Where is she?
He’d lost sight of her again.
“Looking for someone?” There was something knowing in Ambrose’s tone.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Morgan shot him a look. Ambrose simply raised his glass in a mock toast.
“I know you too well,” Ambrose said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s about Miss Graham… is it not? In fact, I saw her?—”
“Where is she?” Morgan asked with curiosity, scanning the room.
“Morgan, this is your ball… you cannot?—”
“Where is she, Ambrose?”
Before Ambrose could answer, a commotion near the refreshment table drew Morgan’s attention. And his blood ran cold.
Eliza had been so careful.
She’d kept her head down, moved quickly, avoided eye contact with every guest. The evening was nearly over. Another hour, perhaps two, and she could retreat to the servants’ quarters and breathe again. She was refilling champagne glasses when a hand seized her wrist.
“There you are,” a voice hissed. “I knew I recognized you.”
Eliza’s head snapped up. Lady Arabella Fairfax stood before her, eyes glittering with malicious triumph.
“My lady, please,” Eliza tried to pull away, but Arabella’s grip was iron. “I beg you…”
“Oh no, you don’t.” Arabella’s smile was vicious. “We’re going to settle this once and for all.”
Before Eliza could react, Arabella was dragging her away from the table, through the crowd of guests, toward the center of the ballroom by the wrist.
“Stop,” Eliza pleaded, her voice barely audible over the music. “Please, Lady Fairfax!”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Arabella’s voice rang out, clear and commanding, her shoulders back and chest puffed out.
The music stuttered to a halt. Conversations died. Every face in the ballroom turned toward them. Eliza felt her knees buckle. She feared she would pass out.
“I feel it’s my duty,” Arabella announced, her voice dripping with false concern, “to inform you all that you’ve been deceived. This woman,” she yanked Eliza forward, “Is not a maid at all. She’s Lady Eliza Newmont, daughter of Lord and Lady Ramersby.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
“That’s impossible,” someone said.
“Lady Eliza disappeared weeks ago!”
“I heard she was sick!”
“What’s she doing dressed as a servant?”
“Is that really her?”
Eliza couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. The room was spinning, faces blurring together in a nightmare of recognition and judgment.
And then she saw her parents. Lord Ramersby looked as though he’d been struck by lightning. Lady Ramersby’s face had gone white with shock and fury, her face as red as a tomato.
