Henrietta startled at the sound of someone's voice. She had made the conscious decision to put some distance between herself and the family members that were intended to serve as her chaperones this afternoon, but had failed to recognized the consequences of doing so: she was now defenseless when confronted with conversation from a stranger. Or someone slightly less than a stranger, because he had called her by her name, but it took Henri half a second of blinking at him in the strange bluish light of the underwater tunnel to recognize him in turn. Holden's friend, whom she'd talked to at her debut ball, and whose name she still wasn't entirely sure of. Drat.
There were worse people that she could have happened upon while alone, but this certainly wasn't a fortuitous turn of events. She shouldn't have been alone with a gentleman at all, but a young gentleman seemed particularly egregious (she didn't know why, but she thought everyone was always quicker to let their mind jump to scandalous conclusions when the age gap between man and woman wasn't so large as to make an appropriate match). This might be salvaged if she managed to make some conversation with him and part ways without anyone observing the pair of them together, but that left her with another problem: that of having to make conversation with him. She didn't enjoy talking to men, but usually she could rely on one of her sisters to interject a few comments here and there to keep the conversation moving along at a steady clip. No such refuge here, since she'd taken the divergent path. This was her just desserts, she supposed — she was going to be ruined, either swiftly as she was discovered alone with a gentleman and torn apart by vicious rumors, or slowly as she made a terrible fool of herself and his opinion of her leaked through all the eligible bachelors in England and made her uniformly undesirable.
Maybe if she only knew his name she could figure some way out of this. As it was, matters seemed quite hopeless.
"Good afternoon," she returned, tone slightly stilted. Somewhere behind her right shoulder the magic keeping the tunnel open started to wear a little thin, causing a quick drip drip drip of water from the top of the tunnel towards the ground.
There were worse people that she could have happened upon while alone, but this certainly wasn't a fortuitous turn of events. She shouldn't have been alone with a gentleman at all, but a young gentleman seemed particularly egregious (she didn't know why, but she thought everyone was always quicker to let their mind jump to scandalous conclusions when the age gap between man and woman wasn't so large as to make an appropriate match). This might be salvaged if she managed to make some conversation with him and part ways without anyone observing the pair of them together, but that left her with another problem: that of having to make conversation with him. She didn't enjoy talking to men, but usually she could rely on one of her sisters to interject a few comments here and there to keep the conversation moving along at a steady clip. No such refuge here, since she'd taken the divergent path. This was her just desserts, she supposed — she was going to be ruined, either swiftly as she was discovered alone with a gentleman and torn apart by vicious rumors, or slowly as she made a terrible fool of herself and his opinion of her leaked through all the eligible bachelors in England and made her uniformly undesirable.
Maybe if she only knew his name she could figure some way out of this. As it was, matters seemed quite hopeless.
"Good afternoon," she returned, tone slightly stilted. Somewhere behind her right shoulder the magic keeping the tunnel open started to wear a little thin, causing a quick drip drip drip of water from the top of the tunnel towards the ground.
