The woman scrambling to her feet made it rather impossible not to notice how much in disarray she was. Part of her dress was off — was that just her corset she was wearing now? Merlin's sake! Were women generally in the habit of stripping down to their corsets in the middle of balls? Of course they weren't, at least not in the middle of makeshift coatrooms that ought to have been abandoned. So he had surprised her doing something she wasn't meant to be doing, too — but regardless, he was seeing her very much under-dressed, and as she admonished him for it he realized he'd been gaping. With some effort Ford shut his mouth and whirled around, so that she could be quite certain he wasn't looking. Unfortunately he'd misremembered how far he was from the fireplace, and in whirling around had ran his shoulder straight into the mantle. He flinched at the sudden pain. Something fell off of the far edge of the mantle and shattered on the ground. Well then. Things were going from bad to worse, because someone was going to notice whatever it was that had broken, whether the noise of it now or the pieces of it later. And things would be even worse if someone were to hear it and come now, because he couldn't even give a reasonable explanation like taking a wrong turn to the bathroom and knocking it over by mistake, not while there was a woman behind him who would know that was a lie.
All of the other reasons why it would be terribly unfortunate to be caught alone in a poorly lit room with a mostly undressed woman caught up to him a second later. Merlin, he hoped no one had heard that... but the thought did beg the question of what she was doing here. Well, what she had been doing seemed fairly obvious, to Ford. There were quite a limited number of reasons a young woman would steal away to private rooms during a ball and get undressed. The real mystery was why she was alone. It seemed (to Ford anyway, who admittedly lacked this particular experience) that her partner ought to have hung around long enough to get her back into her dress, at least. Unless — it made his stomach turn to even think it, but the possibility presented itself to him regardless — unless someone had taken advantage of her, and already beat a hasty retreat.
"Are you — okay?" he stage-whispered at his feet. (It occurred to him that if she was deeply traumatized she probably wouldn't interrogate him too much on why he'd just been coming back to the party. He didn't particularly want to think of that as a silver lining, but he also wasn't keen on being arrested).
All of the other reasons why it would be terribly unfortunate to be caught alone in a poorly lit room with a mostly undressed woman caught up to him a second later. Merlin, he hoped no one had heard that... but the thought did beg the question of what she was doing here. Well, what she had been doing seemed fairly obvious, to Ford. There were quite a limited number of reasons a young woman would steal away to private rooms during a ball and get undressed. The real mystery was why she was alone. It seemed (to Ford anyway, who admittedly lacked this particular experience) that her partner ought to have hung around long enough to get her back into her dress, at least. Unless — it made his stomach turn to even think it, but the possibility presented itself to him regardless — unless someone had taken advantage of her, and already beat a hasty retreat.
"Are you — okay?" he stage-whispered at his feet. (It occurred to him that if she was deeply traumatized she probably wouldn't interrogate him too much on why he'd just been coming back to the party. He didn't particularly want to think of that as a silver lining, but he also wasn't keen on being arrested).
Set by Lady!