Cross peered over the top of his paper, one dark eyebrow aloft. “You can’t be that obtuse, Melrose. She’s furious that…” He glanced back at the paper. “‘A shameless seductress in a lavender gown’ has upended her betrothal, and ruined all her happiness.’”
Good Lord, would the fuss over a betrothal that never existed ever end? He hadn’t once shown a partiality for Lady Christine, much less asked her to marry him. “Lady Christine and I were never betrothed.”
“No, but all of London expected you would be, and among them Lady Dingley, who declares her daughter is...” Cross read aloud from the paper again. “‘So humiliated she can’t ever show her face in society again.’”
Johnathan rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what she’s on about. Lord Cudworth is Lady Christine’s for the plucking.”
“Ah, but Lord Cudworth isn’t the Nonesuch, and is, at least according to the papers, a poor replacement for him.”
“This is all according to the papers, is it?” Johnathan let out a derisive snort. “It’s nonsense, Cross. The Times claims Lady Christine attended Lord Lambeth’s ball just last night, and danced every dance. They went on at tedious length about her gown, too.”
Cross tossed the paper aside. “Lady Dingley vows revenge, Melrose.”
“That’s absurd. Revenge against whom?”
“Against the shameless seductress in the lavender gown, of course,” Cross said with a sigh, as if Johnathan were trying his patience.
“What makes Lady Christine think she’ll ever find out the identity of the lady? I haven’t, and I’m the one who kissed her.” It had been two days, and Johnathan still couldn’t be certain which sister—Emmeline, or Juliet Templeton—was the Lady in Lavender.
Of the two of them, Juliet Templeton made the most sense. She was bolder than her sister, and she’d been in the ballroom that evening dressed in some shade of purple silk. A shade darker than lavender, yes, but one couldn’t trust Cudworth to know the difference.
Yes, rationally speaking, Juliet Templeton was the obvious choice, but there was something about Emmeline Templeton…
He couldn’t resist her shy smile, that adorable blush and her lovely, smoky blue eyes. Her cleverness, her earnestness, her lack of artifice puzzled, intrigued, and charmed him all at once.
Of the two sisters, Emmeline was the one who made his heart quicken in his chest, but he couldn’t be certain it was she, and not her sister who was the Lady in Lavender. It would hardly endear him to either one of them to admit it though, or God forbid, if he should offer for one and it turned out to be the other—
“A lady scorned has resources beyond what you could ever imagine, Melrose.”
“Oh?” Johnathan forced his attention back to Cross, who was still going on about Lady Dingley. “What resources are those?”
“The most diabolical resources of all, namely, the other ladies in London, all of whom profess themselves highly offended by the Lady in Lavender.”
“Let them be offended, then. I don’t see what business it is of theirs.”
“The gossips make everything their business, Melrose. They’ve come up with a list between them, with the name of every chit at Lady Fosberry’s ball who was wearing any shade of purple you can possibly imagine.”
“A list of young ladies in lavender won’t do them much good, Cross, unless they can pinpoint which of them was the one seen leaving the library.”
“They’ve gotten a description of her gown from Lord Cudworth, and they intend to take it to Madame Toussaint, who supplied gowns to nearly every young lady in London this season, and find her out that way.”
“Lord Cudworth doesn’t know a damn thing about gowns,” Johnathan muttered, but an uneasy feeling was gnawing at him.
It wasn’t a bad idea, all told. He turned his gaze back to fire, mulling over this new information. Yes, it was a good idea—rather too good. They’d find out the lady’s identity soon enough, and she’d be flayed open on the dagger’s edge of every vicious tongue in London.
Unless he found her first.
If he and his mystery lady weren’t already betrothed by the time the gossips discovered who she was, there was every chance they’d drive her from London with their venom, in just the same way the Templeton sisters had been driven out, clutching the shreds of their ruined reputations around them like tattered clothing.
Emmeline Templeton’s face flashed in his mind then, the shy curve of her lips, and the husky laugh that had so surprised him this afternoon. He didn’t like to think of how that smile must have dimmed when, through no fault of their own, the Templeton sisters had landed on the wrong side of the ton.
“You didn’t seem to have much to say during our outing today,” Johnathan said, determined to change the subject.
“When have you ever known me to be loquacious, Melrose?”
“Never.” Cross wasn’t one for polite chitchat, but he’d been unusually quiet today.
“I didn’t speak much because Juliet Templeton didn’t cease talking long enough for me to get a word in. I’ve never seen a woman with a more wearisome tongue.”
