“My goodness, Anne,” Mary said, clucking her tongue as before. “You seem so knowledgeable about rogues that I’m quite certain you can imagine how a man with a propensity for seduction would have convinced poor, naive Fanny to enter the library with him! If you cannot imagine it, then perhaps you should not be president of the Sisterhood.”
Anne ground her teeth. She had to take control before she lost it completely. “Fanny, you shall be our first case, or rather, Lord Rutledge shall be the first rogue who we teach a lesson!”
Fanny glanced at Mary in what seemed an almost fearful way. Anne frowned. Had Mary placed doubt in Fanny’s mind so that she no longer thought Anne capable of leading? Anne clenched her jaw with the frustration that seared a path through her. “I promise you,” she said, catching and holding Mary’s gaze, “when we are done with Lord Rutledge, he will wish he’d never been so callously coldhearted as to lead you into that library, try to steal a kiss, and then refuse to marry you!”
Lady Augusta Lightholder jumped up, her freckled face bright with excitement. “He needs to be devastated!” said the petite, strawberry-blond lady. Augusta had been ruined and left brokenhearted when the lord she was supposed to marry eloped with an heiress from America.
“That would be perfect!” the normally unexcitable Honora said, shaking her head so vigorously that her black curls bounced against her shoulders.
A sense of panic filled Anne. “It’s not possible to ensure Lord Rutledge is left with a broken heart. Our goal—”
“I’m quite certain I could do it,” Mary boasted, spearing Anne with a frosty look.
“Our stated goal for this group,” Anne ground out, “is simply to ruin the rakes by enlightening other ladies about their duplicitous ways.”
“We cannot just twitter about announcing that Lord Rutledge is a rogue because he seduced Fanny into kissing him,” Mary snapped, making Anne twitch with frustration. “If we do that, nary a soul would believe us! Just look at Fanny!”
Anne found her gaze drawn back to Fanny once more, despite the fact that she ought simply to tell Mary to cease her prattling. Fanny was rather plain, had a small dowry, and was inept at conversation with men, which had not helped her status as a wallflower. Mary was correct. None of the insipid fools of thetonwho judged the worth of a person by wealth and comely appearance would believe the dashing, well-funded Lord Rutledge had deemed Fanny worthy of seduction. The truth made Anne hot. It was so unfair.
Mary’s mouth twisted into a knowing smile, as if she could read Anne’s thoughts. “Perhaps, dear Anne,” she said, “you finally have a firm grasp on how London Society functions.”
Anne forced a smile to her lips and prayed it didn’t look as brittle as it felt. “I believe I do,” she said. “I will ascertain what social engagement Lord Rutledge will next attend and ensure that the eligible ladies there understand just how dangerous he is. When I am through, there will not be a debutante in England that will deign to even speak with the man.”
Two
Simon Sedgwick, the very recently titled Duke of Kilmartin, stood just inside the ballroom of the Duke of Scarsdale’s country home, observing the lords and ladies dancing, flirting, and gossiping. It felt strange to be in England once again—at a nobleman’s ball, no less—listening to the heavy English accents and watching the members of thetonplay at their notorious and beloved social games.
Simon had intended to decline the invitation to his new neighbors’ ball, but his longtime friend, Rutledge, had come calling this morning begging for Simon’s aid. It was almost amusing that the request had been for Simon to attend the ball with Rutledge, but the fact that thetoncould be so easily swayed in their opinion of a man based on him appearing with a rich duke had wiped away any trace of amusement. Rutledge had believed that if he arrived at the ball with Simon, those who might have heard the rumors about Rutledge would be more inclined to ignore it. And he had been correct.
A tart bitterness filled Simon’s mouth. It was still hard to believe that he now held the title of the very man he had despised much of his adult life, or that the vain nitwits filling this home had welcomed him and Rutledge so eagerly simply because Simon was the duke.
He raised his glass to his lips, inhaling the delicate aroma of the champagne before slowly taking a sip. His grandfather, the blackhearted and freshly buried Duke of Kilmartin, had died alone, just as Simon had vowed he would. The devil had sent him away without a coin to his name at the age of ten and eight after only knowing him for a sennight. A twinge of the old pain of failure twisted within Simon. He’d had one purpose when he had come to England from his home in Oban so many years ago, and that was to secure immediate and much needed aid from the grandfather who had cut off Simon’s father and refused to ever meet Simon or his sisters. Simon’s father had died the sennight before Simon had made the journey to England, and Simon and his sisters had been near starving and his mother had been deathly ill as well. So Simon had set out to England, leaving his sisters and mother behind in Oban. He’d not wanted charity from his father’s sire. He’d intended to repay his grandfather the moment work was secured, but he’d needed enough time to find work. He’d not been given that time, and the price had been steep. His mother, in desperate need of medicine, had died the very next month while Simon was in Edinburgh trying to earn enough coin to send home to his sisters and mother.
Simon pushed back at the black mood threatening to descend and instead observed the ladies twitting about in their grossly expensive gowns. They appeared, to him, to be eyeing their targets of marriage. The wordpeacockscame to mind as he looked at the oblivious lords in the sights of the ladies. The thought made him want to frown, but he’d learned long ago to never publicly show emotion that could reveal too much about him. He felt like a relic, though he was only one and thirty. He swirled his champagne in his glass before finishing the remainder in one long drink. When a servant passed by, he set thecoupedown and neatly swiped another.
“Careful, old boy,” Rutledge said in a low tone as he strolled up to Simon. “You need to keep your wits about you with this set. Too much champagne and you’ll find yourself alone in a garden or library where some debutante followed you, so she could cry foul and demand marriage.”
The comment was spoken in an offhanded manner, but the tic in Rutledge’s jaw betrayed the man’s tension. Things must not have been going as Rutledge hoped in his effort to meet a potential wife. Rutledge was Simon’s one true friend, and only friend, here in England. Simon refrained from asking the extent of the damage caused last week by Lady Fanny, the debutante who had falsely accused Rutledge of trying to seduce her. His friend would tell him when he was ready.
Instead, Simon chose levity. “It would take a whole barrel of the weak champagne ye serve here in England to make my thoughts even a wee bit fuzzy. If ye will recall, I grew up on Scottish whisky. And if ye will further recall, when I first made yer acquaintance in Edinburgh, it was ye who was sodded on Scottish whisky, and I saved ye from being robbed.”
“I’ll never forget,” Rutledge vowed. “You did not even know me; you risked your life for a stranger. I knew right away that you were a man of honor, despite what your grandfather and the Duke of Rowan believed.”
It had been many years since Rutledge had mentioned the secret Simon had confessed to him one night when Simon had imbibed too much whisky and Rutledge had pressed as to why Simon always refused to come to England for a visit. Simon did not wish to speak of it any more now than he had the next day when Rutledge had told him he’d help Simon get vengeance. He’d wanted revenge, and had most definitely planned to achieve it one day, but alone. He had not wanted to draw Rutledge into his problems, and now… Well, now revenge seemed out of reach with his grandfather gone.
“Kilmartin, are your thoughts with the past?”
Simon nodded. “Aye, but I don’t wish to speak of it.”
“As you wish,” Rutledge said, “but—”
“No,” Simon asserted. “Now back to the topic of whisky. I’d venture to say one wee dram of the lovely golden liquid would put even the hardiest of men here on their arses.” When Rutledge scowled at him, Simon chuckled. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Rutledge winked. “Of course. And might I suggest you exclude the host Scarsdale, as well. I’ve seen the man imbibe, and I’d wager he could stand dram to dram with you without so much as slurring a word.”
“A bold claim,” Simon teased, looking forward to meeting the Duke of Scarsdale. He’d encountered the man’s wife, Sophia, three days ago on the road in front of his estate. Surprisingly, she’d asked him to call on her. He’d helped her dislodge her carriage wheel from the mud. He suspected that meeting was why he’d received an invitation to this ball tonight, as he’d only been their new neighbor for a week and had not had time to introduce himself.
The smile that had been on Rutledge’s face disappeared. “That is the second time in ten minutes I’ve been told I make bold claims.” He relieved Simon of the champagne glass he’d been holding and downed the contents in one gulp.
