“What has been going on between you two that we don’t know about?” Julia asked, cutting her eyes around to Adeline as if soliciting her help to get to the bottom of this.
“Nothing,” Brina insisted honestly. “I hardly know him. We’d only met once before. I didn’t know who he was at the time, and he didn’t know me.”
Julia pursed her lips before saying, “Yet, he came over today and asked you to marry him?”
“Yes. After all his wayward years, and because the title fell to him, he’s looking for a sense of respectability. He thinks I can help him and that courting and marrying me will alleviate his family’s misgivings about him and the kind of earl he will be.”
“Wait, wait,” Julia said, holding up both her hands. “I think it’s time we go into the drawing room. I’d like to hear the beginning of this story.”
Brina had been caught and supposed there was nownothing to do but tell them everything. And really, she wanted to. Earl Blacknight wasn’t like any man she’d ever met. She’d been with him twice now, and he didn’t do anything the gentlemanly way. He’d made it clear he was going to pursue her. She needed a plan, and all the guidance her friends could give her if she was going to handle this rake.
After they were all comfortably seated with Julia and Adeline on one settee and Brina on the other, she realized her heart was still racing from Blacknight’s visit. Just thinking about all the earl had said, how he’d looked at her with such intensity had her quaking inside with trepidation and, of all things, anticipation at the thought of seeing him again. And that enveloped her with delicious shivers of desire.
“Well?” Julia stated, her dark blue-violet gaze holding fast on Brina’s.
Brina shook off the unexpected feelings about Blacknight and said, “It all started in Paris.”
“Paris!” Adeline exclaimed. “You’ve known him that long?”
“And you never breathed a word to either of us about seeing him there when you returned,” Julia admonished.
“I couldn’t,” Brina persisted. “I didn’t know who he was until today. He was wearing a mask.”
Adeline and Julia gave each other thatlookagain.
“A mask?” Julia asked succinctly and folded her arms across her chest as pointedly. “You definitely need to start at the beginning.”
“And don’t leave out one tiny thing,” Adeline ordered. “We need to know it all.”
“Shortly after arriving in Paris, I confessed to Aunt Josette I had considered joining the Sisters of Pilwillow Crossings and the reasons I eventually decided against it. She was understanding and glad I chose toget away from London for a while. A week or so later, she suggested since I had considered a life of servitude and found it wasn’t for me, it would be good to shed my widow’s clothing and go out for an evening of lighthearted, free-living entertainment. She said the best way to decide what kind of life I truly wanted was to experience them all. You know Aunt Josette has always been quite liberated in her thinking and actions. And I’d—well, you know what I’d been through.”
Adeline’s golden-brown eyes widened again and her brow rose high. “What did you do?”
Julia moved to the edge of the settee and leaned forward.
Brina continued, “After much thought, I agreed to join Aunt Josette at a private masquerade ball. It seemed the perfect foil for me because no one would see all my face. I admit, regretfully so now, that I lulled myself into believing there might be some restorative value in participating at least once in the vastly different lifestyle of Paris’s Society, so I dressed in the most glorious shade of pink I’ve ever seen. I’d never worn anything like that gown. It was gathered tight at the waist. The skirt was full and billowed so beautifully. It stood out to here.” She held her arms out to show how wide the skirt was. “I wore a crown of painted leaves. And—”
Brina hesitated. What she was admitting had to be a shock to Adeline and Julia. To anyone who believed she’d never discarded dark clothing since her husband’s death.
“And what?” Adeline asked breathlessly, motioning with her hands for Brina to hurry along.
“She spent the night in the earl’s arms!” Julia whispered.
“No,” Brina answered earnestly. “I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t. He’s a rake of the highest order. How can you think that?”
“But you didn’t know that at the time and you wanted to,” Julia added as if encouraging her to answer truthfully.
Had she?
“No. No. That never entered my mind.” Not that night anyway. The truth was that it might have crossed her mind a time or two since then. Well, maybe more than a time or two, but she’d stopped those thoughts as quickly as possible. Sometimes. But she didn’t need to tell her friends every little detail of what happened and how she felt about it then or since.
She needed to keep a few secrets to herself.
After a few more moments of hesitancy, Brina continued, “There wasn’t time to think about anything like that. When I came upon him in the room, I thought he was a thief. He was only half-dressed and tied to a chair with a lady’s silk scarf.”
Julia and Adeline rose to their feet and stared down at Brina. Neither of them uttered a word. She’d silenced them.
“Sit back down,” Brina said, trying to will away her frustration and anger about the chaos the earl had brought into her life because of his wager. “I’ll tell you everything that happened.”
