Chapter 1

April 1820

Trapped. The candlelit ballroom, a gilded champagne bubble of a prison. No hope of escape. But Lady Prudence Merriweather desperately needed one. Three exits out of the cursed ballroom, and all of them guarded as if by dragons.

Before door number one, her brother, the Duke of Clearford. He held one of her suitors, the heir to the Earl of Heinsford, by the upper arm and scowled about the ballroom, no doubt looking for her. The Heir, as he must be called since he introduced himself in no other way, seemed resigned to his fate. He wore the placid expression of a small puppy dragged about by a determined young girl. He'd quite surrendered all hope.

Before exit number two—the double doors which led out to the garden—stood another suitor, Viscount Norton. A handsome enough fellow with lovely white gold hair and a soft smile. His clear green gaze traveled about the ballroom, looking for her, too. But not at all seeing her. They stood rather close. His gaze seemed locked on her face. She waved. Still, he failed to register her existence, his eyes remaining foggy as if she were a bit of glass he looked through to something more interesting beyond. A tiny pang between two ribs. She rubbed at it, reminded herself to embrace her habitual invisibility. She must consider it a boon. Particularly tonight.

Because she had much to do in a short time, and because her greatest adversary, sharper eyed than the others, stood before exit number three. Another suitor. The American, Mr. Benjamin Bailey. He stood wide-legged at the entrance to a parlor off the side of the room, as if he knew she might seek out less crowded climes. If he caught her, he would say something he'd learned from her brother's Guide to Courtship. Guide. Ha. The blind leading the blind. Her brother had never courted a woman. Prudence had never read the blasted book, but it likely included only dubious advice. No kissing until betrothed. No flowers. Encourage competition. Silly maxims, and they'd moved Mr. Bailey no closer to success in his courtship of Prudence.

Neither did his costume. Climbing boy? To begin with, he stood a head above the other men in the ballroom, his shoulders wide enough to sit comfortably upon. Boy? Ha. A burly, bearded beast of a man entirely out of place here, better suited to somewhere men wrenched survival from a pitiless land with their bare hands and sharp teeth. And with the soot all about him, his long honey-colored hair held back loosely with a black ribbon, tangled as if he'd just dropped out of a tight, unpleasant place. Was that a rip in his sleeve? She'd give him a mark for accuracy. But a sweep? Bad taste. Particularly when she found the practice of using children for such dangerous tasks so unsavory. Put him in the negative, that did. Not that the other suitors had accumulated marks enough to tread water. They were all drowning.

Not their faults, really. She did not wish to be courted. They swam toward a goal which didn't even exist—marriage to her.

The American's sharp, blue eyes caught her looking, and his beard rearranged itself into what might be a smile if he knew a good barber. He'd caught her. Those eyes glittered with purpose, and he took one powerful stride toward her, his body rippling into predatory life.

She darted behind a woman wearing a wig and dress from the previous century. Thank heavens for the lazy during masquerade balls. The woman's reluctance to find a costume anywhere outside of her own attics proved useful. But Prudence couldn't stay safe behind wide panniers and sky-high powdered sausage curls for long. She pulled her pocket watch from her skirts. A quarter hour till midnight and she'd still not managed to leave the ballroom. If she did not do so soon, tonight's poetry reading would never happen.

Poetry readings, particularly of the sort Prudence helped organize for Miss Cora Eastwood, required a careful touch, an eye to detail. No one could know they even existed. Except for the right people. Women of the ton who liked their poems a little naughty.

They needed a common place of congregation for their audience—balls. And they needed an abandoned room inside the residences where those entertainments occurred. Prudence relied on gossip to discover the locations they would commandeer for their next readings. Made them difficult to find in the middle of the night.

Would be easier to do the sensible thing and hold a select and private salon in broad daylight, but Cora's muse demanded certain details be met before delivering. Namely, anonymity. High noon and the bright light of the waking world would not suffice.

And now Prudence was crunched for time.

Her feet tapped. She'd be late. If she didn't find the room and Cora, who would ensure the candles were perfectly lit? They hit against her legs in her skirt pockets. Cora had the pocket tinderbox secured beneath her stays. Useless without Prudence's candles. And if Prudence never escaped, who would place the discreet markers along the path to the room so the brave women of the ton, out for a little entertainment, could more easily find it? Most importantly, who would take up guard in the hall to ensure no one discovered their little meeting?

No one but Prudence. Cora may be Prudence's closest friend, but not even friendship hid the poet's faults. A mind like holey cheese. Unable to hold on to the small details which mattered. Cora could metaphor with the best poets London had to offer. But her little enterprise, the secret midnight poetry readings at balls, had lacked finesse until Prudence had decided to help her. Now they ran like a well-turned clock.

Not tonight, though. Because Prudence couldn't escape the blasted ballroom. She inhaled, exhaled, hard little breaths to pound down the frustration rising up her neck, making it difficult to breathe.

Then behind her, the comically wide skirts rustled, and the woman's neck twisted. "Prudence, dear? Is that you bumping my backside?"

Prudence jumped as the wigged woman turned, her panniers knocking over a potted palm. Aunt Millicent. She blinked at Prudence and held up a quizzing glass to her eye, magnifying that orb as well as the beauty patch shaped like a heart stuck just at its corner.

"Aunt! What a surprise."

"How so? I'm your chaperone."

"Ah. Yes. I mean… I didn't see you when you arrived. What a magnificent costume!"

"Your grandmother's old gown and wig."

"Don't you think it a tad…" Prudence did not drop her gaze to her aunt's bosom. "Risqué?"

Millicent adjusted her stays, pushing even more of her pale flesh into view above the gown's bodice. "Not nearly enough, dear. Where are your suitors?"

Prudence peered around the edges of Aunt Millicent's wig. "Everywhere."

Oh, but Lord Norton no longer stood before the garden doors. Retreating outside was not the best option. If she went out, she'd have to come back in. Created an entirely new problem. But… needs must. Because if Samuel and The Heir did not find her, the American would.

A fan smacked the side of Prudence's head.

"Ow!" She scowled at her aunt.

"You should be dancing, dear," the woman said, snapping open her weapon.

"I'm feeling a bit fatigued." Prudence stepped sideways toward the open doors. "I'll just pop out for a moment…" Another step sideways.

Aunt Millicent fluttered her fan. "His Grace wishes to see you. I told him I'd send you his way before retiring to the card room."

Her brother. "I'll find Samuel. I promise. You have fun, Aunt Millicent. Good luck!"

Her aunt narrowed her eyes, seemed to realize Prudence's easy agreement to speak with her brother was too neat a victory. But then she shrugged, the motion nearly popping one breast out of her gown. She caught it, though, before disaster, and chuckled as she turned to push her way through the crowd. She folded her fan and waved it above her head. "You have fun, too, dear!"

Prudence made slow but steady progress toward the outer doors where the ballroom spilled into the night-shadowed garden. She kept her head down and made herself small. Not hard to hide when no one looked. Those she passed thought her nothing more than an evening draft from the garden. As usual. Prudence quite blended into the background. A pane of glass to be looked through, not at.

The doors, already open to combat the warmth of the crush inside, welcomed her, and she stepped beyond them and into—

"Prudence, there you are."

She groaned, rocking back into the light of the ballroom. So close. She sewed a smile onto her face and turned.

Samuel stood behind her, back stiff, shoulders wide, dark hair perfectly and fashionably coiffed over a handsome face and serious, gray eyes. The only concession he made to the masquerade was a narrow domino covering his eyes. If he knew what she planned to do this evening, he'd pack her off to the country and never let her leave.

"Suitors," he said in an even tone, "are not out in the gardens."

"Perhaps they are."

"Suitors are in the ballroom, Prudence, dancing. As you should be. With them."

"I will. It's merely too hot in here. I'm melting, Samuel." She gazed longingly toward the garden.

He flicked the black veil framing her face. "I'm in all black, just as you are, and I'm perfectly fine. Not melting at all."

"Then you have a talent for wearing black. I, apparently, do not." That much was true. She'd pushed the front of the veil back over her coiffure, hiding her dark-blonde hair and giving herself space to breathe.

"But you do have a talent for dancing, Sister." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her back toward the ballroom. "I've seen you. You have the ability to captivate any suitor with your light step and grace."

"But I do not want to captivate anyone. How many times must I explain? I wish to be—"

"A spinster. Liar. You're scared."

She gasped, tugged from his embrace. "Am not!"

"Then dance." He waved an arm toward the dancers, toward—blast it all. The Heir stood waiting nearby, blinking at Samuel. Awaiting, no doubt, His Grace's instructions. "You wish to dance, Tallsby, do you not?"

Without looking at Prudence, The Heir nodded.

Samuel guided her toward him, stopped her just before the man who did not quite fit his name. Perhaps he did stand tall. When he did not stoop.

She bobbed a curtsy. "Good evening."

Finally, he looked at her. His eyes widened as if she'd appeared out of nowhere. "There you are, Lady Prudence. Would you dance with me?"

She glanced at Samuel, wide-legged and grim-faced, and she leaned close and whispered, "Where is your knife? Come. I know you have one on your person."

His eyes narrowed. "Why do you wish to know?"

"I would like to stab you with it." The words ground between her teeth.

Samuel nudged her toward Tallsby. "I merely desire you to be happy."

"Look to your own happiness, Brother," she grumbled, but she took The Heir's outstretched hand.

"You have only just arrived, Lady Prudence?" He swept her out onto the dancefloor to await the first notes of the music with the other couples.

"I've been here an hour at least."

He took her hand in one of his and put his other hand on her back. "Are you well this evening?"

"Yes." She placed her remaining hand on his shoulder.

"And what are you dressed as?"

"Midnight." She spoke without looking at him, her entire attention on Samuel, who watched from the edges of the ballroom.

Tallsby watched Samuel, too, as the first chord of a violin wavered into the air. "Ah. How… creative. Have you seen your sister tonight? Lady Noble? All in gold." He sighed. "A picture of beauty and elegance." As he swung her into the first turn of the waltz, he finally looked at her. "Perhaps if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, you should have worn gold. Or blue. Something more delicate. Black, I'm afraid, does not suit you."

"I shall take that under advisement."

"Do you know, I courted your other sister one Season—Lady Andromeda. Mrs. Kingston now. Such a sweet soul. I would have liked to court Lady Noble, but her beauty rather intimidated me. Mrs. Kingston possesses a less fearful beauty, but she seemed too serene and peaceful to be disturbed with masculine interest."

"I'm not sure I take your meaning, Lord Tallsby."

"You, however, my lady, are perfect for me. Not so terribly beautiful as your sisters, nor so angelic. And unlike your younger sisters, there is only one of you. I'm not quite exotic enough to enjoy the idea that there's a copy of my wife running about England."

"Thank you?" If only he hadn't approached her. But then, he hadn't really. He'd approached Samuel. Or Samuel had approached him, dragged him toward her, as if Prudence couldn't attract her own suitors.

But then… she couldn't, could she?

"I'm afraid I'm feeling indisposed." Did she look pale enough? Black washed her out. The truth—her stomach a bit sour, and her jaw so tight it shot pain straight up to her temples.

"Heavens, Lady Prudence. You must sit." Tallsby guided her off the floor and toward a row of chairs near, thankfully, the garden doors.

"Lemonade?" she asked, popping open a black lace fan.

He jumped. "Yes!" And he disappeared toward the refreshments.

She wasted no time slipping into the night air with a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing. Escape the ballroom—done. Excellent. Her spirits lifted a bit, that sour sting in her belly dissipating a bit. Now onto the next task. Nothing better for low spirits than arranging everything just so.

First, she must re-enter the house. She put her hands on her hips and frowned up at the edifice. Bellingham House was rather old, and London crept closer to it year by year. The Marquess of Bellingham resided here, an old friend of her father's before he passed away. And now of her brother. Perhaps Bellingham was more of an old friend to the Duke of Clearford, whomever that duke may be. No matter. He possessed excellent trust in mankind; almost every window and door thrown open and lovely little balconies on the first floor. Trees, too. Good for climbing onto those balconies.

Cora's maid had said they could meet in a first-floor parlor in the midst of redecoration. But which room was that? Impossible to say from the outside.

Choosing the location for the poetry recitation always proved the most difficult bit of their enterprise. They couldn't stride into the planned venue and demand to know what room would prove most isolated and abandoned. They relied heavily on details gathered through the strongest information network known to the world—the servants. Information cleverly gathered as gossip from Cora's maid. Or through Prudence's younger sister, Isabella. She knew, somehow, everything that happened in London.

But which window would prove easiest to climb into? Prudence walked back several steps and bumped into something.

A giggle.

Not something. Someone.

"Apologies," Prudence mumbled, flipping her veil down over her face. The woman and her beau, shepherd and shepherdess, ran off into the bushes, and Prudence tilted her head back to study the house's fa?ade.

"Lady Prudence?"

She cursed. She knew that voice floating out from the ballroom. Lord Norton. She spun on a gasp and fled into the garden. Dressed as midnight, the dark would conceal her. As long as the gold thread sewn into her skirts and bodice and veil did not catch the moonlight or the light spilling out of the house, she'd remain well hidden.

But no closer to her goal. Oh, for the chance to wail her frustration skyward. She'd have to schedule a good scream in the garden for tomorrow afternoon.

She dashed away from a Greek god chasing a goddess down the lane and ducked behind a row of prickly hedges. Had the entire ballroom decided to hold court outside? The masks likely gave them all greater courage to cavort how they pleased. And with whom they pleased.

"Lady Prudence?" Norton followed still, looking for her even though he never looked at her.

Bent over to remain hidden behind the short hedges, she darted between Queen Elizabeth in a stiff ruff and a swan with a little orange beak attached to a domino.

"Lady Prudence?" Lord Norton's ever-patient voice.

She could not hate him. Such a sweet temperament. Always accommodating. A man who followed the rules of gentlemanly conduct with absolute perfection. And whose continued interest began to make her thighs and back ache. She could not much longer hold this posture, knees half-bent, stooped over behind a bush. She floated to a crouching position, her skirts billowing out around her knees. A bit of relief for her thighs. Though this position also would not last long.

How had it come to this?

If her thighs ached any more, they'd burn holes right through her skirts. She had to move soon or lose all feeling below her waist. She found her pocket watch, the silver warmed by her body, and pulled it out. In the light of the moon, she could see its white face clearly. She should be in the room already. Her schedule in ruins.

"Lady Prudence?" Norton's voice so close now, right over the other side of the hedge.

She clapped her hands over her mouth, stopped breathing, lost her balance, and toppled backward. Her arms flew wide, and she gasped, a startled gurgling sort of sound. The house rocked out of view, giving way to the night sky, and she slammed her eyes closed as her head slammed into the ground. She waited for the running footsteps, the worried query as to her health.

But they never came. Lord Norton must not have heard her fall.

Now her chance to run. Surely, he'd ambled off deeper into the garden. She could throw her veil down over her face and make for the house, dart back into the ballroom—easiest route—and just elbow whatever suitor stepped into her path out of the way. She needed to be on schedule, to make sure everything was just right for Cora. Because without just right and on time, there existed only chaos. Lists and schedules kept the world from falling apart, and Prudence would stick to hers, no matter what plagues terrorized London.

Despite the tender lump pulsing at the back of her head, she opened her eyes, ready for battle.

And looked right up into the scruffy face of the American.

Mr. Benjamin Bailey. Dash it all. She'd been discovered.