Page 5 of The Duke's Vice

Beatrice let out a yelp as she jumped.

“I’m sorry Lady Beatrice, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Candace, her maid. Beatrice looked at her father’s time piece she kept on her desk. It was almost time for breakfast.

“No, it’s all right, Candace. You just startled me.” Beatrice opened her closet and threw the coat in, slamming the door shut just as Candace opened her bedroom door.

“Are you all right?” Candace was just a few years older than her which Beatrice loved. She was so used to having older sistersaround that when both Eleanor and Sarah were married she missed having them with her. Candace helped fill that void.

And she was good at keeping secrets. When Beatrice came to her with the gossip she overheard about a party on Water Street It was Candace that got her the details.

Candace looked over her shoulder as she closed the door. “So? Did you go last night?” Her voice was just above a whisper.

Beatrice smiled and squealed as she ran over to her maid. “I didn’t, but…”

Candace’s owlish eyes grew wider. “But what?” She squeezed Beatrice’s hands as she pulled her to the bed.

“I met a man.” She squeaked as she plopped down on the bed.

Candace let out a squeal of her own.

“Hush!” Beatrice raised her hands to cover Candace’s mouth. “Where’s Mama?”

Her maid pulled away and waved Beatrice off. “She’s in the breakfast parlor reading the letter from Sarah for the umpteenth time.”

Beatrice scowled. “Is she still insistent that I go to the ball this afternoon?”

Candace chewed her inner cheek and nodded. “I’m afraid so. The Duchess says there will be plenty of young men there and you’re all any one can talk about.”

Beatrice threw herself back onto her bed.

She didn’t want to be married like her sisters. Sure, they both seemed happy and in love with their life, their husbands, even the adorable little cherubs they both produced in their respective marriages. But, if Beatrice was honest with herself, which she usually is, and her mother, which she usually is not, she would say that the life of spinster didn’t seem so bad.

“Her Grace wrote how excited she was to see you and your mother today and,” Candace’s brow furrowed in concentration. “How did she put it?”

Beatrice rubbed her temple in a failing attempt to stave off the headache that was forming thinking about the afternoon’s ball. “She can’t wait to see me shine as the season’s diamond she knows me to be.” Beatrice said with a growl.

She sat up with a huff. “Which is ridiculous. Everyone knows this seasons diamond is Lady Cecilia and her perfectly golden hair. And she can have it. Sarah knows I don’t want to be this season’s diamond. She just wrote that because she knew it would work Mama up into a frenzy and make my life miserable. I swear she’s getting back at me for all the times I was a brat to her.”

Candace smiled. “Your mother is very… let’s go with energetic, this morning.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes and made her way back to her closet. She threw her overcoat in there quickly just in case Candace was not alone. She didn’t need her mother seeing her coat thrown on a chair and not in its proper place.

She opened the door to the closet and pulled out the coat.

“Well, I’ll give Mama the afternoon. I promised her this season, so this season she shall have. But I had last night.” She pulled the coat to her face and inhaled. It smelled of the summer night and the sweet smoke smell her mind now associates with her masked man.

Candace stood from the bed and started to put the room to rights. “Please tell me you didn’t do anything unbecoming of a respectable woman last night.” She chastised.

Beatrice let her mind drift for a moment and saw the handsome masked stranger before her. She sighed into the coat.

“I may have kissed a man.”

Candace dropped the pillow onto the bed. “May have?” She asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

Beatrice felt her blush deepen. “Most definitely did.”

Candace’s eyes widened. “Who? When? Where? At the party?”

---