Chapter One
Beth
She tripped on her entrance down the stairs. They called her name, she and Mother entered, and Beth tripped. Mother caught her and she’s been swearing on all she can think of for the past ten minutes that no one noticed, but she’s lying. Mothers all around the room are looking her up and down, judging, deciding, crowing.
Beth’s by far one of the shortest girls here, a neck injury waiting to happen to any of their tall, stately-looking sons. Now she’s clumsy on top of it. Her first night out is already a disaster.
“Darling, I need to go speak with Juliet.”
“You cannot leave me here alone,” Beth hisses, holding fast when Mother goes to pull away.
“I have to make the rounds and arrange our appointments,” Mother whispers back. Both of them pause to smile at some acquaintance Beth can’t remember, but who she knows comes from more money than they ever had when her father was alive. “You’ll be fine. Just . . . mingle.”
“Mother,” Beth protests even as she releases Mother’s arm from her death grip. She left indents with her fingers.
“I promise, you’ll make friends. Just smile, chin up, shoulders back, and have a glass of wine.” Beth feels her mouth fall open and quickly shuts it lest anyone think her unseemly. “One,” Mother stresses. “For the nerves.”
“Though fainting might not be a bad option either,” Beth mumbles.
Mother frowns but Beth can tell she’d rather laugh. “One.”
“One,” Beth promises, noting Lady Berthshire waving Mother over. “Go, or she’s going to put an eye out.”
Mother leans in to kiss Beth’s cheek before stepping around her and off to gather with her society friends. Beth watches, surprisingly envious, as Mother is eagerly accepted into their little circle. None of them made an effort to come see them in mourning; they’re fickle friends. But at least Mother has friends here.
Beth stares out at the enormous Halyard ballroom, full to bursting with debutantes, mothers, and the eligible young bachelors of London’s society. The vaulted ceiling and white walls with Greek columns give the space an almost endless feeling. The cacophony of voices is dizzying, and they’re barely into the booze yet. It’s all swirls of pastel colors, feathers, tulle, and coattails. She can’t even imagine how claustrophobic it will feel once the band starts and the three hundred assembled begin to dance.
How can there even be space to dance? she wonders as she begins making her way across the room, eyeing the refreshments on the far side. She needs a glass of wine to make it through this evening, perhaps two. She can hold her liquor, despite what her mother thinks. Miss Wilson’s been slipping her whisky for most of the last two years—in supervised amounts, but still.
She knows she needs to plaster on a smile, listen to some dull conversation, and begin making her own connections. Hopefully to the young gentlemen, but anyone would do. If she can make friends with any of the girls expected to marry this season, she can at least catch the eye of their castoffs. She’s under no illusion that she’s a prime match. A suitable one, surely, but she has no fortune to offer.
She’ll bring her dowry and perhaps the small country estate, if her cousin James will deign to let them keep it once he comes of age. If her uncle, currently managing their affairs until James can inherit, is any barometer, they won’t get a speck of her father’s holdings. Just like he wanted.
It’s so much less than almost any other lady in the room can offer. And on top of that Beth’s short, clumsy, and unknown. Still, she’s pretty enough, and Mother thinks she’s delightful.
Beth wrinkles her nose, glancing up at the ceiling. She’s really in a pitiful state if her mother is the only reference she can give for her charms. Father never thought much of her, and she barely got to know her uncle on his brief visit some ten years ago. She’s never even met Cousin James.
Miss Wilson loves her. But who here would care about what their housekeeper has to say?
Beth takes a deep breath and forces herself to slow down, ambling rather than charging across the room, looking around for a friendly face. Debutantes and young gentlemen abound, but none of them seems the least bit approachable, and she’s getting appraising looks from most of the clusters of friends. An oddity, daughter of the late Viscount Demeroven, kept locked away in the country with her . . . energetic mother.
Beth searches for an opening, any opening, but only manages to catch the eye of a graying older gentleman who gazes back at her with distinct interest. Beth breaks eye contact, trying to squeeze by a gaggle of mothers, knocking into their hoops with muttered apologies. She was looking for friends, not a man her late father’s age. A man who definitely shouldn’t be seeking out a wife of just twenty, much less one like Beth, who rarely looks her age, even made up as she is.
But try as she might, there’s no escape. She’s penned in by the groups of unfriendly guests. Her damn hoopskirt makes slinking away thoroughly impossible. The gentleman approaches her with what she assumes is his most winning smile.
It’s slightly sinister.
“Miss Demeroven, isn’t it?” the gentleman says, holding out his hand.
Beth hesitates just for a moment, reluctant to touch him, but propriety wins out. She didn’t spend the last two years cosseted away with Mother for nothing.
“Yes,” she says, extending her hand and clenching her jaw as he raises it to his lips for an uncomfortably long kiss.
“I’m Lord Psoris, a friend of your father’s. A shame he couldn’t be here. I know how proud of you he would be,” he says, his voice rough and loud as he slowly releases her hand.
She pulls it back to her stomach as quickly as is polite. Father thought the entire idea of coming out was wasteful—uneager to spend his investment money on her dresses and activities. He’d planned to marry her off to an old friend. Oh, God, is it possible Lord Psoris is that friend?
Father wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Mother was Beth’s age when he married her, and he was twenty years’ her senior then. But Lord Psoris is easily forty years older than Beth now. And his leer is anything but chivalrous.
“My condolences,” he continues when Beth realizes she hasn’t managed to find words.
“Thank you,” she forces out, glancing around for salvation, but there’s none to find. She’s stuck here. “Have you been in town for the winter?”
“I have, I have. Parliament and some festivities, though of course we all eagerly await the season getting underway.” Beth nods, taking a small step back as he advances. “I would be honored to have your first dance.”
Beth bumps into the gentleman behind her as Psoris bears down on her. She squeaks, stumbling and trying to keep her hoop from belling outward. The man behind her turns and reaches for her elbow. Horribly embarrassed, she looks up at the tall, blond gentleman, her cheeks on fire. He glances from her to Lord Psoris, frowning.
“My apologies,” she says meekly. What a little twit he must think her. “Felt a little faint.”
“Then we must absolutely get you a drink. Excuse me, gentlemen,” a young woman says, stepping out from behind the blond gentleman as if appearing from thin air.
The woman takes Beth’s arm and effortlessly maneuvers them around the blond gentleman and away from the affronted Lord Psoris. They’re yards away before Psoris can even splutter.
“He’s a cad,” the woman says, grinning at Beth, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Her hair is just as white blond as the tall gentleman’s was, and there’s a similar sharpness to their jaws and the broadness of their shoulders. “Father and I make rather a sport of saving young debs from his clutches. He caught you in his sights immediately, didn’t he?”
Beth wilts, leaning into her savior. “Entirely. And there are so many people, I couldn’t get away.”
“Lucky you backed into us. Lady Guinevere Bertram. Gwen,” she adds, squeezing Beth’s arm against her side.
“Miss Demeroven. Elizabeth—Beth.”
Gwen gives her an impressed look. “The prodigal daughter returns. You’ll be popular.”
“I’m not sure prodigal is really appropriate,” Beth says, shaking her head.
“Oh, but you could play the part wonderfully. You’ve got the skin and the hair—perfect looks for a mysterious, triumphant season entrance. Pastel suits you, but I think you’d be captivating in something red. The right attitude, some wine, we could make an intrigue of you yet. Who doesn’t love intrigue?”
Beth simply blinks up at her, allowing this strange, spirited woman to guide her around the room. Beth has no idea where they’re going, or how they’re not causing some sort of domino crash as they plough through people, but Gwen doesn’t seem to worry. She walks with her head held high, smiling and nodding to people with an ease and grace Beth couldn’t ever match.
“Here,” Gwen says as they finally reach the refreshments.
Beth takes a glass of sweet wine gratefully. It’s cool and mellow, with just the lightest taste of alcohol—though from the warmth at the back of her neck, there’s plenty of alcohol in it. Beth takes another sip, desperate to relax even a little. Her run-in with Lord Psoris has put her on edge. Is this what it’s like—overbearing men leaning over you when you can’t get away?
“They get better,” Gwen says, pulling Beth from her bleak perusal of the room. She takes Beth’s elbow again and moves her toward the other side of the floor, away from where couples seem to be linking up for the first dance.
Beth can see Lord Psoris looking for her at the far end and curls closer to Gwen, who just laughs and nudges her. “You can always say no, you know.”
“And risk insulting one of my father’s oldest friends on the first night?” Beth says, her fingers worrying into her skirts. She wishes she’d brought a fan now, just for something to do with her hands.
“No one would begrudge you wanting to find someone closer to your age.”
“I suppose,” Beth says, glancing up at Gwen, who nods to their left.
Beth leans around her and notices a tall, gangly young man standing alone and looking as uncomfortable as she feels. “Him?”
Beth wrinkles her nose. “He’s very thin, isn’t he? And broody?”
Gwen purses her lips to keep from laughing. “Fair. All right, well, we should find you a good first dance. Come here.”
She leads Beth over to the wall and together they sidle back until they’re resting against it, out of the fray. Their skirts bump together and Beth feels her shoulders start to come down. She notices her mother across the room, still held in a circle of society mothers and looking bored to tears. Mother glances around and their eyes meet. Beth leans into Gwen to show she’s managed to find at least one person to talk to, and Mother smiles, giving her a little nod before turning back to more gossip.
“What about him?” Gwen asks.
Beth follows her gaze to an enormous young man with wide shoulders, at least six feet tall. She turns to Gwen, incredulous.
“What?”
“How would that even work?” Beth asks, grinning as Gwen cackles.
A few heads turn and they both quiet down, snickering as they take sips of their wine. Gwen has a lovely laugh and such a bright, open face. Instantly captivating, really. Beth is surprised she’s not on the floor already.
“He looks nice,” Beth says, gesturing discreetly to a tall fellow with a trim beard and a prominent chin.
“Go say hello,” Gwen says.
“For you,” Beth corrects. “His height, your hair, you’d have lovely children.” Gwen snorts. “What?”
“Well, his mother thinks I’m a menace, so that ship has sailed. And it’s just as likely our children would be hairy as anything and tiny. His father’s rather short, and my late mother had copious very dark hair.”
“Hmm,” Beth offers, trying to parse it all. “You’ve met then?”
“Two seasons ago we went on a few outings. It didn’t end well,” Gwen says, shrugging.
“Two seasons ago?”
“This is my fourth,” Gwen says, meeting her eyes with a brash grin that’s cracking at the edges. “I think if I make it to next season without a husband, I get a medal.”
Beth allows herself to laugh along. Four seasons, she can’t even imagine. And without a mother too. How trying that must be. “Maybe they just give you some land and let you run free.”
“Wouldn’t that be something,” Gwen says. “Big plot of land, nothing to do but read and eat.”
“Draw,” Beth says.
“Paint. Swim.”
“Oh, do you get a lake, or is that only if you make it to six?” Beth asks.
Gwen nudges her with her hip—at least, Beth assumes so from the way her skirts move. “If I make it to seven, I think maybe I get my own castle.”
“Oh, well, you should hold out for that, then,” Beth says. “Queen of your own castle surely beats a marriage to him.” She gestures with her empty glass toward a scrawny young man with a patchy beard who’s asking an equally awkward young lady to dance.
“That’s Albie’s younger brother, Bobby. Didn’t think he’d be out this year,” Gwen says with a frown. “Shame, he’s a nice kid. Another few years, he’d probably be a catch.”
“Albie?”
“Mr. Mason, my mother’s elder nephew. If I spot him, I’ll introduce you. Nice chap. Obnoxious most of the time, but a good lad.”
“Lady Gwen!”
Beth turns, following Gwen’s gaze. A young lady in a striking yellow gown hurries up to them, dragging over another young woman in blue. Both of them hold empty glasses of champagne, their cheeks pink.
“We’ve been looking for you for ages,” the woman in yellow says, a pout on her round face. She looks Gwen over. “You don’t have them!”
“Didn’t have time,” Gwen says with an apologetic shrug. She doesn’t look very sorry for whatever’s missing, Beth thinks, though both women look rather put out. “This is the Honorable Elizabeth Demeroven. Miss Demeroven, this is Lady Meredith and Lady Annabeth.”
“A pleasure,” Beth says, dipping in a curtsy.
Lady Meredith and Lady Annabeth curtsy with pleasant smiles before looking back at Gwen expectantly.
“Who’s winning?” Gwen asks.
“We don’t have the cards,” Lady Meredith says indignantly.
“So?”
The women exchange a look before Lady Meredith grins. “I’ve spotted five heirs and two spares.”
“I’ve only got three, but I swear it would have been four if I could have remembered the gray skinny one’s name,” Lady Annabeth says.
“Oh, Lord Frightan?”
“Lord Frightan!” the girls exclaim.
“That’s four for me then. Tied with Eloise. We’re about to sneak out to the gardens and meet up with the gents, do you want to join us?” Lady Annabeth asks.
Beth tightens her shoulders, preparing to lose her new acquaintance. How can she possibly compete with these glamorous ladies?
“I’m going to give Miss Demeroven the lay of the land tonight, but I’ll catch the next game,” Gwen says easily. Lady Meredith opens her mouth. “It’s no real challenge if you have all the names on the cards, is it?” Lady Meredith and Lady Annabeth frown. “Father almost grounded me last year.”
“Only because you followed him around to get all the heirs,” Lady Annabeth says.
Gwen shrugs playfully. “Let me know who wins.”
Lady Meredith rolls her eyes and Lady Annabeth winks before they curtsy and head for the back of the hall, presumably on their way to the gardens.
“You don’t need to stay,” Beth says perfunctorily, though she’s rather sure if Gwen abandons her now she might hide in the washroom for the rest of the night.
“Honestly, if Father catches me playing Spot-the-Scion again, he really might confiscate my pin money.”
“Spot-the—”
“Have to have fun at these things somehow,” Gwen says with a shrug. “I usually make cards, but I couldn’t be bothered this year.”
“Cards?”
“To pin to the back of the dance cards. I usually put together a list. First one to spot them all gets bragging rights for the season. A little awkward if you end up dancing with one of the scions, but still,” she says, eyes twinkling.
Beth considers her new, slightly eccentric friend. She has annual party games to play with numerous friends. Presumably some of them must be male, of marriageable age, and available. And yet here she is, four seasons deep, and clearly no interest in being on the floor. But surely a woman as stunning and charismatic as Gwen must have options.
“What?”
“Sorry,” Beth mumbles, looking away. She was staring.
“You can ask,” Gwen says more gently.
“I wasn’t—” Beth starts before shaking her head. “So, do you not want to get married, or are you just really choosy?”
Gwen huffs. “I’m discerning.”
“Can’t be your looks that scare them away,” Beth insists.
Gwen raises a hand to fluff at the dainty curls hanging down from her braided bun. “No, it’s all the personality. I blame my father. Terrible role model.”
Beth follows her look and spots the tall, blond man, Gwen’s father, standing among a gaggle of wives and mothers, smiling with charm and poise. “Has he remarried?” Beth asks.
Gwen shakes her head. “Never. A perpetual bachelor, with an upstart daughter.”
“Well, you both saved me, so I’ll give you a good reference if you need one, whatever that’s worth from me. My mother would too. At least she has friends here,” Beth says, nodding across the room. Mother’s facade is slipping. She’s starting to list like she does when she’s tired.
“Thank you,” Gwen says, smiling as Beth looks back at her. “But it’s you we should focus on. Find you a tolerable young man.”
Beth shrugs. “I’d just as happily stay on the sidelines tonight. Get the lay of the land.”
“Well, in that case, I think we’ll need more wine, and perhaps the profiteroles?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Beth says, chuffed that Gwen would rather spend her evening as a wallflower with her than with her friends outside. Gwen grins and takes her hand, leading her back toward the refreshments, the two of them giggling and chatting as the ball swirls on around them.
And though she’s tired, and still a bit jittery, pressed against the wall sharing profiteroles and sips of Gwen’s brandy, she’s almost having fun. Not succeeding so much in garnering dances, but she’s made a contact, and that feels like something. Maybe she’s even made a friend, she thinks, as Gwen laughs in her ear, both of them flushed and a little tipsy.
“You should dance,” Gwen says an hour or two later, when they’re leaning against each other, sleepy.
“Next ball,” Beth says. Gwen nudges her. “I can’t leave you here alone.”
Gwen arches a cool brow. “Think I’d waste away without you?”
Beth nods toward the broody, gangly boy, whose latest partner has clearly abandoned him. “I could always tell him you’d like a dance,” she says, starting to raise her hand to flag him down.
“Don’t you dare,” Gwen hisses, grabbing her hand, eyes wide. Beth giggles in triumph and Gwen looks her up and down in light approval. “You’re a little bit evil, aren’t you?”
“Thank you,” Beth preens.
“I’ll get you back,” Gwen says.
“We’ll see.”
Gwen wraps her hand into the crook of Beth’s arm with a smirk and they fall into a contented silence, watching the whirl of the couples on the floor.
After a few minutes, Gwen sighs. “You should at least dance one. I’ll hold your wine.”
Beth shakes her head as Gwen opens her mouth to argue. “You didn’t have to present today.”
Gwen shudders in understanding. “God, the waiting in carriages is the worst, isn’t it?”
“I needed the loo by the second hour, and then it was two more before we got inside, and forty minutes before I saw the queen. I thought I might pee on the drawing room floor,” Beth admits.
Gwen snorts. “A girl did my year, actually. Not in the drawing room, but on the stairs. Horrid. Never came back.”
“Oh, Lord, I can’t even imagine,” Beth says, feeling a pit in her stomach just at the thought. That poor girl.
“Father says my mother used to have dreams about it. Would wake up in a panic thinking she was late.”
“Understandable,” Beth says, watching as the couples twirl around the floor. There’s not a lot of room with the newly fashionable hoops, so they’re more swaying than anything. It’s pretty. “Your mother didn’t like the season either?”
“Father says she didn’t,” Gwen says, shifting a little. “Your mother?”
“I don’t think so,” Beth says, noting Mother fidgeting as well. This marble floor does nothing for the feet. “She and my father—I can’t really imagine them courting.”
“He wasn’t romantic?”
Beth snorts. “Hardly. He’d hand her money to buy something nice for her birthday. Sometimes he brought home jewelry, but she never liked much of it,” she admits, feeling a little heady. “Is your father romantic?”
“He’s suave,” Gwen says after a moment. “And utterly charming. I don’t know if he’s romantic though. Never seen him want to be.”
“He hasn’t courted at all?”
Gwen sucks on her cheek before glancing down at Beth. “You’ll hear about his reputation soon enough, I think.”
Beth nods once and looks back out at the floor. He has danced with a fair number of the debutantes tonight, but his face has always been affable, polite, charming. Nothing like the leer she’s noticed Lord Psoris giving the girls. His look leaves her feeling slimy. But Gwen’s father simply seems like a nice, handsome older man.
“But you like him,” Beth says, noting Gwen’s fond look as her father twirls one of the society matrons around.
“I do,” Gwen says, shrugging. “He’s fun.”
“That’s nice,” Beth admits. Father was anything but fun.
The number ends and suddenly older gentlemen start to seep out of the crowd of onlookers, beckoning to the debutantes. Beth feels her eyebrows crease. There can’t be that many unwed older bachelors. Mother promised men like Lord Psoris would be an anomaly.
Gwen waves to her father and Beth startles. Of course, the father-daughter dance.
“Are you okay alone here?”
Beth blinks and looks up to find Gwen watching her with perhaps too much understanding in her gaze. “Of course. Go, go,” Beth says quickly, taking Gwen’s brandy glass and nudging her toward the floor.
Gwen steps off, glancing back at her even as she reaches the floor. Almost all the girls seem to have someone to dance with and Beth slumps against the wall, hiding from the thought. Not that her father would have deigned to come tonight if he were alive. He would have said her name was enough; he didn’t need to waste his time.
She watches the couples begin to dance to the lively waltz and swallows the last of Gwen’s brandy. The warmth down her throat does little to fix the clench in her stomach. She doesn’t miss him. But she’s still sad.
Gwen and her father chat as they dance, both of them grinning. He keeps dipping her with a silly smile and Gwen looks delighted. Beth feels that knot moving from her stomach to her chest. She can’t remember a single time her father looked at her that way, if he bothered to look at all. Not the son he wanted, that’s all she ever was.
“I see you listened.”
Beth jumps, turning to find Mother at her side, already plucking the brandy from her hand and frowning at Beth’s nearly empty wineglass.
“I’m fine,” Beth says. She is. Any remaining giddiness from the alcohol has faded. Now that Gwen’s gone, all she feels is exhausted and melancholy. “How are your friends?”
Mother maintains her disapproval for a moment before sighing and leaning back into the wall with her. “Horrid. Yours?”
“She’s nice,” Beth says, nodding toward the dance floor. Mother tracks her gaze and then stiffens just as the waltz ends. “Mother?”
But she’s distracted as she notices Gwen dragging her father toward them. Mother straightens up, grabbing Beth’s wine and putting both glasses hastily onto a side table before adjusting her hair.
“Father, this is my new friend, Miss Demeroven, and this must be her mother?”
Mother just stares at Gwen’s father, who’s staring right back, both of them pale, eyes wide.
“Yes,” Beth steps in, gently nudging her mother. “This is my mother, Lady Demeroven. A pleasure to meet you both.”
“Yes,” Mother says slowly, standing tall. “Yes. Lord Havenfort and I are acquainted already, actually. Though I’ve yet to meet your new friend.”
“This is Lady Gwen,” Beth says, watching as Gwen curtsies to her mother. Lord Havenfort is still staring like a gaping fish.
“We should be getting home. Lovely to meet you,” Mother says, giving Gwen a forced smile as she grabs Beth’s arm. “Lord Havenfort,” she adds, nodding to the man.
“Lady Demeroven,” Lord Havenfort says, his voice high.
Mother drags Beth away as she and Gwen exchange baffled looks. “Mother,” Beth protests, but she just keeps marching forward.
Beth would argue or hold her back, but she’s too busy trying to avoid knocking anyone over. Mother bulls ahead, leading her through the throngs of avid partygoers, uncaring of who she bumps with her skirts, dragging Beth up and out of the ballroom.
“Mother,” Beth insists as they clear the upper landing and hustle into the main foyer of the ridiculous Halyard estate. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Mother says tersely, nodding in thanks as the stewards open the front gates for them, revealing a line of waiting coaches. They must be some of the first people to leave. “We’ve calls to make in the morning.”
“You said we’d have a lie-in,” Beth says, frowning as Mother hurries her into the first hired carriage. “And I’d have liked more time with Gwen.”
“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to socialize with your new friend at the next event, though you should put more effort into meeting some of the young men, the whole reason we’re here,” Mother says stiffly as she settles into her seat and the coach takes off.
Beth just stares at her mother, utterly baffled. “Mother, what’s—”
“I have a headache, darling, please,” Mother says, closing her eyes, conversation over.
Beth watches her mother sit there, refusing to speak, head tilted back, breathing forcefully. She’s never seen her mother this way outside of their home. Irritated, yes. Exhausted, yes, but this—this is panic. Whatever happened between her mother and Lord Havenfort before tonight clearly wasn’t good.