Chapter 1

Chapter One

The slap resounded through the ballroom.

Miss Louisa Highworth, diamond of the first water and much sought-after heiress, stood in front of her hapless suitor, the implication of her action slowly dawning upon her. The strains of the music subsided, the dancers paused, and silence fell as every pair of eyes in the room focused on her.

The fellow before her froze like a marble statue, barely believing what had just happened. Fascinated, Louisa watched as the red imprint of her hand appeared on his white cheek, and his already watery blue fish eyes bulged out even further, his mouth half gaped open.

Lawks, she'd really done it now. This would have severe consequences. For one moment, a feeling of queasiness washed over her.

But Louisa never did anything by half. Now that everyone was watching her, she had to rub it in even further; make a statement, get the point across, get it over with for once and for all .

Seeing the shocked look of disbelief on the man's face, a tiny twinge of remorse shot through her, which she quelled immediately.

"So terribly sorry," she whispered, only for him to hear. "But on second thought, you really do deserve this." Then she raised the hand holding a glass of ratafia and splashed the contents into his face. She watched with satisfaction as the sticky liquid sloshed down his cravat and onto his well-cut waistcoat.

He blubbered.

The entire room gasped.

There, Louisa thought resignedly. That should do it.

If that hadn't ruined her reputation once and for all, nothing would.

There was scandal at Almack's of epic proportions, the likes of which had never been seen before in the history of the assembly hall, the gossip sheets gleefully proclaimed the next day. It was caused by none other than the beautiful and proud Ice Damsel, otherwise known as Miss Louisa Highworth, the famous heiress legendary for turning down every single suitor who ever approached her. According to the latest on-dit , the number of rejected suitors must be approaching at least fifty-five, as one scandal sheet conjectured. Nonsense, it must be closer to seventy-three, said another, before proceeding to list them all.

"It was the hundredth suitor, exactly," Louisa muttered, then crumpled up the paper and threw it into the fireplace. Despite the warmth of her boudoir, she shivered as she drew up her legs on the chaise longue and looked out of the window from her father's house in Park Lane. It had a splendid view of Hyde Park.

One hundred suitors in seven seasons. She calculated. That was an average of about fourteen marriage proposals per season for the last seven years. She stared darkly into the fire, watching the flames lick up the paper and turn it to ash.

One hundred men who, with varying degrees of desperation, wanted to marry her.

Gentlemen with and without titles, Corinthians and dandies, nonpareils and rakes; the tall, the short, the ugly and the handsome all flocked to her. She'd run the whole gamut.

Military officers, too many to count. Undoubtedly, the occasion was the victory celebration, marking the defeat of the feared emperor Napoleon at Waterloo. They all had convened in London for the victory parade, followed by the ensuing celebrations. Everywhere one looked, the vibrant scarlet uniforms flooded the ballrooms.

There'd even been a duke—short, fat, and intolerably high in the instep. She'd dubbed him Duke Blubber Cheeks because he had the fat cheeks of a whale. Her father had nearly had an apoplexy when she'd turned him down.

"You could have been a duchess!" he'd roared.

"I could have," Louisa agreed. "But I chose not to."

Then there was Sir Twiddlepoops, as she called him, because for the life of her she couldn't remember his face or his name. He'd been an annoyingly persistent officer, dashing in his regimental regalia, much admired by the society ladies, for he claimed to be some sort of hero with medals and all. Her father had been much incensed when she'd turned him down rather rudely.

"It is easy for a man to boast of bravery on a battlefield from the safety of a drawing room. Truly, it sounds to me like the majority of those tales of valour one hears might be overly exaggerated, more fiction than fact." She'd brushed him off. "Other women may want to marry a tin soldier, but I'm certainly not one of them."

"He's a bloody hero!" her father had shouted. "He's the Hero of Vitoria! He saved not only his general's life, but an entire company! Even Wellington bows to him, saying they wouldn't have won the battle without him, and he's just been knighted! What more do you want?"

"Then why don't you marry Twiddlepoops yourself if he's so great!" Louisa had cried, her voice carrying through the ajar door to her father's study. Her stepmother had been having afternoon tea with some society ladies in the adjoining drawing room, all of whom had soaked in every word with scandalised delight.

Alas, word leaked out, and the next day there was a dashing Cruikshanks' caricature displayed in the print shop windows, depicting a wedding scene with her short, bald and plump father in a bridal gown, marrying the medal-laden Hero of Vitoria, while she herself, stick-thin with icicles hanging from her pointy nose, crept out of the church with a finger on her lips.

All London roared with laughter.

It was a shocking scandal, and Twiddlepoops' humiliation couldn't have been more complete .

" La Belle Dame sans Merci even dared to give our beloved Hero of Vitoria a freezing set down. The ton cannot help but wonder: who will be next?" proclaimed the gossip sheets. La Belle Dame sans Merci —The lady without mercy. That was what they called her, after the 15th century French poem by Alain Chartier. In everyday English, it was reduced to the more epithetic "Ice Damsel."

To Louisa's surprise, the scandal blew over quickly, and within a fortnight the suitors were wooing her again.

Sir Twiddlepoops was soon followed by Sir Frippery Fop, an impeccably dressed dandy and Corinthian, a gentleman with perfect looks and address, charming to a fault, the catch of the Season, the darling of the ton.

She'd decided he was too perfect and too boring and therefore had no compunction about turning him down with a group of her father's cronies as witnesses.

Then there was Lord Muttonhead, Sir Stuttervoice, Baron Slowtop, Lord Sweatyhands, and Mr Death's Head Upon a Mop Stick. There were many more, but she'd lost count.

The last one whom she'd soaked in ratafia had been a viscount whom she'd called Viscount Carrothair. Rather handsome and not a bad catch if one thought about it, even if he had red hair. His vile personality had been the problem.

The ton, of course, was highly entertained by La Belle Dame 's antics. It had become a running jest that one wasn't a man unless one was rejected by the Incomparable. The Prince Regent himself was said to have slapped his thigh with mirth and exclaimed that he must be the only man in all of England who had not had the honour of being rejected by the Ice Damsel. It was something to be rectified and he very much looked forward to it, he was to have said.

Louisa sighed. The many, many suitors she'd turned down all blurred into a uniformed mass of unidentifiable faces. The truth was that she had never been particularly good at remembering faces. She was so terrible at it that chances were good she wouldn't recognise the Prince Regent himself if he were to stand in front of her.

"Which is, of course, arrant nonsense," her stepmother had proclaimed in her defence. "One cannot help but not recognise the man. Chances are, if you ever see a wine barrel with legs approach you in the ballroom, that it might be his Royal Highness. Forewarned is forearmed."

Louisa had smiled weakly but stored that bit of information away just in case for future reference. Heaven forbid she really did accidentally cut Prinny like she had cut so many of her male suitors.

As for all the other men … they were all the same. And their manner of courtship was nearly identical. First the introduction: always the same scripted compliment, usually pertaining to her looks. Then a dance, followed promptly by a bouquet of flowers the next day, then a carriage ride in the park. They sought her father's permission to court her, which was always granted. Then, the embarrassing marriage proposal in the drawing room, as inevitable as thunder following lightning.

One hundred suitors. One hundred marriage proposals .

Her hand shook slightly as she raised it up to shade her eyes.

Good heavens. How could she have let it come to this?

It was time to put an end to this never-ending farce, and one hundred was as good a number as any. In fact, it was an excellent number, nice and round.

For if she didn't do something, they simply wouldn't stop. They would continue to hail from every corner of the country with their badly written love sonnets, flowers, and proposals of marriage. She seemed to be the only woman in all of England who could go on having Season after Season after Season, and still the offers would come.

And why?

Because she was an heiress. They wanted her for her notorious Highworth fortune. And possibly also for her looks, but only secondarily.

What else? Certainly not for her personality or her intellect.

She stared tight-lipped at the flame of her candle. Any other woman of her age would have been declared on the shelf long ago. But not Louisa Highworth. She would continue receiving offers when she was a rickety old hag.

Let us call a spade a spade, wrote one vitriolic gossip sheet. If she weren't so beautiful and worth twenty-thousand pounds per annum, she'd be known for what she was, a mere ape-leader, an old maid long on the shelf. For what spinster of her advanced age (she was about to reach a shocking six-and-twenty soon) still had a Season? What woman could boast of seven Seasons in a row? It was unheard of. It was a shocking embarrassment, unless one was a Highworth heiress, of course. Only a Highworth heiress could afford it. Only a Highworth heiress had the means.

Only a Highworth could get away with it, wrote another in more positive terms. Mark it, but our Incomparable will surely return next Season, even more beautiful, even more celebrated, with even more proposals. Nothing could ever harm her, not even her passionate temper. A slap in public? But how charming. Surely, she would return, as beautiful and untarnished and desirable as Botticelli's Venus, rising from the frothy sea.

The betting books were open in the gentlemen's clubs. The stakes were high.

A sick feeling ran through Louisa.

Were they right? Had she not done enough? What more must she do to get them to leave her alone? Should she have allowed Carrothair to kiss her in public? Should she have lured him into a secret antechamber to be discovered by some dowager?

No. That would have been the surest way to get herself caught in parson's mousetrap. Her father would have dragged in a clergyman and forced them to marry on the spot.

Louisa shuddered. Given the alternatives, what she'd done had been for the best. A dramatic, public statement. A slap.

Her stepmother had, predictably, had a fit of the vapours.

Her father, also predictably, had had an explosion of wrath that was, admittedly, unprecedented in its fury .

"You'd best hide in your room for a while," Penny, her abigail, had told her the next day. "He's smashed some valuable crystal vases in the library. It is best to stay out of his way today." The maid frowned in concern. "For the next few days, even, miss. Perhaps even weeks."

Louisa laughed hollowly. Her choleric, loving father, who wanted nothing more than for her to have a titled husband, was throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler.

"He'll get over it," she muttered. Then she curled up on her sofa, opened her book of sonnets and read, pretending not to hear the explosion of crystal in the library.