“Very well, then. I suppose I’d matchmake a rake just as I would any other gentleman. A tarnished reputation isn’t likely to affect a man’s prospects, after all, particularly if he’s an aristocrat with a tidy fortune. Not like a lady, who will be ruined forever by the merest breath of scandal, regardless of whether she did anything wrong.”
This last was said with enough bitterness that Tilly jerked her gaze from the page she’d been scribbling on to her sister’s face. It wasn’t like Phee to speak with such harshness. “Phee? Are you alright?”
Phee patted her hand, but her smile was strained. “Yes, I’m well enough, just a trifle homesick. I’m…not fond of London.”
No, she wouldn’t be, would she? Their mother’s scandal had happened during Phee’s first—and last—season. Mama had jaunted off to the Continent with her married lover, leaving Phee and their father behind to face the shame and humiliation that followed. To make matters worse, the gentleman who’d been courting Phee at the time had abandoned her without a second glance.
All that London had ever offered Phee was scandal, and heartbreak.
Now here she was, tempting another scandal with this risky business with Lord Prestwick.
She must get this list done! It was the one thing she’d promised Lord—Kit, dash it—she’d do. It had been a mistake to promise even that, but she wouldn’t go back on her word now.
She’d give him the list at the ball tonight, and tell him she couldn’t do anything more for him. She didn’t like to do it, but she couldn’t trifle with Phee’s peace of mind in this reckless way. If Phee were to be hurt again, she’d never forgive herself, and it wasn’t as if she were arealmatchmaker, in any case.
“London is a wicked old place, isn’t it?” She squeezed Phee’s hand. “But we’ll be back in Hambleden before you know it.”
* * *
“Arewe going to hide out here on the balcony for the entire ball, Prestwick, or do you intend to venture into the ballroom at some point?”
He wasn’thiding, for God’s sake. “I don’t know what you’re on about, Darby. I simply came out onto the balcony to take in a breath of fresh air, that’s all.”
Yes, he’d remained here for the last half-hour since then, peering through the draperies like a child hiding from a thrashing, his gaze fixed on the ballroom, but he wasn’t hiding.
Only, er…observing.
“No need to explain yourself to me, Prestwick. I’d hide too, if every chit in London was determined to catch me in the parson’s mousetrap.” Darby shuddered. “Young ladies can be rather terrifying, can they not?”
Kit didn’t give a damn about the young ladies. He cared only for one young lady, but she hadn’t yet appeared. He twitched the edge of the curtain open again, pressed his eye to the gap, and made as thorough a study of the ballroom as he could manage with one eye.
There were dozens of young ladies with brown hair scattered about, but none with Tilly’s particular shade of rich, warm brown, like chestnuts and brown sugar roasted over an open—
Chestnuts and brown sugar? What the devil?
Tilly’s hair wasbrown, and her eyesblue. That was all.
He pulled the draperies closed with a grunt of disgust and strode to the railing, sucking in a breath of the sharp, cold air. Where was she? It was nearly half-ten—
“Good evening, Lord Prestwick.”
The voice was soft, but he whirled around as if at a pistol shot. There, dressed in a jonquil ballgown that brought out the dark gold threads in her hair, stood Tilly Templeton, and he… well, all at once, he couldn’t quite catch his breath. “I—good evening.”
She ducked through the draperies, and pulled them closed behind her. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. What are you doing, hiding back here?”
Darby snorted, and Kit shot him a quelling look. “I beg your pardon. I wasnothiding. I was…” Well, damned if he knew what he’d been doing, though it must be said that searching ballrooms for Tilly Templeton had become quite a habit of his.
“It’s alright, my lord. There’s nothing wrong with hiding. How do you do, Mr. Darby?” she added, turning to Darby with a smile.
“Much better, now you’ve arrived, Miss Mathilda.” Darby offered her an elegant bow. “I couldn’t imagine what had Prestwick so out of sorts, but I see now that he’s been waiting foryou.”
Kit could feel Darby’s questioning gaze on him, but this wasn’t the time to satisfy his friend’s curiosity. “Hadn’t you better adjourn to the ballroom, Darby? I saw more than one young lady in need of a partner.”
“Yes, alright. I’m going.” Darby slipped past the curtain, muttering something about wallflowers under his breath.
Kit hardly heard him. Now that Tilly was here, she had all of his attention. “I’d begun to fear you wouldn’t come tonight, after all.”
“We were rather late leaving the house. I’m afraid we spent too much time lingering at the looking glass.”
