Page 2 of A Lady's Dangerous Secret
Lady Booth flushed and pretended to scan the crowd. “Oh! I must be off. There is my dear friend whom Ihave not seenin ages.” She turned on her heel and scurried away.
Aunt Frances let out aharrumphand turned back to Lady Carrington to continue their gossip. Given that she had no immediate escape, Charlotte merely stood there and plastered a smile on her face. At the ripe age of twenty-one, she had thought she would spend her life in Shropshire as a contented spinster, removed from Society. Instead, here she was as an unexpected debutante with a scandalous secret, navigating the treacherous waters of thetonin search of a husband to save her life.
And she was traveling without a soul in whom to confide and utterly alone.
I don’t belong here.
I need to find her.
I don’t belong here.
I need to find her.
Captain James Theodore Adolphus Hughes took a cursory sweep of the Markham ballroom and wished he were any place but there. He could not believe the circumstances that had compelled him to be at this ball. He hated theton. More accurately, he despised them. His blood boiled as he looked at the snobbish, lazy members of the supposed elite who never truly worked a day of their lives for their privileged existence. They sat in their clubs and their parlors, wasting their fortunes in idle pursuits, all the while slandering each other to pass the time. Yet now, he was among them, while accompanying the only person in thetonhe could tolerate.
His friend, Gabriel Lockhart, Earl of Carrington, tilted his golden head and looked at James with amber eyes. Gabe was explaining his strategy for surviving the first part of the evening, before they could slip away to the card room and not be hounded by the marriage-minded mothers of debutantes. But James could not pay attention to any of the words his friend was saying.
He had to findher.
James knew he could not blame his entire fiasco onher, but that did not prevent him from wanting to shift all culpability onto the mystery woman.
Shewas not the reason the ship carrying the shipment of Irish flax to Holyhead had sunk.
Shewas not the reason he had to placate the textile factory owner for the lost flax shipment with his own money.
Shewas not the reason he had to stop in Birmingham to tell his childhood friend, Jack Doherty, that he would not be receiving payment for the flax.
But shewas the reason he was trapped in London waiting for his insurance brokerage to release repayment of his money for the lost shipment.
Andshewas the reason James found himself in a stifling ballroom.
After he had left the insurance brokerage in the kind of rage he had not experienced in some time, he made his way to Gabe’s town house and regaled him with his deplorable situation. Gabe offered an exchange. He would use his connections to Bow Street to help investigate the case. In return, James would keep him company at the Season’s events, while Gabe did his duty and maneuvered the marriage market for his younger sister, the Lady Bridget.
“Does that sound like a plan?” Gabe asked.
James dragged his hand through his sable hair. “Definitely.”
“You didn’t hear a word I said.”
“Was it that obvious?”
Gabe eyed James seriously. “I will still get my man in Bow Street to look into your problem, even if you don’t want to attend these events.”
James’s mind kept drifting off. His friend was going out of his way to help him, but all James could think about was the lost shipment and how an unidentified woman had ruined the foreseeable future. He needed to focus on Gabe.
“I gave my word. Plus, I know how much you’ve been dreading marrying off your sister,” James replied.
Gabe’s mouth curved into a half smile.
James could see why women threw themselves at his friend.
“You have gotten me out of enough scrapes. This is the least I can do.” Gabe planted a jovial slap on James’s back.
A piercing woman’s voice caught his attention. He turned to locate its source. The shrill sound permeated his ears once more, and led him to a raven-haired matron, Lady Hardwicke, who was speaking to Gabe’s mother and sister, Lady Carrington and Lady Bridget. Lady Hardwicke had a chestnut-haired young woman in tow, who stood there looking awkward and out of place.
She wore the virginal white dress and glittering jewels of every other debutante, but her expression and carriage perplexed him. She was not all false smiles and youthful hopefulness. Instead, the corners of her mouth deflected downward, and her hands were clasped in front of her, drawing her shoulders forward. A flicker of fear crossed her face, but she schooled her features back into her unhappy expression.
She should be happy. The Season was the highlight of any well-bred woman’s life. James could not understand what could possibly bother a spoiled Society miss.
