#thornedrook

The party was bustling and bursting with life, a veritable riot of sound and laughter, with the heat of bodies pressing in against one another a little closer than propriety would usually allow. There were at least a dozen more people than there should have been in a room of this size, and while that might have made some claustrophobic, Delilah felt like she was in heaven. She downed a glass of whiskey, smiling at one of the waiters after she did so and setting the empty glass on his tray. He was handsome, if too young for her –– barely eighteen, fresh faced and bright eyed at all the hustle and bustle of the party –– and in another life she might have stayed and flirted with him, just to see if she could make him blush. 

Instead, Delilah slipped between the crowd like a fish between stalks of seaweed, moving with an ease that belied years of practice. She’d decided she wanted to dance, and since none of her usual partners were here –– that wasn’t true, actually, Sidney was definitely here, she was sure of it, but Delilah didn’t feel like trying to hunt him down –– she began to look around the room, searching the walls and the corners for her next target. It didn’t take her long. There were a fair many good looking people, men and women alike, but this gentleman put them all to shame. Tall, dark, handsome, he was like every description of the hero in her cousin’s favorite romance novels, waiting to whisk the heroine away into a happy marriage. Delilah, of course, wasn’t looking for anything of the sort, but his presence was magnetic enough that she was drawn to him from halfway across the room. 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” She asked, brows raised, head cocked to the side. It was only half a question –– Delilah was quite certain she didn’t, but suspected she’d seen him on one of the barges that had brought them from London. He certainly didn’t look like the type to live here at Margate, anyway. “I was hoping to persuade you into a dance.” 

They'd had no chance at all to speak of what had happened on the ship, as they'd docked and disembarked in such a rapid swirl of movement that it had all felt rather like being caught in the swell of a wave. Interestingly –– he'd held onto her hand through most of it, letting go only once she'd made it safely off of the ship and back onto solid ground. And then he'd disappeared, gone so quickly and efficiently that she wondered, for a moment, if she'd imagined the whole thing. Then she caught a glimpse of Lady Fitzroy's upturned nose and lifted chin, and she'd stormed off in search of a very stiff drink to ease the rising flush in her cheeks and the tops of her ears.

She'd meant to find him after dinner, meant to apologize; after all, she'd put him in a deeply awkward and uncomfortable position, not to mention had assumed a great deal in her actions, and she was overthinking and rethinking all of her decisions so much that she nearly missed it entirely; some time during the evening meal, she realized that Lord Thorne was stealing glances at her just as often as she was stealing them at him, and when they finally managed to overlap with one another, he tilted his head minutely towards one of the willow trees near the shore, raised an eyebrow, and then promptly excused himself.

Her heart thundering so hard that she felt like she could hear her own blood roaring in her ears, she counted silently to twenty and then stood up as well, making her own excuses about fresh air. After reassuring her cousin that she was fine, she merely needed a walk to aid in her digestion, she quickly made her own way to the willow tree that he'd disappeared behind a few moments before. By the time she felt the first few branches sweep over her shoulders, her heart had managed to worm itself all the way up to her throat. It was stuck there, thick and solid and cutting off all power of speech until she saw him, leaning against the tree, and all the air seemed to leave her in a rush.