Sheffield fixed him with a searching stare, but before he could reply, Wrexford turned the conversation back to the ball. “Lady Charlotte won’t lack for support as she reenters the world of the beau monde. I’m well aware that pomp and glitter are needed to impress them and ensure her acceptance into Polite Society—an ironic moniker, seeing as they are, for the most part, naught but a pack of well-groomed, sharp-clawed feral cats.”
The earl gave a shrug. “Be that as it may, I’ve taken care of arranging the right partners for her. And don’t forget that her cousin Nicholas, the new Lord Chittenden, and her good friend Lord Sterling will be there to lend moral support.”
“Well, then,” murmured Sheffield. “It appears there’s no reason to worry. The evening should spin along with nary a slip or stumble.”
* * *
There was a spun-sugar, fairie-tale splendor to the scene. The curling grand staircase of pure white marble led up to a landing, where two massive urns of pale pink roses flanked a thick gold-threaded burgundy runner, its sinuous velvet beckoning the invited guests to enter....
Lady Charlotte Sloane slowed her steps and drew a deep breath as she eyed the ornate archway leading into the ballroom. Music floated out of the open doors, the notes twirling a merry dance with the effervescent laughter and discreet clink of champagne glasses. Diamond-bright light from the crystal chandeliers illuminated the jewel-tone sparkle of the ladies in their sumptuous gowns and the muted elegance of the gentlemen in their evening finery.
It was the stuff of every wellborn schoolgirl’s dreams....
To her horror, Charlotte felt a prickling against her eyelids.Damnation—I ran all the way to Italy to escape living in just such a gilded cage.
“Chin up, gel,” murmured Alison, the dowager Marchioness of Peake, taking a firmer hold of Charlotte’s arm. “I imagine you’ve faced far more fearsome challenges than stepping into a crowd of overfed aristocrats.”
“Remind me again why I’m doing this.” She squinted. The glitter was hurting her eyes. “At seventeen, I was wise enough to know I’d never survive as a pasteboard cutout, corseted in the tight strictures of Society.”
“Yes, but now you’re ever wiser, because you’ve learned how to make your own rules,” replied the dowager.
Rules.Ever since she could remember, Charlotte had chosen to live her life breaking every possible blue-blooded rule in the book.
Choices, choices.Her recent decision to step out from the shadows and reenter the world of the beau monde had allowed her to find her cousin’s killer. But the triumph had not come without a cost, for now there was no going back to her previous life, where anonymity had allowed an unfettered freedom and independence.
And so, here she was—a world-wise widow who was more at home in the slums than the fancy salons—attending her first formal ball. The irony was even sharper as she made her living satirizing the world of indolent excesses, along with the ladies and gentlemen with whom she was rubbing shoulders.
“And,” added Alison, “you’re doing this because you’re rather fond of your doddering old great-aunt and know how much I’m looking forward to stirring up some gossip among the pompous prigs and featherbrained widgeons of the ton.” Her blue eyes took on a sharp-edged gleam. “Life was becoming sadly flat before you stepped back into my life. And what fun is it if one loses the reputation of being a Holy Terror?”
A smile touched Charlotte’s lips. Alison had been the only adult member of her stiff-rumped family who had understood—and encouraged—the wayward girl whose curiosity and imagination refused to be confined within conventional thinking.
“It’s you who gave me the courage to fly in the face of conformity,” she murmured.
“Oh, pfft. It’s not as if you’ve done anythingreallyoutrageous.”
Ha!She and the dowager had only recently reconnected, and her great-aunt didn’t yet know the full scope of Charlotte’s . . . eccentricities.
Alison thumped her cane on the carpet, cutting short any further musings, and quickly led them through the requisite greeting of their hostess.
“Now come, let us enjoy the pleasures of wine and waltzing until dawn.”Thump-thump.“Remember, we are here to enjoy a night of revelry.” The dowager waved for a footman to bring over his tray of champagne. “And we may begin by joining those two young jackanapes by the refreshment table.”
Charlotte’s face wreathed in a smile—a genuine one—when she spotted her cousin Nicholas and her childhood comrade in mischief. Jeremy, who through an unforeseen quirk of family travails was now the very wealthy Baron Sterling, looked up and met her gaze with a grin.
“Well, well, here I go away from London for several months and all hell breaks loose,” he murmured as he came forward and leaned in to brush a kiss to her glove.
A cold-as-ice shiver raced down her spine. It was true—the murder of Nicholas’s twin brother and his subsequent arrest for the heinous crime had plunged her and her friends into a dark and dangerous netherworld of unimaginable horrors as they refused to give up on proving him innocent. Without the help of . . .
“Thank heavens for Wrexford,” added Jeremy. “Granted, he’s an arrogant and irascible devil, but he possesses the intelligence and iron will to beat Satan at his own game.”
“We were lucky,” she said softly.
All trace of humor died in his eyes. “So I heard.” Charlotte herself had come perilously close to sticking her spoon in the wall. “I should have returned from the North to help.”
“Your friends needed you,” countered Charlotte. “And none of us dreamed that things would take such an unexpected turn.”
“Yes, well, murder has a way of drawing you into all sorts of unpleasant surprises,” replied Jeremy, who had been caught up in one of their earlier investigations. “I fervently hope that from now on, you and the earl will stop tripping over dead bodies . . .”
He paused and raised a brow. “Ah, speak of the devil.”
