only a moment of your time…. Let’s see, I had it here somewhere….”
    A watch on a chain slipped out of his pocket. In addition to the watch, he held a small gold ring with a blue topaz stone in it. Praise be, was he going to ask her to marry him? For the first time in her life, Isadora understood a lady’s need for a fan, for she had broken out in a copious sweat.
    “I’d like you to take this.” He pressed the ring into her hand.
    “Oh, Chad.” Her heart brimmed over with happiness. “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Say you’ll do it.” His smile was vague, his eyes restless as he pulled the curtain aside and scanned the crowd.
    Her finger was too thick for the dainty ring. “Of course I will, but—”
    “She’s there, in that lavender dress.” Putting one hand on Isadora’s shoulder, he leaned out of the alcove and pointed. “Lydia Haven. She’s dancing with Foster Candy. I took her ring as a prank and she’s so cross with me, she won’t allow me near her to give it back. Do tell her I’m sorry….”
    Isadora didn’t hear the rest over the rush of blood in her ears. Through a blur of humiliation she saw Lydia Haven, ravishing in her lilac gown, tipping back her head as she laughed at a jest made by her dancing partner.
    “You want me,” she managed to say, “to deliver Miss Haven’s ring to her?”
    “That’s it exactly, there’s a girl.” With his hand tucked into the small of her back, he steered her out of the alcove.
    The hard busk dug into her breastbone as she resisted him. “Mr. Easterbrook,” she said.
    “Yes?”
    She yearned to hurl the ring right into his excessively handsome face. Instead, she did something worse. Something much, much worse.
    She looked him in the eye and said, “As you wish.”
    “I knew I could count on you, Izzie my girl.” He gestured at the crowd. “Oh, look, you’ll have to hurry. The set’s ended.”
    Hating herself, she marched off to do as he asked. She handed the ring back to its owner. Lydia gave her a lovely smile and said, “Why, thank you, Dora. I thought you were going to steal Chad clean away from me.” She and her friends giggled, each peal of mirth a lethal dagger. “Look at you in your black,” Lydia continued, fingering the gros grain ribbon trim on Isadora’s skirt. “What are you mourning, dear?”
    The death of good manners, Isadora thought, but she was too mortified to speak. Pursued by female titters, she tried to beat a hasty retreat. But her way was blocked by a blond woman with a belled pointe skirt and an ivory-and-lace fan. The lady smiled tentatively, as if she were about to offer a