“Well, that takes him right off my list,” Sarah said with no hesitation whatsoever.
“Do you know, I admire Lady Danbury,” Honoria said. “She says exactly what she means.”
“Which is precisely why no woman in her right mind would want to marry a member of her family. Good heavens, Honoria, what if one had to live with her?”
“You have been known to be somewhat forthright yourself,” Honoria pointed out.
“Be that as it may,” Sarah said, which was as far as she would go toward agreement, “I am no match for Lady Danbury.” She glanced back at Mr. St. Clair. Pirate or aspiring pirate? She supposed it didn’t matter, not if he was related to Lady Danbury.
Honoria patted her arm. “Give yourself time.”
Sarah turned toward her cousin with a flat, sarcastic stare. “How much time? She’s eighty if she’s a day.”
“We all need something to which to aspire,” Honoria demurred.
Sarah could not forestall a roll of her eyes. “Has my life become so pathetic that my aspirations must be measured in decades rather than years?”
“No, of course not, but . . .”
“But what?” Sarah asked suspiciously when Honoria did not complete her thought.
Honoria sighed. “Will we find husbands this year, do you think?”
Sarah couldn’t bring herself to form a verbal answer. A doleful look was all she could manage.
Honoria returned the expression in kind, and in unison, they sighed. Tired, worn-out, when-will-this-be-over sighs.
“We are pathetic,” Sarah said.
“We are,” Honoria agreed.
They watched the ballroom for a few more moments, and then Sarah said, “I don’t mind it tonight, though.”
“Being pathetic?”
Sarah glanced over at her cousin with a cheeky smile. “Tonight I have you.”
“Misery loves company?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Sarah said, feeling her brow knit into a quizzical expression. “Tonight I’m not even miserable.”
“Why, Sarah Pleinsworth,” Honoria said with barely suppressed humor, “that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Sarah chuckled, but still she asked, “Shall we be spinsters together, old and wobbly at the annual musicale?”
Honoria shuddered. “I am fairly certain that is not the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. I do love the musicale, but—”
“You don’t!” Sarah just barely resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears. No one could love that musicale.
“I said I loved the musicale,” Honoria clarified, “not the music.”
“How, pray tell, are they different? I thought I might perish—”
“Oh, Sarah,” Honoria scolded. “Don’t exaggerate.”
“I wish it were an exaggeration,” Sarah muttered.
“I thought it was great fun practicing with you and Viola and Marigold. And next year will be even better. We shall have Iris with us to play the cello. Aunt Maria told me that Mr. Wedgecombe is mere weeks away from proposing to Marigold.” Honoria furrowed her brow in thought. “Although I’m not quite sure how she knows that.”
“That’s not the point,” Sarah said with great gravity, “and even if it were, it’s not worth the public humiliation. If you want to spend time with your cousins, invite us all out for a picnic. Or a game of Pall Mall.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Thank God.” Sarah shuddered, trying to not recollect a single moment of her Smythe-Smith Quartet debut. Thus far it was proving a difficult memory to repress. Every awful chord, every pitying stare . . .
It was why she needed to consider every gentleman as a possible spouse. If she had to perform with her discordant cousins one more time, she would perish.
And that was not an exaggeration.
“Very well,” Sarah said briskly, then straightened her shoulders to punctuate the tone. It was time to get back to business. “Mr. St. Clair is off my list. Who else is here tonight?”
“No one,” Honoria said morosely.
“No one? How is that possible? What about Mr. Travers? I thought you and he— Oh.” Sarah gulped at the pained expression on Honoria’s face. “I’m sorry. What happened?”
“I don’t know. I thought everything was going so well. And then . . . nothing.”
“That’s very odd,” Sarah said. Mr. Travers wouldn’t have been her first choice for a husband, but he seemed steadfast enough. Certainly not the sort to drop a lady with no explanation. “Are you sure?”
“At Mrs. Wemberley’s soirée last week I smiled at him and he ran from the room.”
“Oh, but surely you’re imagining—”
“He tripped on a table on the way out.”
“Oh.” Sarah grimaced. There was no putting a cheerful face on that. “I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically, and she was. As comforting as it was to have Honoria by her side as fellow failure on the marriage mart, she did want her cousin to be happy.
“It’s probably for the best,” Honoria said, ever the optimist. “We share very few interests. He’s actually quite musical, and I don’t know how he would ever— Oh!”
“What is it?” Sarah asked. If they had been closer to the candelabra, Honoria’s gasp would have sucked the flame right out.
“Why is he here?” Honoria whispered.
“Who?” Sarah’s eyes swept across the room. “Mr. Travers?”