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“Lord Rothingale lives at an excellent address, not far from here, so we needn’t call up the carriage. We’d take a footman, of course.”

“What if anyone discovered who we are?” Livie argued. “We would be disgraced as well as exiled! Aunt would be so disappointed. No, she’d be furious.”

“We shan’t be discovered! We’ll wear the red domino cloaks that Mother had made for last Twelfth Night ball. We could even wear masks beneath the masquerade hats we bought. Besides, no one really knows us, do they? We scarcely debuted, and now it’s two months later.”

“Lady Regina knows us.”

“Lady Regina would never go to a masquerade ball thrown by Rothingale,” Daisy pointed out. “Plus, how could she possibly recognize us if we each wear a domino cloak, a mask, and a masquerade hat with the veil down? We’ll be as good as nuns, Livie. Please?”

Livie groaned.

And gave in.

A few nights later, two young ladies, swathed from head to foot in voluminous cloaks, their curls tied up and their veils down, strolled up to the door of #45 Wimpole Street, with invitation cards in hand.

“Proper prime ones, they are,” the butler muttered to his new footman after the two guests disappeared into the ballroom.

James gaped. “They were lightskirts?”

“Lightskirts?” Mr. Bridges snorted. “You sound like my grandfather.”

“Jezebels?” the footman hazarded. “Courtesans?”

“High up in the demimonde,” the butler said. “Did you smell them when they passed?”

James shook his head.

“Them women in the demimonde smell as good as ladies themselves,” the butler pronounced.

“Maybe they are ladies,” James said.

“Too young and pretty,” the butler opined. “No chaperone.”

“They had a footman,” James pointed out. They had sent the man down to the servants’ quarters to join the others of his ilk.

The butler snorted again. “Man-hunting, they is. No question about it. Not that I think any less of them for that,” he added. “This house ain’t what it used to be, under the old master. All sorts are welcome now.”

James’s eyes rounded. His mother had warned him of the dangers of the great city, and here they were. He felt shaken to the tips of his toes.

“Scarlet cloaks,” the butler concluded. “That says it all, doesn’t it?”

One of the ladies—the demi … whatever Mr. Bridges called her … Her curls had glistened in the light of torches outside the door as if they were made from spun silk. The little veil she wore ended just above her mouth, and …

Her lips?

James swallowed hard.

CHAPTER TEN

INTRODUCING MAJOR JOSHUA CHARLES FITZROY OF THE 5TH DRAGOON

When Major Joshua Charles FitzRoy of the 5th Dragoon Guards walked into Lord Rothingale’s house, he instantly realized that he’d made a mistake.

Not having known it was a masquerade, he had no mask or domino cloak. A footman handed him a strip of black silk with holes cut in it, but he stuffed it in his pocket. Everywhere he looked, lush women bursting out of their scanty costumes were dancing with men in cloaks and masks.

This was no normal costume ball—nothing like Twelfth Night balls he’d attended before he took a commission in the 5th Dragoon Guards. These men may be gentlemen, but the women were certainly not ladies.

It wasn’t a marriage market, and Joshua wasn’t interested in other pursuits.