Lavinia glanced over at the ball gown on the bed. Pale silk done in an elegantly demure fashion. It was the sort of dress she’d dreamt of wearing all her life. And she was going to the sort of ball she’d always wanted to attend.
And yet, the entire evening held no appeal to her. Yes, she’d be received. Yes, Lady Gosforth would do her utmost to see that Society gave the Tempest sisters all due respect.
But one thing would be missing.
Him.
She flounced into a nearby chair and stared moodily at the grate in the fireplace.
Here she’d come to London with such high ambitions.
Spent years preparing for what was supposed to be a triumphant Season.
Instead, everything was inside out.
And mostly, she wasn’t who she thought she was. Oh, it had nothing to do with the fact that her father wasn’t Sir Ambrose. For that, in many ways, didn’t make a difference. He was her Papa, and would always be. The dearest man ever, more so for all that he had given to her and Louisa.
But when she had thought she’d known exactly who she was and what she wanted, then along had come Tuck and ruined everything.
Not really ruined. Rather opened her eyes.
Is that so bad?
On the nightstand beside her sat the journal she’d kept all these years. Taking notes, carefully and deliberately composing her list of proper ideals on those crisp, clean sheets of paper.
Hours of devoted study and planning, she mused as she leafed through the pages and the all-too-familiar notes.
Proper Rule No. 18. When a lady strictly adheres to grace and manners, she shall be repaid in full measure.
Proper Rule No. 43. The highest orders of Society are to be viewed with admiration and a sense of awe. For they are the guardians of order and manners and all that is gracious.
Lady Blaxhall came to mind, and Lavinia snapped the journal shut.
Pompous, ridiculous notions, she now realized. Rising, she carried it over to the fireplace and deposited it in the cold hearth.
“Good riddance,” she whispered as she turned her back on her old convictions.
That book, that wretched list had bound up her life in ways that would never have led to any true happiness.
When she turned, she faced her gown again. Oh, how she had thought this the perfect dress a fortnight ago when she’d ordered it, but now it seemed too proper, too staid—even though it was the first stare of fashion.
She glanced over at the clothespress and wished she could wear the blue velvet. Wished she could be that woman again.
For that woman wouldn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done tonight.
There was a scratch at the door, and Lavinia bid them to come in—for it must be Nan here to help her dress, but instead of her maid, Mrs. Rowland came tentatively into the room.
“I don’t know if I am welcome,” the lady began, her hand still resting on the latch.
Lavinia’s breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she was back in that carriage with the horrible icy truth chilling them both.
Yet now, Lavinia doubted that what she’d heard had been the entire story. No more than Tuck’s mother was a simple, modest widow.
“I could use the help,” she told Mrs. Rowland honestly. “Nan is a dear, but she hasn’t your touch with hair.”
“Years of doing it myself,” Mrs. Rowland replied. Then she glanced over at the gown. “Lovely.”
“Proper,” Lavinia told her. “I only wish—”
“Wish what?”
“That I might be able to wear your necklace with it.”
“But my dear girl, if you wear that necklace, everyone will know—” Mrs. Rowland paused and looked her up and down. “Are you certain?”
Lavinia nodded, making her choice.
For unwittingly, it had been Lady Damerell who had given her the idea when she’d said, “. . . this mystery woman is the most sought after lady in London . . .”
She’d be just that, and Tuck would win his bet with Ilford, though in the bargain, she’d most likely be ruined.
However, it was a wager she was willing to make.
If it meant saving Tuck.
Mrs. Rowland’s eyes twinkled a bit as she smiled. “I had hoped you might be willing to gamble one more time.” Then she opened up her reticule.
“This will never work,” Tuck said, looking down at his costume. He desperately hoped everyone else would agree.
Sadly, they didn’t.
“Come now,” Piers teased, “you’ll be the belle of the ball.”
“Not funny,” Tuck told him.
“I think you look quite elegant, Mr. Rowland,” Lady Wakefield told him as she circled round him yet again, eyeing him from every angle.
He snorted and took another glance in the mirror. Oh, he’d rather be ruined than endure this.
Especially when Brody poked his head into the room. “Be still, my untamed heart. For there she is, my sun, my moon, my everlasting—”
“Continue, and it will be the last thing you ever say,” Tuck warned.
“Scold,” Brody replied.
“Be careful there, my lord,” Mrs. Petchell told the baron as she handed a shawl to Tuck. “Some of us find that term offensive.”
“And will lose you your dinner privileges,” Lady Wakefield added, stepping forward to adjust the wrap that Tuck had no idea how to wear.
Good God! No wonder it took so long to get a lady out of her clothes. He shifted this way and that. He had enough layers on to think they were dressing him for a Russian winter.
Brody groaned but kept any further comments to himself though from the twitching of his lips, it was apparent the young lord had plenty more quips at the ready.
“This might work, my lady,” Mrs. Petchell said, tipping her head and admiring their handiwork, for it hadn’t been a simple task of fitting a dress around Tuck and making him look like a helpless young miss.
He was too tall and his shoulders too wide. But with a large pink bonnet and matching shawl covering most of his upper half and the lower half concealed in a wide skirt of muslin . . . and the yard in shadows.
He turned to get a look at himself and nearly toppled over, having caught his foot in the hem.
“Mr. Rowland, be careful. A lady mustn’t step on her hem,” Lady Wakefield warned, but the light in her eyes suggested she was enjoying this as much as Brody.
And Piers did his best to stifle a guffaw so it merely sounded like he was coughing.
Tuck took a deep breath, then a cautious step. And then another. None of them would ever let him forget this. For Livy, he told himself. For her.
“No, no, you mustn’t skulk about. Just walk,” Lady Wakefield told him, showing him by carefully and perfectly crossing the room.
“That looks much easier than it is,” he told her.
“Just hold up your skirt,” she advised.
“But don’t show them your ankles,” Brody advised, “for you’ll have no hope then of fooling anyone.” He tipped his head and did a careful examination of the hemline. “Then again, you just might find your dance card overflowing with eligible partis.”
“When this is over, I’m going to thrash you,” Tuck warned him.
Brody leaned back, all smug satisfaction at his friend’s discomfort, his hands folded comfortably together behind his head. “Not in that dress you aren’t.”
Tuck tripped and wobbled his way across the viscount’s rear yard. While the new viscountess had managed a host of improvements, the gravel was uneven, and Tuck nearly pitched headlong into the tangle of roses near the gate.
He’d break his neck in this rig before he ever managed to lure Bludger and Charlie out of hiding. But he managed with a few careful steps to get through the gate to his uncle’s well-maintained yard and breathed a sigh of relief that his uncle kept his pathways in good order.
As it was, everything around him appeared as it ought—the gravel raked clean, the peonies staked and tied after their recent and unfortunate encounter, and the corners all in shadows.
Even the mews beyond seemed to have stilled.
But he’d grown up in London and spent more than an ample amount of time with some of the Honorable’s less-than-savory friends not to have developed a keen sense for when someone was lurking about.
And it wasn’t just Brody concealed in the privy, or Chaunce and Benedict in the shadows of the gate, or Piers in the window above, with his pistol at the ready.
No, there was someone else about—for while all the rest of them were as still as mice, there was a rustle that shouldn’t be there.
And by the time he was standing before Charleton’s prized peonies, the hair on the back of his neck was on point. So he continued to feign a complete disregard for his own safety, bending over to admire the fragrant blossoms.
But unwittingly his gaze flitted up toward the window overhead, where to his shock stood Livy, gaping down at him.
That she recognized him was clearly evident, for she immediately swung away from the window in a great huff, and seconds later returned with a large vase in hand.
So this is how his life would end. With Livy finally smashing his head in with a stray piece of crockery and him wearing Mrs. Petchell’s Sunday finery.
He could see the lurid inquest testimony now . . . published on the front page of every London paper. And probably half the papers in the country.
“Demmit,” he muttered without thinking, and even as he uttered the curse there was the telltale crunch of gravel behind him.
Tuck whirled around.
Like a pair of river rats, two men all done in black, had stepped out of the shadows.
“Blimey!” came the response from the first fellow. “You ain’t her!”
Tuck recognized him immediately. “Mr. Bludger.”
Bludger sniffed the air like some feral creature, and, smelling a trap, he yanked a pistol out of his jacket and aimed it right at Tuck. “Oh, aye. So you know who I am. Then you’ll also rightly know that if you move, I’ll shoot.”
And those where the last words that came out of the man before a large vase crashed right into his forehead. It sent Bludger careening backward into the villain behind him.
The two crashed to the gravel path, and before either of them could do much more than groan, Tuck’s friends came bursting out of their hiding spots.
In no time, the pair were trussed up and in irons.
Benedict wrestled Bludger to his feet, then grinned at Tuck. “What did I tell you? Best bowler in Kempton.”
Tuck turned around and saw Livy standing in the window, arms crossed over her bosom, and a triumphant look on her face.
Some bowler, indeed.
Yet he couldn’t help but wonder whom she’d meant that errant vase for—Bludger or him?