Free Suzanne Robinson by Just Before Midnight Page A

goggled at her chest, the more uncomfortable Mattie grew. As they swept around the ballroom her face, neck, and chest turned the same rose color as her gown. At each turn in the waltz she glimpsed people watching and concealing smirks behind gloved hands.
    She could endure a little embarrassment, but this particular incident struck at a sore spot. Ever since Mattie had begun to mature, she’d been warned by Mama that she had an “embarrassment of riches” in her figure. While rejoicing in her daughter’s good fortune, Mama constantly warned her of the evil intentions that men harbored toward women with such endowments. The result had been to make Mattie wish she’d never matured.
    After Mama’s remarks, Mattie began to notice how men stared when they thought themselves unobserved. After a few months of this, she realized that to some men she would never be more than her endowments.A black melancholy ensued from which it took her a long time to recover. It took even longer for Mattie to learn to ignore the stares. Isidore Chelmer’s stare, however, was impossible to ignore.
    Mattie clenched her jaw. “Excuse me, my lord.”
    Chelmer remained oblivious, enchanted with her bosom.
    “My lord.”
    Chelmer swallowed and pointed his nose at her chest, evidently in order to get a better view.
    “Isidore Chelmer, you lummox! You keep gawking at my chest, and I have a mind to knock out your teeth and stuff ’em down your throat.”
    Chelmer dragged his gaze upward, and Mattie held his stare with one that would have singed the metal fenders on her Panhard-Lavassor. A few seconds passed before Chelmer looked down. This time Mattie stepped on his foot. He yelped and fixed a stare over her shoulder.
    It was Tennant again. He’d sent this crude ass her way deliberately.
    The waltz seemed to last hours, with Chelmer dropping his gaze to her bosom and Mattie retaliating with a stomp, a pinch, or a threat. At last the music stopped. Mattie turned her back on Lord Chelmer and swept off the floor.
    As she went, she heard Lady Hortense giggle and say in a nasal voice, “Really, Cheyne, you are too bad.”
    Cheeks flaming, Mattie turned and approached Cheyne Tennant and Lady Hortense. “Dear LadyHortense, I couldn’t help noticing your gown is soiled.” Mattie turned her tormentor around and pointed to the black smears on the lady’s pearlstudded dress.
    Hortense shrieked as though she’d been stabbed. “My gown! And my gloves. What—who—where …?”
    Guests crowded around to watch as Hortense tried to see the back of her gown. She twisted her neck and turned around in circles.
    “Careful,” Cheyne warned and caught her arm before she tripped over her train.
    Hortense squawked, jerked her arm free and tried to wipe off the black smear that had resulted from his touch. “It’s you! What have you got on your gloves? Look at me.”
    Mattie moved out of the crowd as Cheyne turned his gloves over and examined them. His expression of disbelief and chagrin assuaged Mattie’s humiliated soul. She grinned when Lady Hortense inadvertently touched the front of her gown with a soiled glove and blackened it even further.
    Taking a seat beside Mama, she removed the dance card from her wrist. Mattie hummed to herself as she proceeded to mark off all the strange names on her list. For the rest of the ball she was going to dance only with men she knew. They might be fortune-hunting dogs, but at least they wouldn’t stare at her chest. Mattie stopped humming and grinned. Lady Hortense bleated recriminations at Cheyne Tennant so loudly that the musicians behind their screen of foliage at the other end of the roombegan to chuckle. The group around the couple scattered, leaving Cheyne to face the furious lady alone in the middle of the dance floor.
    Mattie glanced at her startled mother. “Sakes alive, Mama, such a fuss about one little gown.”

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    Cheyne retreated into the shell of frosty discipline that had served him well