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EPISODE NINETY

LADIES—AND LADYBIRDS

April 18, 1816

LORD ROTHINGALE’S MASQUERADE

LONDON

The Right Honorable Lord Devin—who thought of himself as Miles, though only his sisters addressed him as such—strolled into Lord Rothingale’s masquerade planning to stay for ten minutes. At most, fifteen.

Earlier in the day, at their club, his old friend had announced that the most beautiful ladies in London would attend, although his wink promised ladybirds. Sure enough, courtesans were swarming the ballroom, eagerly looking for their next benefactor.

Miles didn’t have a mistress.

He didn’t want one.

He felt like that absurd Shakespeare character who moaned about losing his mirth. The lines had been drilled into him at Eton, so they jumped into his head, willy-nilly: I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth.

Oh Christ, he was quoting Hamlet, the ultimate dreary prince. That had to be a sign of mental deterioration.

Hamlet’s malaise had dramatic origins—father murdered, mother remarried, etc.—but Miles’s complaint was mundane. He was lonely. Mirth had gone out the window a couple of years ago, after his best friend Jonah fell in love and moved to Suffolk with his wife.

Not that Miles begrudged Jonah the lovely Bea, but he missed his friendship. And damn it, he was jealous. Jonah and Bea didn’t coo at each other like doves; they squabbled just as often as they laughed. Yet their bond was so deep that they were happier together than apart.

These days Miles spent most of his time in the House of Lords, serving as the head investigator for charges of murder and depravity amongst the aristocracy. Filling the hours didn’t help his malaise, likely because the cases were so beastly—and the criminals seldom punished. The House reeked of inequitable treatment and double standards. He found it hard to shake off the stench after talking to a boot boy beaten to the point of death for the sin of an unpolished shoe, knowing that his master would almost certainly walk free.

Years ago, he would have relished the seductive impropriety of this masquerade, but no longer. He skirted an over-rouged ladybird whose mask did little to conceal her avaricious eyes. Glancing at a couple leaning against the wall, the man’s hips pumping rhythmically, he felt only distaste for such vulgarity.

So far he had resisted his family’s insistence that he find a wife, but it seemed the time had finally arrived. He was almost thirty, and this Season he’d have nothing else to do while roaming between society events, given that his sister Clementine was already betrothed, and his two younger sisters wouldn’t debut until next year.

Obviously, Lord Rothingale’s house was no place to find a respectable woman to marry. Hell, the man had tried to entice Clementine into eloping with him, and if Miles hadn’t known Rothingale all his life, he wouldn’t have darkened his door. But the man was a nobleman, if a degenerate one, and paying respect to those of rank by attending their various events was a gentlemanly pastime, regardless of the host’s reputation.

He was turning to leave when his eye was caught by a tumble of white-blonde hair, almost silver under candlelight. The woman in question wore a mask topped by a masquerade hat ringed in violets, her face concealed by the veil that ended just above her plump lips.

She was peering about as if she had lost someone—presumably not the young lout standing beside her, trying to get her attention.

It occurred to Miles that he might have been too hasty in dismissing the idea of a mistress. Or if not that, a mutually enjoyable evening.

Acting from pure instinct, he strode directly to her and smiled. “Good evening.”

She tilted her head and blinked at him from behind her veil.

Miles’s whole being stilled. He knew those lips.

He had met this lady at her debut ball. He had danced with her, talked to her, eaten with her—before she was exiled from polite society due to her upcoming uncle’s trial for treason.

Anger surged in his veins. What in the hell was Miss Daisy Wharton doing at one of the most disreputable parties in all London? He had judged her something of a nitwit with a penchant for mischief—albeit a strikingly beautiful one.

But this was more than mischief.

If anyone recognized her in this den of iniquity, she would be exiled from polite society forever, no matter the outcome of her uncle’s trial.

Moreover, the last thing Captain Sir Tyron needed was for his niece’s disgraceful behavior to cause another scandal in the family. The captain was currently imprisoned in the Tower of London; the Lord High Steward had accepted the case for adjudication in the House of Lords, which meant it would soon be handed to Miles to investigate.

The man standing on Daisy’s other side said aggressively, “You’ll have to wait your turn. I already asked this lady to dance, so I’ve claimed her. She’s mine for the evening.”

Miles leveled an icy stare that made the ruffian pale and fall back a step. “She is dancing with me.” He caught Daisy by the arm and drew her deep onto the dance floor until a crowd of inebriated dancers blocked her admirer’s view.