Louise could feel all eyes on her as she approached Thomas.
“…Emily. Lady Emily Filmore is my fiancée.”
Louise came to an abrupt stop and she could hear gasps among the guests.Lady Emily Filmore is my fiancée. …Emily Filmore…
The name that Lord Felington had just announced continued to ring in her mind. The name was too familiar but she did not want to believe what her ears had just heard. Louise looked at Lord Felington, hoping to see something, anything at all that would signify to her that the name that he had just called was a mistake. Instead, what she saw was Lord Felington smiling from ear to ear as he looked at the left side of the ballroom where another woman was currently walking toward him.
Louise could not bear to look at the woman…because then, she would have no choice but to admit to herself that it was all real, that her supposed betrothed was replacing her with not just any woman, but her own friend. Louise was still rooted to a spot when she saw the woman step to the front of the ballroom, beside Lord Felington. They both smiled at each other with what was unmistakably love and passion in their eyes. Louise felt the blood rush to her head as she gaped at Emily, one of her best friends beside Thomas.Dear God, please make this a nightmare that I have to wake up from.
But, of course, Louise knew that it was no nightmare. What had just happened was just as real as her standing in the middle of the ballroom gaping like a fool at the man that had just dumped her and her friend who had just betrayed her.
Whispers spread across the hall and people stood on tiptoe just to get a glance at her. She saw her mother begin to move toward her and that was when Louise knew she could not take it anymore. There was no way she could face her mother after the humiliation she had just suffered, especially now that her family’s hopes of securing their futures had now been dashed. It was at this point that her legs finally yielded. She turned on her heels and fled, tears brimming in her eyes. Thankfully, the people at the ball had enough common sense to get out of her way as she ran out of the ballroom.
“Louise!” her mother called.
Louise did not answer. All she wanted was to get out of the crowded ballroom where everyone was now looking at her with pity in their eyes. Everyone knew that she and the Earl had been courting since the beginning of the Season. She heaved a sigh of relief when she finally got out of the ballroom, determined to get outside of the house in order to calm her nerves and get her thoughts together. She wandered aimlessly about for a while before…
“You will not believe what justhappened? Lady Louise just got embarrassed by the…”
“And with her own friend no less…”
Two older women who were deep in a conversation about what had just to her were in the foyer. Determined to avoid them, Louise turned back and quietly began to head back to the corridor she had just emerged from.
“Is that Lady Louise?” one of the women said.
Louise groaned. She could not afford to get caught in the web of gossip.
“We heard what happened to you. Do you want a handkerchief, dear?” the other woman said.
Without bothering to respond to their questions, Louise walked as fast as her legs could carry her away from them. Louise began to sob. It was not enough that she had just been humiliated in front of theton, she still could not get a safe space to mourn what could have been. Her mother’s and aunt’s future.
After walking through several corridors for what seemed like forever, she finally noticed that she could no longer hear the women’s footsteps, and voices. Louise heaved a sigh of relief then and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. While she had no idea where she was, she would pick being lost over being hounded for explanations by theton’sgossips.
She was beginning to wonder how to get back to the foyer when she heard loud voices. Louise did not bother to find out who was approaching before she searched frantically for an escape route. It came in the form of a door beside her. She yanked the door open and slipped in just before the approaching people could see her.
ChapterTwo
“Shh!” Callum said, placing a finger to his lips in an attempt to silence the giggling singer as they walked further into the dark room. He might have slipped out of his best friend’s engagement party to have a fling with the pretty singer, but he definitely did not want his grandfather, the Duke of Riverton, to find out about it. The old man would pester him until the end of time.
“Come on here, my lord!” the pretty singer, whose name Callum did not know said. They slipped into a small room just outside one of the main halls. She pulled him close to her, her eyes twinkling maliciously in the darkness room. He smiled devilishly as he let her hands roam over his body. He found pleasure in her urgency.
Knowing that his grandfather would be scandalized if he saw him right now, Callum smiled. That was the appeal of it; knowing that he was going against the societal norm and doing the kind of thing that would nearly get him ostracized by theton.What is life without a little bit of risk?He could not believe his current situation. He had promised his grandfather and even himself that he would behave like the proper bachelor that every young man his age was…at least for the duration of the celebration of his friend’s engagement party.
However, when he locked eyes with the pretty singer as he stood by his grandfather, sipping the rich Italian wine, his resolve quickly dissipated. Callum felt a little guilty that he could not witness his friend’s happy moment. However, he knew that his friend would approve of him chasing his own pleasure first.
“I want to feel you, my lord,” she said.
Callum smiled again, “I thought you would never ask.”
However, Callum froze as the door to the room they were in yanked open.Damn it!He swore under his breath at the untimeliness of what had just happened. Thankfully, the room was pitch dark so he knew the person that opened the door could not see them. His entire evening had been leading up to this moment when he would finally seduce the singer. And now, that moment had been taken aware from him by whoever it was that had just opened the door.
Sobs resounded in the room and Callum sighed in exasperation. It was not enough that his rendezvous had just been ruined, he still had to endure the sobs of a crying woman.
“What do we do?” the singer whispered to him.
Even if he wanted to continue their tryst, he could not possibly be able to when there was a person sobbing at the other end of the room. Callum ran a hand through his hair as he stepped away from her. “I think you should leave. We do not want to get caught by whoever it is that just entered the room,” he whispered to the singer. “I will find you later,” he whispered in her ear and she shivered against him, “we must finish what we have started.”
The singer kissed him before she responded. “I cannot wait,” she said before sneaking away into the darkness of the room.
