This voice sounded frightened, and Thomas moved more quickly. It wasn’t safe? What wasn’t safe?
“We shouldn’t leave,” the first person said, and Thomas assumed that was Cecily. “She should be the one to leave. She’s the one who puts everyone in danger with her mere presence. The cursed lady does not belong at society functions. Especially not with the way she looks? She’ll frighten people.”
So that’s what this is about!They were talking about the cursed lady that Lady Deborah had mentioned. He assumed it had to be the same one. How many cursed ladies could there possibly be at this party?
And now he was even more driven to intervene. It was wrong that this gossip was spreading like this. Whether the lady in question was actually cursed or not, she didn’t deserve to be spoken ill of.
He rounded a corner and found them.
Three young ladies stood facing a fourth, all of them looking rather aggressive. It was immediately clear to Thomas which one must be Lady Cecily. She was at the head of the group, invading the fourth lady’s space, looking angry and very nearly as if she was about to lash out physically.
Thomas cleared his throat. “What’s going on here?”
All three ladies jumped and turned. The two at the back looked abashed, but Lady Cecily looked unashamed. “Oh,” she said. “Hello, Your Grace.”
So, she knew who he was. Well, so much the better, then. “I think you ought to go back inside,” he said severely. “It’s most unbecoming for young ladies like yourselves to be out here saying cruel things.”
Lady Cecily’s two friends retreated quickly, but Lady Cecily approached Thomas. “Do you know who this is?”
“I don’t need to know. Go inside, now.”
Lady Cecily looked at him as if she thought him a fool but didn’t argue with him. He supposed her boldness stopped short of arguing with the Duke of Westcourt. After a moment, she followed her friends back toward the house.
Thomas turned to the lady they had left behind them, the one they had called cursed. She stood in the shadows, and he could hardly make out her face. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s hardly the first time.”
“That’s horrible,” he said. “No one should be spoken to like that.”
She shrugged. “It’s what happens when all you’re known for is being cursed.”
Thomas felt for her—he thought he could understand. People might crave his respect, but that didn’t keep them from gossiping about his father, and that experience had taught him how it felt to be talked about. He knew he had often been the topic of unpleasant conversation. It was a difficult thing to face.
He was about to ask the lady to come out of the darkness, but he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. Automatically, without thinking, he moved away from them—closer to her—and turned to see who was coming.
“Thomas!” a voice exclaimed.
Thomas’s heart sank. It was the worst imaginable possibility—his mother.
“Thomas, what in heaven’s name are you doing out here?” his mother demanded. “Lady Beatrice just came and found me and told me that you were out here on your own with someone—oh my goodness, I never thought it might betrue!”
It was only then that Thomas realized how this scene must look to everyone standing around them.
Here he was, alone on the garden path with a young lady—and, he realized suddenly, standing altogether too close to her. It would look deeply scandalous.
A group of other ladies came up the path. One of them gasped, and as she came forward, Thomas saw it was Lady Garrington. “The young ladies spoke the truth!” she announced in a carrying voice. “The cursed lady has tainted the Duke!”
“What’s this?” Thomas’s mother asked, frowning.
“It’s her, Henrietta,” one of the ladies said. Thomas squinted and saw that it was his mother’s friend, Sarah. She wore a rather sad expression on her face, as if she didn’t like the news she was being forced to deliver, but knew that she had no choice. “It’s the cursed lady.”
“Come forward, young lady,” Henrietta said.
Thomas knew he wouldn’t have dared disobey his mother when she spoke in that tone, and apparently, the young lady in the shadows felt the same way.
She came into the light.
“Itisher,” his mother said. “Lady Madeleine.”
