Well. You’ve had some times, haven’t you?
While you’re glad to have your feet back on solid London ground, your head is still stuck in the clouds of your recent memories—as well as the London fog.
But despite your adventures away from home, you feel pulled to this city, the Big Smoke, and you know it holds something better for you than anything you have experienced so far. It is also dead expensive, and with empty pockets and a heavy heart, you swallow your pride and beg the Dowager Dragon to give you back your old job.
After Lady Craven has begrudgingly accepted you, you find yourself in another London ballroom. She takes no small delight in detailing how happy Lady Evangeline is in Egypt, still, and that she plans to be abroad for quite some time. “You’re all alone now, aren’t you?” she trills, before narrowing her eyes. You begin to make your rounds. “Stay close. Stay quiet. And for heaven’s sake, fetch me my sherry,” she seethes under her breath.
“Of course, my lady.” You smile through gritted teeth. Oh, how you hate the taste of humble pie. You beeline for the refreshments.
“Truly, my lady, is there no greater thrill in this life than serving my wicked relation her happy water?” A cool, bemused voice caresses your ear. Benedict. You smile, all the way down to your bones, and turn to him, keeping your face calm but letting your eyes betray your delight. He continues, eyebrows raised. “I’ve tried to work it out, and I see it as the only compelling reason you would return. That surely must be it.” He offers to take your hand and bends low to kiss it, with ridiculous ceremony. You stifle a laugh.
“And that alone,” you reply as he rises to meet your gaze. You are standing close, face to face, just a little too close to be completely proper. Just close enough to feel the heat simmering beneath his sass…and waistcoat.
“If you’re holding your breath for me to confess I’ve missed you, I am rather afraid you will die of asphyxiation, my dear. Aunt will be most displeased.”
“As will you?” You arch an eyebrow. Oh, it is delicious to slip back into this banter.
“Me? Oh, I will—” But before he can finish, Benedict is interrupted by a clap on the shoulder. He spins to face a man built just as finely as he, but twice as wide across the shoulders and a full head taller, boasting a mane of fire-red hair.
“Aye! How goes the legislation to benefit the orphans and wives of the war then, laddie?” Captain Angus “Mac” MacTaggart’s voice booms a hole through Benedict and lands straight in your heart.
“It…goes…slowly, as things unfortunately—” Benedict stammers, losing his cool momentarily in the presence of the large, do-gooder captain.
“Always do. Aye, aye.” Mac laughs ruefully. “Just remember, as we fine folk here enjoy our sherry and reels, the folk left bereft by the war snatch what sleep they can, tossin’ and turnin’ on a bed of empty promises and broken dreams. Aye!” Mac slaps Benedict on the back so hard, you fancy you hear a bone break. Benedict takes his leave, and you are left alone for a moment with the fireball of rugged handsomeness and beneficence that is Mac.
“Hello, Mac,” you say softly. His eyes twinkle—and perhaps peer a bit longingly—at you.
“Aye, lass,” he returns, as soft as his body is hard. “If you aren’t jest a sight for sore eyes. I have oft wondered what ye were getting up to out there, in the great wide world. And if, perhaps, were needin’ helpin’.”
“Does the lady need help? May I be of assistance? Would the lady like a glass of brandy? I have fetched you brandy, my lady, here is, oh, oh my!” The excitable voice belongs to none other than the hopelessly goofy, awkward, and adoring Nigel Frickley. He stumbles all over himself (and several others) to hand you a glass of brandy.
Unfortunately, the proffered refreshment ends up all over your dress, instead of in your mouth. “Thank you, Nigel,” you demur. “But really, you shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, he should!” Sir Charles Burley-Fanshaw leers at you from across the room. “And he should do it again!” The old coot’s eyes dance with delight at the sight of your clinging gown, and you and most of the ball’s attendees shudder with deep disgust.
“Where the devil is my sherry?!” the Dragon shouts. Despising yourself for it, you scurry toward her with the drink outstretched.
“Here you are, my lady,” you say, extending the glass to her. She snatches it, and in front of all of the ton, throws the drink full in your face!
“Oh…oh my,” Nigel stammers. “I shall fetch my lady another napkin—”
“You shall fetch nothing of the sort!” the Dragon spits. Nigel freezes in his somewhat adorably goofy tracks. She turns her nigh-villainous gaze on you and narrows her already beady eyes. “I have longed for the moment you would come crawling back to my employ. I have longed for it expressly because, in turn, I longed for the moment I would teach you a valuable lesson. You do not bite the hand that feeds, my dear, and you most certainly do not caress longingly the hands that are related to the hand that feeds. You have invited scandal into my family, and for it, you shall pay. You are a terrible, ungrateful, spiteful little chit. You have disgraced yourself and my family with your life choices, and you shall pay for your actions. You, my lady, are fired.”
Ninety percent of the ton gasps, scandalized. Eighty percent of that ninety percent do so with cruel delight.
Your heart drops to the floor. You are now penniless, jobless, beauless, and drenched in two types of aperitif. Clearly, the Dragon took you back only to publicly humiliate you, dismiss you, and leave you with neither income, home, nor dry change of clothes.
“Get thee hence, harlot!” she cries, casting her beady eyes about for more cocktails to heave at you. Benedict locks eyes with you and takes a deep, shivering breath before stepping forward and gathering your hands in his.
“This harlot is my fiancée!” he says, loud enough for everyone, even those at the fringes of the ton, to hear.
Several members gasp so hard they need to sit down to catch their breath.
“Benedict,” you say, burning partly with desire, partly with humiliation, “you do not need to marry me to save my honor.”
“No,” he responds, and his eyes search yours in that intense back-and-forth way that future generations will know only by watching romantic comedic narratives on a sort of moving screen. “I need to marry you to save myself. From a life of boredom, from a life of mediocre sex, from a life of grinning and bearing it when all I want is to sass around. I need to marry you to save myself from a life spent without you. Any moment I continue to live without you as my wife is one moment too many.”
Your eyes widen, your blood thrums. Benedict drops to one knee.
“Marry me, my lady,” he asks, breathless, and in love.
“No! No! NOOOOO!” the Dragon screams.
One hundred percent of the ton awaits your response, none with more eagerness than Benedict. You see Mac look down at his boots. Nigel’s eyes shine with terror. Sir Charles Burley-Fanshaw mimes groping your chest and buttocks.
Lady’s choice. What will it be?
Benedict, duh! You are totally in love and you want to find some rainy garden and kiss on him all over it. Get thee hence to , you damnable woman!
Benedict is great but…you just can’t resist throwing your tiny scrap of remaining caution to the wind and get back to orphan-helpin’ with your favorite rugged Scotsman, Mac. Turn to .