“A gentleman who is prepared to overlook your lack of dowry?” Lady Shrewsbury’s tone was sharp. “You cannot be squeamish, Theo.”
Theo did not believe her requirements—a man younger than her father who retained his teeth, faculties, and all his limbs—were squeamish. But she ducked her head. “Yes, Mama,” she said, staring at her fingers and the red prick where she had stabbed herself during the morning’s sewing. “May I go for a walk with Annabelle?”
Her mother agreed, provided they were accompanied by a maid, and the two ladies set off, arm in arm.
“You shan’t find your hero in Hyde Park, Theo,” Annabelle teased as Theo watched every passing face. “Even if hedoesexist, he won’t be lurking on the promenade.”
“You don’t know that.”
Annabelle regarded her sister with laughing blue eyes. “Heroes don’t do anything as unromantic as lurk.”
“Much you would know on the subject,” Theo returned. “Besides, as apparently the only gentlemen prepared to court a dowry-less lady are over the age of forty, I must try something.”
“I hardly think this is how to find a husband. Try looking at the Norfolk ball. Your future husband is more likely to be in a ballroom than among the bushes.”
Theo groaned. “But you know as soon as I enter the room, the Earl of Whitstable will pounce. I just know it.”
“He’s far too old to pounce,” Annabelle said with a giggle.
“Youmay find my situation funny, but I do not.”
“If it came to it, I’m certain you could outrun him.”
She pinned her lips together, but the thought of her fleeing the ballroom with the elderly Earl lumbering after her was too much, and she burst into a peal of laughter. “If I know the Earl, it shall certainly come to it,” she said. “But—oh, just imagine if there was a tall, dark, handsome stranger there, prepared to sweep me off my feet and carry me away.”
“That sounds more like a kidnapping to me.”
Theo pinched her sister’s arm, but despite the chance she would see the Earl of Whitstable, she could not help hoping she might also get at least aglimpseof her hero.
Chapter Two
Norfolk House on Berkeley Square was a grand affair. Carriages lined the street, and in the second one along from the front door, Theo plucked at her gloves nervously.
“Stop fidgeting,” her mother said. “We’ve known the Norfolks for years.”
“Not in company,” Theo muttered. Company was entirely different from running around their country estate as untamed children.
Her father, a slim man with a preoccupied air, frowned. “Out of mourning already?”
“It’s been a month, dear,” his wife reminded him.
What a way to celebrate returning to society, Theo thought as she peered at the house. Every window—and there were many—blazed with light, and young ladies like jewels mounted the steps to the door.
They alighted with the help of a footman and ascended into the house. Theo had only ever been inside their Havercroft residence in the country: an entirely more modest manor house,with a rambling old wing that had been there, or so she had been told, since the Civil War. Whenever she had visited, that had been her favourite place.
This house did not resemble that wing. The ballroom alone was far larger and grander than anything she could have conceived, and no expense had been spared. Chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, their crystals sending candlelight skittering across the walls, and ivy had been wound around the pillars. Fresh flowers interrupted the scent of hot bodies.
Almost immediately, Theo began her scan of the guests. In the crush, it was difficult to discern individual features, but this was her last chance, and she needed to find a partner before the insatiable and persistent Earl of Whitstable found her.
Any partner would do tonight as long as it was not him.
“Nathanial,” her mother said as they approached their hosts. “Phillipa. How lovely to see you again.”
Theo curtsied, meeting Nathanial’s gaze. He sent her the shadow of a wink and she bit back a smile. “Lord Shrewsbury, Lady Shrewsbury,” he said to her parents. “Lady Theo. Lady Annabelle. I hope you do not find the ball too crowded. My mother took a great deal of pleasure in organising this event, as you can see.”
“It’s lovely,” Theo said, wondering if everyone else could hear the insincere note in her voice. From the twinkle in Nathanial’s eye, he, at least, had. “And very . . . bright.”
Very bright? That was the best you could do?
