by Anna Bradley
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Helena tossed her head. “I don’t know what you—”
“Yes, you do.” Emma put on her sternest face. “You know precisely what I mean. I need you to stay safe, Letty, and Lady Clifford needs you to remain at the Pink Pearl until this business is finished. Don’t do or say anything to get yourself flung out onto the street. Promise it, Letty.”
Helena let out an impatient sigh. “Yes, yes, all right. I promise it. Now, off with you, before Madame Marchand catches you and flings you out onto the street.”
Emma grinned. “She hasn’t caught me yet.”
“So smug, given you still have to sneak back out again.”
“Oh, I think I’m safe enough. I doubt Madame Marchand even remembers she has a library.” The woman wasn’t keen on reading. She wasn’t keen on anything, aside from stripping coins from the fists of London’s aristocrats.
Emma pressed a hasty kiss to Helena’s cheek. “Go on now, before you’re missed, and remember your promise.”
Helena tiptoed across the room, peeked into the hallway, then turned to blow Emma a kiss before dashing through the door. Emma waited until the sound of her footsteps faded before adjusting her hood to cover her face and slipping back out the doorway through which she’d come.
She couldn’t risk returning to the Pink Pearl until she’d finished this business with Lord Lovell. It would take weeks, the rest of the season, but when it was settled, she’d return to the Pink Pearl, and this time she’d make Helena come away with her. She’d tried to do so before, dozens of times, but this time she wouldn’t rest until Helena agreed.
Emma adored her friends from the Clifford School—Sophia, Cecilia, and Georgiana were as much her sisters as Helena was—but Helena had been there during the worst time of Emma’s life, a time when Emma had no one else.
She wouldn’t leave Helena behind again.
Until then, Helena would be all right. She would be. She’d promised it.
Nothing could go wrong. Not a single, blessed thing. Emma had considered her plans from every angle. She’d plotted and schemed and honed this thing down to the minutest detail, because that was how you caught a murderer.
She made her way through the darkened streets of London toward Lady Crosby’s townhouse in Mayfair, the scuff of her half boots against the uneven ground seeming loud to her own ears, her cold hands shoved as deep into her pockets as they would go.
There would be no mistakes, and no surprises.
Emma didn’t tolerate mistakes, and she’d never liked surprises.
Chapter Two
Almack’s Assembly Rooms, London
The following evening
“This is Almack’s?” Emma’s gaze wandered around the ballroom, taking in the gilded columns, the silk draperies, and the row of chandeliers above their heads. “But…where’s the rest of it?”
“The rest?” Lady Crosby gave her a blank look. “My dear girl, this is all of it.”
This was the tribute to the nobility’s vanity, the pillar of fashionable society, the altar on which England’s prized aristocratic virgins were sacrificed?
Emma had seen the building from the outside many times, of course. It wasn’t remarkable, but given the tremendous fuss the ton made about Almack’s, she’d imagined the interior would be drowning in oceans of costly marble, the walls would be studded with precious gems, and golden cherubs with eyes of pearls would be tucked into every cornice.
It was just a ballroom. Elegantly done up, yes, but much like every other ballroom in London. “I, ah…I imagined it would be larger.”
When she bothered to imagine it all, that is, which wasn’t often.
“Oh, no, my dear.” Lady Crosby gave Emma’s arm a playful tap with her fan. “We must be exclusive above all else, and there’s no better way to appear so than for every ball to be a crush. But don’t you find it elegant?”
Emma, who knew she was meant to find it elegant, wasn’t sure how to reply. The truth was, she didn’t find it to be any more elegant than the Pink Pearl, but one didn’t compare Almack’s to a brothel, no matter how similar their purposes, so she only said, “Er…the company is certainly fashionable.”
Familiar, as well.
Emma’s lips twisted as she took in the array of gentlemen milling about the rooms. She couldn’t stir a step in any direction without stumbling over some flawlessly attired noblemen, many of whom were frequent visitors to the Pink Pearl.
To look at them now, one would never suspect them of lustful urges, or drunken brawling, or of publicly exposing parts of their anatomy best kept private. No one would think them anything other than proper, well-bred gentlemen, with their gleaming smiles and snowy white cravats.
Lord Baddeley was here, chatting with a group of young ladies on the opposite side of the ballroom. He was far from the worst of the swains, but he wasn’t quite as fastidious about his personal hygiene as one might wish, and he had a quick temper. Lord Kittredge was fragrant enough, but he was the sort to find fault with everything and everyone, and his hands were always cold. Or so she’d heard from Helena, who was not as discreet as she ought to be.
And they were among the better offerings here tonight.
Emma’s gaze fell on Lord Peabody in his impeccable evening dress. For all his apparent good humor, she knew his frigid blue eyes were roving over the collection of young ladies, assessing each with the same narrow calculation as he might a costly bauble at Rundell and Bridge. She pitied any lady who found herself at Lord Peabody’s mercy.
If the dozens of sweet young ladies in their pale-colored silk gowns assembled here this evening knew what Emma did about London’s noblemen, they’d run screaming into the night and never look back. A vague pity swelled in her breast for them. At least the courtesans at the Pink Pearl understood the fate that awaited them, but one had only to look at these poor girls to see that their every romantic illusion remained firmly intact.
How many of these hopeful young innocents would find the love they longed for in a marriage? One, perhaps two? The others would have the stars in their eyes extinguished quickly enough.
“Ah, here we are at last.” Lady Crosby gave Emma’s arm a discreet nudge. “Your quarry, my dear.”
Emma rose to her tiptoes to peek over the shoulders around her as the gentleman she’d been waiting for made his way through the crowd to the center of the ballroom.
Her eyes widened when she caught her first glimpse of him. “That’s Lord Lovell? But…where’s the rest of him?”
Lady Crosby sighed. “Emma, dearest, I do wish you’d stop saying that.”
“I beg your pardon.” It wasn’t quite what Emma had meant to say, but this man, a debaucher? A wicked rake, a despoiler of virgins, a heartless seducer?
Lancelot Banning, Lord Lovell—or, as he was called by every housemaid, matron, marriageable young lady, and courtesan in London, Lord Lovely—with his fine, delicate features and charmingly disheveled dark curls, was quite the prettiest gentleman Emma had ever seen.
This beautiful young man, with his soulful dark eyes and fine, elegant hands, was meant to be the scoundrel who’d seduced, ruined, and then abandoned Caroline Francis on the doorstep of the Pink Pearl? He was the despicable villain meant to have done away with two of his aunt’s housemaids?
Of all the men crowding the ballroom this evening, he was the very last one Emma would have suspected, but someone had done something to Amy Townshend and Kitty Yardley.
Emma’s throat closed, just as it did whenever she allowed herself to imagine what might have become of those two girls. Kitty Yardley had been only fifteen years of age when she went missing, the same age Emma had been when Lady Clifford took her away from the Pink Pearl—
“My goodness, look at the heads turning to follow Lord Lovell’s progress. Such a fuss!” Lady Crosby gave a disdainful s
niff. “One would think he was a duke.”
“A prince, even.” And so he was, as far as the ton was concerned.
If Lord Lovell had done even half of what Caroline Francis claimed he had, he deserved to be locked into a cell at Newgate, not sailing around a ballroom with dozens of admiring female gazes on him.
But Lord Lovell was a wealthy viscount, cousin to an even wealthier marquess, and even Emma couldn’t deny he was as handsome as rumor claimed. Thankfully, she’d never been the sort to be felled by a fine face, but it seemed she was the only one.
The rest of the ballroom was abuzz over his presence here tonight. After all, there was only one reason a gentleman appeared at Almack’s during the season. Lord Lovell was on the hunt for a wife, and half the young ladies in the ballroom this evening were imagining themselves Lady Lovell at this very moment.
Emma watched the crowd part to allow the exalted procession to pass. How lucky it was she’d had the foresight to choose a place in an unobtrusive corner of the ballroom, where she might observe the drama unfolding without attracting attention.
Still, she’d have to make her presence known soon enough, and then she’d have more attention than she’d ever wanted. Until then, she prepared to wait, and watch.
Lady Crosby tutted, shaking her head. “You’ll have a number of rivals for his affections, I’m afraid.”
Emma’s lips curved in a grim smile. “I’ll manage somehow, my lady.”
Lady Crosby chortled, her powdered face falling into a dozen gleeful wrinkles. “Oh, I’ve no doubt of that. You look ravishing tonight, my dear. Every inch the belle, from the crown of your fair head to the tips of your slippers. One glance into your blue eyes, and poor Lord Lovell will be your willing slave.”
Perhaps he would, but not for the reasons Lady Crosby supposed. It had nothing to do with Emma’s face, or her gown, her blue eyes or fair hair.
If Lord Lovell’s heart did end up in the palm of her hand, it would be because Emma was very, very good at pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Once she discovered what sort of lady Lord Lovell wanted, it was the work of a moment only for her to become that lady.
Still, she gave Lady Crosby’s hand a grateful squeeze. If she’d had a grandmother, Emma liked to think she would have been just like Lady Crosby. “Who is the lady on Lord Lovell’s arm?”
Lady Crosby’s mouth turned down in a frown. “That, my dear, is Adelaide Banning, the Viscountess of Lovell. She’s Lord Lovell’s mother, and a dreadful, cross old thing. That expression, my dear! She looks as if she’s had too much of Almack’s sour lemonade. Mean-spirited and overbearing, without a kind word to say for anyone other than her son, whom she dotes on.”
Emma cocked her head to the side, studying Lady Lovell. The woman had a proud, unpleasant air about her, as if she thought herself very much above her company.
“Ah, now there’s a bit of luck,” Lady Crosby murmured as Lord Lovell and his mother paused to chat with Lord Townsley, who was standing nearby with his daughter. “Shall I introduce you to them?”
Lady Crosby came from one of England’s oldest and most distinguished families, she knew everyone, and she was wealthy enough that the ton courted her attentions. She was one of Lady Clifford’s most stalwart benefactors, and could introduce Emma to anyone here. It made her the ideal chaperone.
“There is something to be said for striking quickly.” Emma toyed with the tassels on her fan, her gaze on Lord Lovell as she pondered her options. “But not just yet, my lady.”
In Lovell’s case, instinct urged her to hold off for now. Every marriage-minded mama in the ballroom was already racing toward him with their giggling daughters in tow. Emma didn’t choose to be one among the crowd of his frenzied admirers.
So she bided her time, her gaze moving between Lord Lovell and the growing constellation of ladies orbiting him as if he were the sun. One could tell a great deal about a gentleman by the way he behaved when he was surrounded by beautiful debutantes, all of them right at his fingertips, ripe for the plucking.
He seemed to be making an effort to offer a polite word to each of them, and smile at their eager mamas. He bowed at the appropriate times and brushed his pretty red lips over more than one set of gloved knuckles.
He appeared, in short, to be every inch an amiable, proper gentleman.
But that was the tricky thing about appearances, wasn’t it? Whichever Greek poet had said appearances were deceptive had the right of it, and never was it truer than in Lord Lovell’s case. Even if he proved not to be the cold, callous murderer Caroline Francis claimed he was, he was still the sort of gentleman a lady should be wary of.
Drinking, wagering, brawling, mistresses—Lord Lovell had earned quite a reputation for himself as one of London’s most appalling rakes. He was a rogue, indeed, with dozens of scandals to his name. His family was said to be at their wits’ end with his antics, and eager to see him safely married off this season.
Emma smothered a snort. She wished them well with that. Lord Lovell’s attention was already wandering, his sultry, dark eyes roving over the company as if he were searching for someone. He paused here and there when he found a particularly alluring face, but his restless gaze never lingered for long on any one lady.
Until he spied Emma, that is.
No doubt he would have spared her only the same passing glance he had the others, but Madame Marchand had taught Emma well. For better or worse—mostly worse, if the truth were told—she knew how to hold a man’s gaze.
Emma’s eyes met his for an instant only. Lord Lovell’s velvety brown eyes widened, and a slow smile that likely scattered the wits of every young lady on the receiving end of it drifted over his lips.
Emma’s wits remained firmly intact. She didn’t simper or blush, but met his gaze directly before deliberately glancing away again, without returning his smile.
There, that would do, for a start.
Emma had no faith in beauty—her own face had brought her far more tragedy than happiness—but there was no denying it might prove useful in prying the family secrets from Lord Lovell’s lips.
Such pretty lips, too. Rather too pretty for his own good.
Emma and Lady Crosby remained tucked into their corner until just after nine o’clock, two hours before the supper would be served. “I believe I fancy a dance now.” Emma turned to Lady Crosby. “Not with Lord Lovell just yet, but with some other gentleman, if the thing can be managed.”
“I daresay it can be. Which gentleman would you like?”
Emma gave Lady Crosby a blank look. What did it matter? One gentleman was very much like another. “Er, perhaps you’d better choose for me, my lady.”
“Hmmm.” Lady Crosby pursed her lips as she scanned the ballroom. “Let me see. It must be someone who displays to advantage while dancing…ah, I have just the gentleman.”
Emma followed Lady Crosby’s gaze to a tall, dark-haired man on the opposite side of the ballroom. “Who is he?”
“That, my dear, is Lord Dunn. Handsome, isn’t he?”
“He is.” In truth Emma didn’t care a whit about the man’s face, aside from whether or not she’d seen it at the Pink Pearl. She didn’t recognize Lord Dunn, which was a promising start. “What’s he like?”
Lady Crosby shrugged. “Oh, he’s your typical, solid English gentleman. You know the sort—good to his sister, fond of a hearty port, never shirks his duty in the Lords. He’s keen on hunting, is Lord Dunn. He’s friendly with Lord Lovell, and has just purchased a hunting box near Lymington House. There’s not much more to say, really. Come, my dear.”
Emma allowed herself to be led across the ballroom, a demure smile on her lips. She was aware of Lord Lovell turning to follow their progress, but she kept her face averted, and avoided meeting his admiring gaze.
“Lord Dunn!” Lady Crosby waved gaily. “How do you do? Why, it’s been an a
ge, has it not?”
Lord Dunn smiled, and bowed over Lady Crosby’s hand. “My dear Lady Crosby. It’s a great pleasure to see you. What brings you to London?”
“I’ve come with my granddaughter for the season. You know how I despise society, my lord, but the young must have their chance, mustn’t they? Come here, child.” Lady Crosby drew Emma forward. “May I present my granddaughter, Lady Emma Crosby? Emma, dear, this is the Earl of Dunn.”
“How do you do, Lady Emma?” Lord Dunn’s hazel eyes swept over Emma as he bowed over her hand, his lips grazing her glove. “I do believe we’ve found this season’s belle.”
Lady Crosby cackled with delight. “For shame, my lord, flirting so infamously after only a moment’s acquaintance.”
Lord Dunn laughed, his gaze on Emma’s face. “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I could hardly help myself.”
Emma peeked up at Lord Dunn from under her lashes. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a noble, aristocratic face, and the confident air of a man who knew his place in the world. She judged him to be in his mid-thirties, that is, young enough to catch a lady’s eye, but older than most of the callow youths crowding the ballroom.
Yes, he’d do nicely. Lady Crosby couldn’t have chosen better.
“How do you do, Lord Dunn?” Emma dipped into a shy curtsey, but she held his gaze for just a touch longer than a young lady should.
“A good deal better, now. Will you dance, Lady Emma?”
Emma hesitated long enough to give Lady Crosby a chance to wave a hand toward the couples assembling for a country dance. “Go on, dear, and enjoy yourself. I’ll wait here and have a cozy sit down.”
“I wasn’t aware Lady Crosby had a granddaughter,” Lord Dunn said, as he swept Emma into the dance. “Is this your first visit to London?”
“Yes, my lord. My father prefers to keep me in Somerset with him.”
“Your father is a wise man, Lady Emma. If I had a daughter with such a face, I’d keep her safely hidden in the country, as well.” Lord Dunn gave her a devilish grin. “How did you coax him into a season?”
