Whatever they were up to, it wasn’t proper.
It would cause a scandal.
All of a sudden, the women tossed their sheaves, and sheets of paper swept down over the ballroom like the first shower of an upcoming storm. Hundreds of sheets. Silence, but for the rustling of paper, filled the air.
Beside him, Calstone bent to pick up a page that flitted to their shoes, brows furrowing. “This...”
He handed it to Will.
Will poured over the content.
Dear God.
A page from the betting book.
A copy, to be more precise. Still, this did not bode well for anyone. His gaze returned to his wife, just in time to see her sneak a peek at him before averting her gaze again.
Ah, yes, she knew.
Will frowned. That she’d been privy to what would transpire tonight was not as alarming as her keeping it a secret from him. He hadn’t worried when the betting book went missing—it had nothing to do with them. But he’d never considered that the heiresses were the ones behind its theft.
Christ.
And the club members were hunting for the book.
Club members like Cromby. And the Duke of Mortimer.
Will sighed. Judging from the whispers and flushed faces of the crowd, the storm that had been brewing since the book had been stolen had finally arrived. Now, all he had to do was keep his wife out of the tempest, even though Will suspected she was already right in the middle.
Chapter Sixteen
Spectacular.
Paper fluttering through the ballroom like spectacular leaves in the wind. Harriet had been so preoccupied with her husband’s direct cut of Cromby that she had almost missed the arrival of her friends and their marvelous performance.
They did it.
They actually did it.
And it exceeded even her expectations.
“What a brilliant spectacle,” Calstone exclaimed, snatching one of the last copies from the air as it glided down.
A palm settled on her lower back. “Are you ready to leave?”
Harriet didn’t want to, not yet, but she caught the concern on his face. He clutched one of the copies tightly in a fist.
“Now, you’re leaving?” Calstone asked. “The show has just begun.”
“You enjoy it then,” Leeds said. He took her hand in his. “We need to avoid the aftermath.”
“What aftermath?” Harriet asked.
“The one where wives start bludgeoning their husbands with candelabras,” Graves said.
Harriet cast a concerned glance over the onlookers. At the moment, everyone was busy reading the copies, trying to decipher the content, what it meant. Some of the men knew what they were looking at—their faces could be told apart fromthe rest by their glowers and, in a few cases, their expressions of downright panic.
“Shall we?” Leeds asked.
