“Oh!” a sudden gasp escaped from a distant end of the corridor.
Allan looked around, knowing at once that there was someone there with him.
It wasn’t until he saw the face of the young lady looking at them in astonishment that he realized exactly how this looked.
Not only were he and Frederica caught alone together in a dark corridor, completely isolated from the assembly and everyone else. They were wrapped in one another’s arms, as if they were in a lover’s tryst.
Such a curse escaped his lips that Frederica actually gasped as she was pressed against him.
“Scandal! Scandal!” the lady screamed.
CHAPTERFOUR
“Now is the time you let go of me,” Frederica hissed.
No, no, no!
Frederica kept screaming the words in her own mind as she watched the lady at the far side of the corridor screaming relentlessly about a scandal.
Lord Padleigh released her fast. This time, they staggered away from one another with Frederica leaning against the nearest wall and Lord Padleigh standing out in the open, his hands pulling on his dark brown hair in stress.
This cannot be happening.
Yet no amount of Frederica screaming in her own mind would make her wake up from this nightmare. She had been seen and seen in the company of Lord Padleigh, wrapped in his arms.
It took no great leap of the imagination to guess at what people would think of her now. It was her second scandal in just over a year. Within minutes, this story would be spread across the whole of the assembly rooms. Everyone here would be taking the tale back home with them.
She gave it a day before it would appear in the scandal sheets. She could just picture the horrifying headlines now.
Disgraced daughter of an earl sets her sights higher, seducing a marquess after her conquest of a viscount last year.
She shivered in fear.
The lady’s shouts had brought many to them. A whole myriad of people had run up the stairs. Faces and curious unblinking gazes turned toward her and Lord Padleigh.
She tried to be thankful that Lord Padleigh and her parents weren’t amongst them, but it was no great feeling. They would all be hearing about this soon enough.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Those words seemed to rouse Lord Padleigh beside her.
He darted toward her and stood in front of her, blocking everyone’s view of her.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at his back.
“That’s enough gawping,” he declared to the crowd gathering at the top of the staircase. “Leave us be.”
“My Lord,” one rather delighted man’s voice began, “you must know everyone will know about this sooner or later. There is little point in shielding your lover now.”
Frederica nearly buried her head in Lord Padleigh’s back in embarrassment. To be thought of as Lord Padleigh’s lover was a new and shocking thing indeed.
It didn’t matter that years ago, when they had first met, she had liked him. She had liked him rather too much. Her nervousness in society and fear of being rejected had halted her from ever saying anything to him. They had just enjoyed one another’s company when staying at a friend’s house in the country.
That was all it had ever been though, a fancy of hers. She knew that Lord Padleigh would hardly ever consider a disgraced woman, especially now she was disgraced twice over.
“I know very well that you feed on gossip as you feed on your food, sir,” Lord Padleigh’s said to the man who had spoken. “Your buttons straining to hold your waistcoat together are evidence enough of that.” His jibe made some of the group snicker.
Frederica couldn’t know. She just wanted to remain hiding here behind Lord Padleigh’s back.
