“The only explanation is that the new queen loathes her sex. Else why would she choose to make these the styles of the day? The goal is clearly to make us all look atrocious. Look at that one.” Sesily pointed to a particularly unfortunate bonnet—an oversized oval creation that encircled a young woman’s face in an effect that could only be described as clamlike, complete with layers and layers of pink lace and feathers. “It’s as though she’s being reborn.”
The duchess coughed, sputtering her champagne. “Good God, Sesily.”
Sesily looked to her, the portrait of innocence. “Show me the untruth.” When the duchess could do no such thing, Sesily added, “I’m going to have my modiste send that poor thing something that makes her look gorgeous. Along with an invitation for a bonnet burning.”
A chuckle, followed by, “Her mother will never allow you near her.”
That much was true. Sesily had never been beloved by aristocratic mothers, and not only because she refused to wear the fashions of the season. Her beautiful mauve silk aside, Sesily was universally terrifying to the aristocracy for additional, hopefully much more unsettling reasons.
Yes, she was the daughter of a coal miner turned earl and a fairly crass and somewhat difficult woman who’d never found welcome in London society. But that wasn’t it, either. No, Sesily’s particular fearsomeness came with being thirty years old, unmarried, rich, and a woman. And worse, all those things without shame. She had never taken herself up to a high shelf to live out her days. She hadn’t even taken herself off to the country. Instead, she took herself to balls. In low-cut, boned silks that looked decidedly unlike pastry. Without bonnets made for either debutantes or spinsters.
And that made her the most dangerous of all the Dangerous Daughters of the Earl of Wight.
What an irony that was, as Queen Victoria sat upon her throne not a half mile from Mayfair, all while the aristocracy trembled in fear of women who refused to be packed up and sent away when they grew too old, refused to marry, or showed no interest in the rules and regulations of the titled world.
And Sesily had no interest in the proper, prescribed universe of the aristocracy. Not when there was so much of the rest of the world to live in. To change.
Perhaps, years ago, when she and her sisters had arrived in London with soot in their hair and the North Country in their accent, she might have been able to be shamed. But years of scornful looks and cutting remarks had taught Sesily that society’s judgment either snuffed the light from its brightest stars or made it burn brighter …
And she’d made her choice.
Which was why the Duchess of Trevescan had summoned her here, to South Audley Street, two years earlier, and offered Sesily something more than a pressed silk frock and a perfect coiffure. Oh, Sesily still had those things—she knew armor when she saw it—but when she donned that dress, it was as likely that she was headed to a dark corner of Covent Garden as it was that she was headed to a glittering ballroom in Mayfair.
It was in the dark corners, after all, that Sesily made her mark, alongside a team of other women she’d soon counted as friends, brought together by the duchess.
Married too young to a hermit duke who preferred the isolation of his estate in the Scilly Isles, the Duchess of Trevescan refused to while away her youth in similar isolation, and instead chose to live in town, in one of London’s most extravagant homes. As for what she did there, what the duke did not know would not hurt him, she liked to say.
What the duke did not know, the rest of London did, however … When it came to scandal, the woman referred to simply as The Duchess outranked them all.
The promise of scandal brought London’s finest to the duchess’s parties. They adored the way she wielded her title and offered the illusion of propriety, the promise of gossip to be whispered about the following morning, and the hope that those in attendance might be able to claim proximity to scandal … humanity’s most valued currency.
But valuing scandal did not mean mothers liked their daughters too close to those who caused it, and so Sesily would never have the chance to burn the bonnets of the battalion of debutantes twirling through the massive gilded ballroom.
“It’s a pity, that,” she said to her friend. “But never fear. I shall send the gift anonymously. I shall be fairy godmother to the hideous fashion plates of 1838, whether or not their mothers have me round to tea.”
“You’ve your work cut out for you; every fashion plate of 1838 is hideous.”
“Then it is lucky I am rich. And idle.”
“Not so idle tonight,” came the soft reply, and Sesily’s gaze was instantly across the room, where a blond head stood above the rest of the revelers. No bonnet, but deserving destruction nonetheless.
“How long before the message is delivered?” Sesily asked.
The duchess sipped at her champagne, pointedly avoiding Sesily’s focus. “Not long now. My staff knows its business. Patience, friend.”
Sesily nodded, ignoring the tightening in her chest—the excitement. The adventure. The promise of success. The thrill of justice. “It is the least of my virtues.”
“Really?” the duchess retorted. “I would have thought that was chastity.”
“I confess.” Sesily cut her friend a wry smile. “I’m better with vices.”
“Good evening, Duchess, Lady Sesily.” The greeting came from behind them, on the meek, barely heard voice of Miss Adelaide Frampton, shy, retiring queen of wallflowers, who was followed by pitying whispers. An ugly duckling who never became a swan, poor thing.
While Mayfair’s whispers would wound another, that particular perception suited Adelaide down to the ground, allowing her to go unnoticed in society, few noticing the way her warm brown eyes remained ever watchful behind thick spectacles, even as she disappeared in a crowd.
Even fewer noticing that in disappearing, she saw everything.
“Miss Frampton,” the duchess said, “I take it all is well?”
“Quite,” Adelaide said, the words barely there in the cool breeze that blew in from the large open windows behind them. “Terribly warm in here, don’t you think?”
Sesily reached for the silver ladle in the enormous crystal punch bowl, swirling it round and round as she gathered the courage to pour herself a cup of the tepid orange punch within. “This looks gruesome.”
“Events welcoming young ladies require ratafia,” the duchess replied.
“Mmm. Well, as I haven’t been a young lady requiring ratafia in …” Sesily paused. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever required ratafia.”
“Born able to hold your liquor?”
Sesily smiled at her friend. “Like finds like, one might say.”
The duchess sighed, the sound full of boredom. “There’s a footman somewhere with champagne.” Of course there was. Champagne flowed like water at Trevescan House.
“I must say, Lady Sesily,” Adelaide interjected, “it is quite warm.”
“I see,” Sesily replied, her gaze tracking the crowd, noting that the blond head she’d been watching before was now closer to the doors leading into the dark gardens beyond.
There was no time for champagne. The missive to the Earl of Totting had been received.
Sesily poured a glass of the unpleasant-looking punch. Before she could return the ladle to the bowl, however, a newcomer jostled her arm, sloshing an orange blossom right over the rim of her glass and onto the brilliant white tablecloth.
“Oh no! Let me help with that, Lady Sesily.”
Lady Imogen Loveless extracted a handkerchief from her reticule, or at least attempted to. She had to dig, first haphazardly displacing a pencil and a slip of paper onto the table next to the punch bowl, dropping a small shell-shaped box with a gold clasp to the plush carpet below—“Only smelling salts,” she rushed to explain. “Don’t worry—they’ll keep!”
Sesily turned raised brows to the duchess, who watched Imogen’s hurried movements with equal parts amusement and amazement—the latter win
ning out when Imogen pulled three hairpins from her bag. She seemed to know she shouldn’t put those on the table, however, and instead shoved them directly into her disheveled coiffure, wild and precarious as it was. Then, she extracted the handkerchief, brandishing it in triumph. It was wrinkled and embroidered in a wild riot of extremely crooked stitches in the vague shape of a bell. Sesily had never seen anything so well matched to its owner.
She set her punch down on the table and accepted the fabric with a smile. “Thank you, Imogen.”
“Don’t stare, my dears.” This from an elderly doyenne on the far side of the table, flanked by two hideously-frocked, pale-faced young ingenues, who had apparently never witnessed quite this flavor of chaos.
“Oh dear,” Imogen said, her wide-eyed gaze falling to one of the girls. “Truly that bonnet is …” She trailed off, then said, “Awesome.”
Adelaide gave a tiny, barely-there snort of amusement, and Sesily feigned deep interest in her glass.
“I particularly like the …” Imogen searched for a word, moving her hand in a large oval in front of her own face. “… ornamentation.”
The girl’s grandmother harrumphed.
“Lady Beaufetheringstone,” the duchess said, leaning over Sesily’s arm toward the punch bowl. “May I serve you and your—”
“Granddaughters,” the lady barked. “That would be fine, Duchess, as we should like to be on our way.” She lowered her voice to a still very audible whisper and said to the young ladies, “Obviously, I wouldn’t like you two to be painted with this company.”
Sesily refrained from pointing out that the poor pale girls could do with some color. Instead, she cleaned her sticky hand and stared directly at the older woman until the trio scurried off, no doubt to whisper about the unfortunate souls lurking at the refreshment table.
“Do try not to cause trouble,” the duchess said under her breath.
“I would never,” Sesily replied, casually. “I was merely resolving to begin my fairy godmothering with those two girls. I shall have them round to tea.”
The duchess raised a brow. “You don’t drink tea.”
Sesily grinned. “Neither will they, when I’m done with them.”
“Sesily Talbot, be careful, or what they say about you will be true.”
Of course, it was already all true. Or, most of it. At least, most of the best bits. Which, sadly, were considered to be the worst bits to most of society. There was no accounting for taste.
Adelaide leaned back and looked to the floor between them, where Imogen’s mint green skirts were all that could be seen. “Why is Imogen beneath the table?”
The duchess sighed to the roomful of her guests. “Can you blame her with this company?”
Sesily swallowed a chuckle. “Any news, Adelaide?”
“Oh, yes,” Adelaide replied. “Your retiring room is the nicest in London, Your Grace. Very conducive to conversation.”
“Is it?” the duchess asked, as though they discussed the weather.
“Seems that Viscount Coleford is in attendance with his new bride.” Bystanders might miss the edge in Adelaide’s voice, but it was clear as crystal to her three friends.
Sesily slid a surprised look at their hostess. “Is he?”
Coleford was a monstrous bully of a man, pickled in venom and willing to take it out on anyone who drew close—as long as they were weaker than he. He had just married his third wife, forty years his junior, all of London looking the other way despite the mysterious deaths of two prior viscountesses—the first after the death of his grown son and only heir, and the second after two years of marriage without issue.
Like too many of his peers, the old viscount had been allowed to relish in his power for too long. Which was why, like so many of his peers, he was on their list.
But his was not the box that would be ticked tonight.
“Enemies close,” the duchess replied beneath her breath as she flashed a bright white smile in the direction of a couple dancing by—the publisher of several of London’s most popular newspapers and his beautiful wife, whom Sesily knew from her regular attendance at the city’s most exclusive gaming hell.
A clever addition to the evening’s play, which was about to begin.
“Seems, also, that the Earl of Totting escorted Matilda Fenwick this evening.” Adelaide pushed her spectacles up on her nose and shook her head, her red ringlets bouncing. “They say she’s to be a countess soon enough.”
Tilly Fenwick, eldest daughter to a very rich merchant on the hunt for a title, doomed to a life married to a man drunk on power, who destroyed women for sport.
Which was why the future countess had come to them.
Sesily considered the ballroom, easily finding the set of broad shoulders she’d been watching all evening. Across the room, the Earl of Totting, one of the handsomest men in all of London—who also happened to be one of the worst men in all of London—moved with slow, even grace toward the open doors.
A breeze blew in, bringing a brisk November chill with it.
“Brutal heat in here,” Adelaide said.
Sesily shivered and met her friend’s keen gaze. “I was just noticing it. Positively cloying.”
Totting drew nearer to the exit.
Imogen came out from beneath the table, brandishing the pillbox. “Found it!”
“Wonderful news,” Sesily said, pressing the handkerchief back into the other woman’s hand. “Thank you.”
Imogen shoved the handkerchief into her reticule and began to collect her dispersed items, hands flying across the table. Were anyone watching, they’d see nothing amiss, at least, nothing that was not to be expected from Imogen.
They wouldn’t see the pill she dropped into the glass of ratafia.
Nor would they think twice about Sesily lifting her madcap friend’s pencil and paper, casting a glance at the text scrawled there.
7-out
10-down
Seven minutes, then ten more.
Sesily’s brows rose at Imogen. “That’s it?”
It wasn’t much time.
Imogen blinked. “Do you know Margaret Cavendish? The author?”
“What?”
Her madcap friend smiled. “The Contract. It’s lovely. I shall make thee a meteor of the time, she writes. So poetic.”
Imogen would not know poetry if Byron himself kidnapped her in the dead of night. Sesily tilted her head, irritation coursing through her. “Yes, well, first I’m not certain that Cavendish was referring to actual speed. But more importantly, I’m supposed to—” She stopped herself, lowering her voice so no one else would hear. “In seventeen minutes?”
“I tell you, Sesily,” Imogen said. “If anyone can do it, it is you. I believe in you.”
In and out in seventeen minutes.
“Well, no one has ever said I’m not fast,” Sesily said, dryly.
A trio of snickers replied.
“A meteor of the time, you say?”
“To be honest,” Imogen said, collecting the paper and pencil, “I didn’t get much further in the book. Any more than ten minutes of reading and I’m absolutely dead asleep.”
“Terrible, that,” Adelaide commiserated.
It was an understatement. The last thing they needed was a corpse in the gardens.
But there was one thing that would be worse, for Sesily, at least. “Imogen, are you able to remember anything you read that close to bedtime?”
Imogen looked absolutely delighted when she proclaimed, “Not a bit of it! Isn’t it wonderful?”
Sesily, Adelaide, and the duchess exchanged a look. Sesily had seventeen minutes, but she’d be the only one who would remember them.
Excellent.
It was incredible that Imogen was known throughout society as an absolute lost cause. Society rarely saw the truth when it came to women.
Sesily looked toward the doors. The broad shoulders had disappeared. “Can’t suffer the heat any longer.”
On cue, Adelaide
stepped around the edge of the refreshment buffet, tripped on the edge of the tablecloth, and fell to the ground, drawing a cry of surprise from Imogen, an “Oh! My dear Miss Frampton!” from the duchess, and the attention of the entire room.
As planned.
Well, almost the entire room.
High above the ballroom, watching from the upper gallery, Caleb Calhoun took a glass of champagne from a passing footman’s tray and watched the play below. Sesily whisked her ratafia from the table and, without even a glance at the commotion her friends caused at the end of the table, slipped into the dark gardens.
He resisted the urge to follow her.
Another man would, of course. Another man who was in business with Sesily’s eldest sister, who had bought horseflesh from her brother-in-law and books from her sister, and dandled her nephew—his godson—on his knee, would feel a moral obligation to follow her into the gardens and keep her safe from whatever trouble she was courting.
This other man, this paragon of nobility, would pledge his sword to the lady.
But there was nothing noble about Caleb Calhoun.
Oh, he’d played the part, pretending not to notice the way she filled a room with her bright smile and her brazen charm and her absolutely wild beauty. Pretending not to notice the way her vividly-colored dresses pulled tight around her ample breasts and her curved waist and her hips—full of sin and promise.
Pretending not to notice her.
And still, there he was, above the rest of the revelry, noticing her, not six hours after returning to London for the first time in more than a year, during which the Atlantic had made it impossible to notice her.
It had not, however, made it impossible to think of her.
He gritted his teeth, and returned his gaze to where Miss Adelaide Frampton limped across the ballroom making a proper meal of her turned ankle—though nothing close to the meal Lady Imogen Loveless was making with her frantic waving and repetition of clear a path, please!
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