Snippet #13269

Distracted by observing the occupants of the rapidly-filling ballroom, Amelia did not hear River approach. She jumped as she felt his breath in her ear. Behind them, Eleanor Roscoe watched her daughter with a frown.

Amelia often received compliments, at least whilst out in society, but she was no fool; she knew most were throwaway or insincere, extracted from a ready-made arsenal every socialite worth their salt brought out at required occasions. Of course, she had hardly expected flattery or niceties from River. Although she had not know him long, she recognised that River and... nice didn't go together. Thus, his thinly-veiled insult stung with an odd freshness, like alcohol on a cut.

"Thank you," she said, somewhere between sarcasm and sincerity, then looked down at her hands. After all, she admitted to herself, hadn't she been thinking something akin to what he had voiced out loud just moments before? "Perhaps we should-"

"Amelia, who is this?" said her mother, cutting through the conversation of Lady Amberley to look, hawk-like at River. Amelia knew what she must be thinking; who is this man, do I know him, should I know him, why is he talking to her? Her mother had little enough opinion of her daughter's worth and kept tight enough reign over her life to be suspicious when an unknown 'noble' approached her in such a... way.

She didn't trust herself to come up with a plausible explanation so quickly so she concentrated, the her nails clenching into her palms with effort.

"Nothing, mother," she said and when she spoke, her voice was softer than usual and somehow more melodic. She didn't often use her magic so obviously in such a public situation but there was no other choice; she could not stumble at the first hurdle and expose River before she even had a chance to escape.

Her mother's stony brown eyes glazed over and she turned back to Lady Amberley, listening with strange calmness as the other woman launched back into her facile conversation.

"Quickly, before it wears off," said Amelia quietly, glancing about them nervously to see if anyone nearby had noticed. The skin under her lace mask was flushed and there were crescent-shaped dents in her palm where her nails had dug into the skin.