––––––––
That evening at the Carrington ball, Dominic escorted the three ladies into the ballroom. The night was chilly, and although Lady Seavers and Clarissa had been on their best behavior so far, Lilly had a terrible feeling. She nodded to acquaintances and smiled at Olivia, who stood with her mother across the dance floor.
Dominic excused himself to the card room after claiming a dance with Lilly. Lilly was following Lady Seavers towards a group of matrons seated on a chaise. Noticing that some of the women were more dragon than lady, Lilly quickly excused herself and made her way through a sea of gowns to Olivia.
“Lady Chandler has a bee in her bonnet tonight. She already told Sissy Caldwell that her hair was the color of a dirty potato. Poor girl ran crying from the room.”
“That woman is a menace," Lilly replied. It was no wonder Lady Seavers had befriended her. Lady Chandler, Lady Sealy, and Lady Goodswell were some of the most notorious gossipmongers of the ton. They delighted in destroying the reputations of young ladies fairer and more popular than their own daughters. They could create scandal with a mere whisper of an indiscretion, or bring a young girl to tears with barely concealed insults.
“I believe I just escaped the gallows.” Lilly smiled to Olivia.
As they watched the group of women smile and chat with each other, something ominous happened. Lady Seavers was leaning close to Lady Chandler and narrowing her eyes in Lilly’s direction. Lilly gave them her profile, but watched from the corner of her vision. Olivia noticed their obvious passing of secrets and watched, openly disgusted.
“Lydia and her mother just joined the group,” Olivia hissed.
“Figures. Lady Covvington has never approved of me,” Lilly murmured.
“Lydia is coming to us, but wait!”
“What?” Lydia was just out of the corner of her vision.
“She turned back. She’s listening to something Lady Seavers is saying.” Olivia gripped Lilly’s hand with anxiety.
“Oh no,” Lilly cringed, and turned her back on the entire group. Lady Seavers was trying to spread rumors again, and to the four most talkative women in the ton.
***
“It is my duty to preserve the good name of Redwick, is it not, ladies? However, I fear the worst for that girl. Left all alone in that house with a treasonous stepfather. I faint to think of what she must have”—Lady Seavers paused for dramatic effect—“endured.”
There was a collective gasp. Lady Covvington sat silent, staring at the four women. As a woman of moral fiber and the bluest of blood, everything about Lady St. James and her situation rubbed her the wrong way. Nevertheless, listening to Lady Seavers and her supposed fears sounded less like concern and more like fuel for scandal. It was true having the Earl of Redwick as a guardian while the investigation proceeded was scandalous in and of itself, but matters couldn’t be helped. He was too young and handsome to be the guardian of a beautiful girl of marriageable age.
Lady Covvington noticed her daughter had caught the last of Lady Seavers’ words and stood rigidly at her side.
“I understand, Lady Seavers,” Lady Covvington calmly said, “that you are not a blood aunt to his lordship? His mother was your first cousin?”
“Yes, that’s true.” Lady Seavers smiled nervously. “After my dear cousin passed I took a more maternal role with his lordship and his brother. No child should be without a motherly influence.” Her smile was brittle.
“That is so true,” Lydia said at last. Her words were polite but carried an edge. “We must be more sympathetic to those who have lost one or even both parents. An individual of good breeding and noble birth could never malign an innocent child left alone in the world without the love and protection of one’s parents. Isn’t that so, mother?” Lydia smiled sweetly.
Lady Covvington smiled proudly at her daughter. “That is correct, my dear." She squeezed her hand fondly. “Why don’t you join your friends now and enjoy the ball? Lady St. James looks quite becoming tonight in her silver and white gown. You must tell her I said so.”
“Yes, mother.” Always polite, Lydia curtsied to the four chastised women and walked away with her nose in the air.
***
“What is happening?” Lilly asked worriedly.
“Lydia is coming this way.” Olivia smiled.
“Good evening, ladies,” Lydia sang, and smiled brightly.
“Tell me what you’ve done,” Olivia laughingly demanded. She peeked at the four dragons across the dance floor.
“We should talk somewhere else, there are ears everywhere.” Lydia pulled them into an alcove and pulled the gauzy curtains closed. The three women sat on the padded bench inside. “I intercepted Lady Seavers telling a nasty rumor about Lilly.”
“I figured as much.” Lilly groaned.
“What did she say?” Olivia asked.
“Well, suffice it to say, she implied that Lilly had been compromised while living alone with her stepfather.”
“What!” Lilly shot to her feet.
“Shhhh!” Olivia pulled her down and smiled away all the interested glances thrown their way.
“I’ll kill her. How could she? She’ll ruin me,” Lilly seethed.
“We should tell Lord Redwick,” Olivia stated.
“No. He gets too worked up. Our plans are fragile right now, and if he gets wind of this, well, I don’t know what he will do, but he is entirely too possessive to let it slide even for the time being.”
Olivia and Lydia stared at her blankly.
“He’s... possessive of you?” Olivia tentatively asked.
Lilly’s cheeks heated as she turned away from their prying eyes.
“I don’t believe guardians are meant to be possessive,” Lydia said. “Protective, bothersome, negligent...” Lydia ticked the words off on her dainty fingers and paused. “Nope, I’ve never heard of a possessive guardian.”
“Lilly,”Olivia said with excitement, “is there something between you and Lord Redwick?”
Lilly blushed even harder. “I am in love with Lord Redwick.”
“How did this happen?” Lydia exclaimed.
“I don’t know. So much has happened and then he found me and then...”
“What! Tell me!” Olivia begged excitedly.
“He makes me feel things I have never felt before. He makes me feel safe.” Lilly gave them a watery smile.
Olivia’s eyes were teary. Lydia’s expression was guarded.
“This makes things a great deal more difficult. Are you going to marry him?”
“When this is all over, yes.”
“You really love him?” Olivia asked. “What does it feel like to be in love?”
“Oh, here we go,” Lydia grumbled. “Olivia, the queen of romance, is about to shower you with questions.”
“It’s so romantic!” Olivia sighed blissfully.
The first strings of music were beginning as the orchestra prepared to start.
“Dry your eyes, ladies, it’s time to dance and be merry.” Lydia stood.
“I don’t want to be merry.” Lilly pouted.
“Fake it. If you want your happy-ever-after we need to fool all these fools into thinking that you’re as innocent as the spring rain,” Lydia said.
“I am—” Lilly froze and blushed even more.
“I knew it,” Lydia scolded as she drew back the curtain.
Olivia’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut. She grabbed Lilly’s arm. “Tell me everything!”
“No,” Lilly and Lydia said in unison.
“Please, Lilly, what if I never get married?”
Lilly looked at her friend skeptically. Olivia had silky black curls, glittering emerald-green eyes, and sinfully thick lashes. She was unfashionably petite, but men drooled over her curvaceous form. She was the definition of a pocket Venus.
“I find that very unlikely.” As Lilly spoke, a swarm of admirers surrounded them. Lilly remained quiet as Lydia and Olivia bantered playfully with the gentlemen until the beginning of a waltz could be heard over the hum of the crowd.
“May I have this dance, Lady St. James?” A gentleman bowed before her. It was Nevil Ostecombe, a country-baron-cum-fortune-hunter, who was a notorious gossip, which earned him many invitations. He was also masterful at fueling rumors, and Lilly had to wonder at his motives. Having no adequate refusal immediately available, she gingerly placed her fingers on his arm. “I would be delighted, Lord Hughes.”
Lilly inwardly cringed as he leered at her, escorting her to the dance floor and placing his hand on her waist.
“Unusually chilly this time of year,” he stated while they began the first turn.
“Is it?” she responded noncommittally.
He twirled her rather recklessly around the floor. The people around her began to blur and the sparkling chandeliers swam in her vision. He was making her awfully dizzy, and as much as she tried to slow them he only pushed them faster, narrowly missing other couples by a hand’s breadth. All the while he smiled gleefully down at her as if they were sharing a good joke.
Lilly was truly beginning to feel ill, and it was affecting her good humor.
“May we slow a bit, please?” she asked.
“What?” He practically shouted in her ear.
Thankfully the buzzing in Lilly’s ears was beginning to drown him out. “I need to stop,” she said hurriedly. “Please stop.”
He swung them to a halt at the side of the dance floor. “You do not look well, my lady.” He was speaking unusually loud again. “I will find you a place to sit and fetch Lady Seavers.”
“Oh no—” Lilly tried to protest, but the room seemed to be tilting to the left.
He pulled her through a side door into a corridor much cooler than the crowded ballroom.
“I just need to sit,” she said as he tugged her toward a door that entered into a small sitting room. It was dark except for a dying fire in the grate.
“We should not be here. I must return to the ballroom.” Lilly pulled her arm from his grasp.
“You look quite ill, my lady. Please sit.”
Lilly looked skeptically at the small sofa he indicated. “I think not.”
“Please have a seat and I will fetch Lady Seavers.” He turned to the door, but instead of leaving, he calmly closed it and turned the key, dropping it in his pocket. “Or as I’d prefer, I can take care of you myself.” He smiled eerily.
“I do not need anyone to take care of me. Give me the key.” Lilly’s motion sickness quickly turned to fear.
“I think not. If I let you leave you will never know what you missed, and that would truly be a shame.” He stepped toward her. “I know you’re in a delicate position, Lady St. James.”
“I do not know what you mean, Lord Hughes.”
“You’re in need of a husband who can ignore your past and I am in need of a wife with a dowry.”
Lilly’s flesh crawled as she moved to put the sofa between them. “Let me leave now,” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, my little dove, but my very generous benefactor instructed me not to do so. Now, if you would please cooperate, we need to be caught quite compromised.”
Lilly paled. “You’re being paid to compromise me?”
“A small sacrifice, I assure you,” he sneered.
Faster than Lilly would have guessed, he lunged at her. Lilly turned to flee. She narrowly escaped his arms as she ran toward two French doors leading out to the gardens.