PROLOGUE
LONDON, EIGHT YEARS AGO
Aswirling blur of laughter and light…the ballroom’s dancing floor too crowded with bodies too hot and vibrant with energy both banked and exerted…smiles too carefree to give a toss about anything approaching respectability…hearts beating too fast and reckless with fizzy effervescence…
The atmosphere of Almack’s season-opening spring ball was muchtooeverything.
At least, that was how it felt to Lady Beatrix St. Vincent.
She’d been whirled across gleaming mahogany these ten dances in a row with ten different eligible gentlemen, and she felt not a twinge of ache in her feet or a care for the perspiration beading down her spine.
She only felt the triumph of the night.
Hertriumph.
In the ladies’ retiring room, she dipped her fingers in a bowl of fresh lavender water and pressed cooling fingertips to flushed cheeks. Just a quick respite to collect thoughts and emotions that were fluttering much too chaotically in her brain for her to catch hold of even one.
Actually, that wasn’t true.
In the mirror, she gazed into her own gray eyes. Reflected back was the single, overwhelming emotion she’d gone nearly buoyant with…
Irrepressible joy.
Tonight was her come-out ball.
Yes, it was taking place at Almack’s alongside seven other young ladies making their debuts, which was significantly less magnificent than what society would’ve expected of the daughter of a marquess. But the marquess in question was the Marquess of Lydon, a charming scoundrel from the moment he could cock his lopsided smile. As Beatrix’s mother had perished within a couple of years of having given birth to her only child, society would suppose it a lack of interest on the marquess’s part that had his daughter making her debut at Almack’s.
By contrast, two years ago, her bosom friend, Lady Artemis Keating, had a lavish private ball thrown for her by her brother, the powerful and wealthy Duke of Rakesley. Though Beatrix hadn’t been out, Artemis had insisted she attend, and it was the most glorious ball she could ever have imagined.
Beatrix was pragmatic.
A glorious come-out had never been in the cards for her.
No matter.
This come-out at Almack’s would do, and really, it had to, for it was the best she could muster.
Indeed, she was the daughter of a marquess—which was only partially what had gained her entrance into this ballroom.
In actual fact, she’d achieved this night through her own planning and determination. She’d dreamt of a future that would be nothing like her previous twenty years of life and now, at last, it was within reach.
A good, solid husband with whom she would beget good, solid children.
Really, was a good, solid future too much to ask?
Society would credit her father with this achievement. It was what fathers did for their daughters, no?
Except Lydon’s idea of a good, solid childhood had been to take his daughter to the horse races two or three times a week. Well,take her to the horse racesimplied her presence had been desired. More accurately, she’d been treated like an extra appendage one was obligated to drag everywhere one went.
At those race meetings, she’d amused Lydon and his wastrel friends. They’d taught her to exclaim, “Blimey!” and they slipped her a bit of betting money—sometimes a penny, other times a guinea. It depended on how fortune treated them the previous night. They’d all gotten a grand old jolly out of watching the little lady stroll up to the betting post and place her wagers.
But she’d made the most of it, hadn’t she?
At first, she’d bet on the horses with the silliest names or the jockeys with the prettiest silks. Over time, however, she’d learned to wager based on odds and weather conditions and whispers about a horse’s soundness. She’d become quite skilled at it. After all, what was a little, extra appendage to do but keep her ears ready and her eyes keen and soak in her surroundings and develop skills that might’ve done her no favors in a ballroom, but provided a compensation she wouldn’t have attained otherwise—money.
Her own money.
Race after race, year after year, she squirreled away those winnings.
