Chapter 1

CHAPTER1

London, England

“Rachel, you know you don’t have to watch over me like a mother hen clucking at her chickens.”

“Do I not? Hmm, then I wonder exactly what mischief you would get up to if I was not here to watch you.” Rachel turned her eyes on her sister, knowing the truth of the matter.

She and her two sisters were standing at the edge of the Countess of Haskett’s ballroom. One luxurious event was leading into another, now that autumn was upon them, and the Season’s events were ticking by.

This ball was no different from any of the others for Rachel.

The room may have been draped in rich russet and gold cloth, and the cuisine for the night was distinctly autumnal in fare, with tarts made from recently acquired pumpkins from the Americasf, and spiced wines gracing the tables, but it was still like all the other balls, and it still had the same effect on her sisters.

Bridget, the middle sister, preferred hiding in the shadows. For one so petite in features with soft eyes and a gently sloping chin, she didn’t like many people looking at her. She preferred the corners of rooms where she could watch everyone from afar, regularly pushing back the light brown curls that framed her face.

In contrast, their younger sister, Emily, strode forward, eager to be a part of the affair. With classic light blonde hair, she was a true beauty, and though she was aware of her fine features, she was not vain. Her flaw came in a different way instead.

She is mischievous and bold, and longs to escape me, like a newly sprung bird that cannot yet fly, but totters out of the nest anyway.

“Take care, Emily.” Rachel laid a hand on her younger sister’s arm. “Balls are not as safe as you give them credit for. Have you not pored over the scandal sheets this last summer? I know you have.”

Emily rolled her eyes in answer. “Yes, yes, I know.” She waved a perfectly manicured hand in the air. “Many a lady’s reputation has been undone at such an event as this. That is not my intention, Sister, you know that.”

“Whether it is your intention or not is not what I fear.” Rachel shared an uneasy look with Bridget, who was stepping between the two of them, trying to keep the peace.

“Can this not wait for another time?” Bridget asked in a gentle voice.

“No,” Emily and Rachel said in unison.

“The problem is our sister treats me as if I am still a child,” Emily stated petulantly and reached for a glass of spiced wine nearby. She lifted the clove-scented wine to her lips and then gulped the liquid.

Rachel hastily took the glass out of her sister’s hand, reaching past Bridget to do so. “I do not treat you like a child,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I am attempting to point out that you should be wary of events such as this.” She waved the glass at the guests around them. “Many a gentleman comes here not for innocent dances, Emily.”

“What do they come here for?” Bridget asked, frowning. Her light brown brows furrowed so deeply together that Rachel did a double take, sometimes startled at the innocence of her middle sister when her younger sister seemed to know everything there was about the mischief of men.

“Bridget, you need to talk to the maids more,” Emily said with a giggle. “They could open your eyes to what a man and a lady can do alone.”

Bridget bristled, rubbing her hands across her bare arms and pulling at the capped sleeves of her fine gown.

“Ignore her, Bridget,” Rachel pleaded, laying a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You are here to enjoy yourselves.”

“Yes, exactly!” Emily declared, snatching the wine glass out of Rachel’s hand again. “So, pray, let me enjoy myself.” With these final words, she spun away, taking the wine glass with her before Rachel could stop her. She disappeared into the crowds of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen with ease.

“What is it you fear?” Bridget asked in a whisper, leaning toward Rachel. “Our sister may be mischievous, but she is not scandalous.”

“It is rebellion I fear,” Rachel practically mouthed the words. “I know Emily has a good heart and would not risk her name for anything, but it is the behavior of others that I fear. If she puts herself in a risky position, who is to say a gentleman would not take advantage of that?”

“Surely no gentleman here would be so… so…” Bridget struggled for the right words, wrinkling her nose.

“Whatever the word is you’re looking for, it is your golden heart that thinks so.” Rachel smiled as she stared at her sister. “You always see the best in people. Even those who are strangers to you.”

“I would not think the worst of every man I meet,” Bridget explained and reached for her own glass of wine from the table, though she lifted the glass much more slowly to her lips than their sister had done. “It would be a sorry way to live, indeed, in fear of everyone around the corner.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Yet, Rachel craned her neck and tried to seek out their youngest sister, her fear niggling at her.

Despite Bridget’s optimism and Emily’s need for adventure, Rachel couldn’t help being worried. Ever since their mother had passed, Rachel saw it as her responsibility to care for her sisters. It was amplified by the fact that their father, Edward Lock, the Earl of Pratt, had a habit of staying away from events such as this. The only person who could look out for Emily and Bridget was Rachel.

I intend to protect them, come what may.

“Hmm!” Bridget abruptly squeaked as she took a sip of her wine.

“Bridget? What is it?” Rachel asked, turning to face her.

Bridget waved a hand toward the crowds, and Rachel turned around to see what was going on.

Past the ladies with their hair trussed up with feathers or turbans, and the gentleman that preened and fussed with their fine black tailcoats, there was a door at the side of the ballroom. Emily was leaving through that door, quite alone, and heading outside.

“God’s blood,” Rachel murmured breathily. “What is she doing?”

“Perhaps she wants some fresh air?” Bridget asked in a small voice.

When Rachel raised her eyebrows at her sister, Bridget had the decency to look ashamed and turn her head down.

“Even to your ears, you must realize how odd that sounds. Fresh air has never much concerned out sister, but mischief? Now that is something, indeed.” Rachel put down her glass on the table behind them.

“What do you intend to do?” Bridget asked.

“To bring her back to the ball before anything can happen. Pray, Bridget, stay inside the ballroom.”

“Yes, Mama Rachel,” Bridget said in jest with a giggle.

Rachel shot her sister a playful glare, then hurried through the crowds. It was a nickname she had earned from the two of them many years ago, one she had never minded before. So, what if she liked to protect them? It was her duty as the elder sister!

Stepping out of the ballroom door and into the garden, a whistle of wind met her ears. She tried to cover her arms with the palms of her hands, to bring herself some warmth, but the exposed skin was instantly covered in goosebumps. Looking around for her sister, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the windows of the ballroom.

Unlike her sisters, who were beauties, Rachel felt like an oddity in the family. Her light brown hair was rather mousy, hardly striking or even fair, but dull. It was tucked up in a chignon with one or two loose curls, but it was really rather plain.

To her mind, her lips were far too large for the proportions of her face. She often used to jest with her sisters that she had a mouth the size of a cake plate, set in her much smaller cheeks with noticeably strong cheekbones.

How strange I look.

Hurriedly, she looked away from her reflection. She never looked at it for long these days. Any hope she might have had as a child that the unusualness of her looks would fade was wrong. She was just as strange as she had been as a child.

“Emily?” Rachel hissed, stepping off the veranda outside of the house. She left a group of gentlemen that were smoking pipes behind on the veranda and scurried down a set of stone steps and into the terraced garden. “Emily?” she called a little louder this time, but there was no response from her sister.

She caught a flurry of skirts between tall, towering yew bushes and hurried toward it. Hardly caring if Emily hated her for it, Rachel would grasp her sister by the scruff of her gown and drag her back into the ballroom at this rate.

What does she think she is doing? This is so scandalous! If she is caught out here, and in the company of a man… Oh, God’s blood, surely that is not what my sister intends?

Fearing Emily’s plans, Rachel’s pace increased. She rushed through the yew trees and happened upon a small patio topped with fine marble tables and surrounded by white stone statues of various Roman gods. She jumped at each god, for one minute thinking they were strangers in the garden, and laid her hand to her heart, which was hammering against her ribcage. Through the other side of the clearing, she peered through the bushes, over a sharp drop in the garden.

She was offered a view of the garden in its entirety. Here, she could see the veranda outside of the house with the men and their pipes, and the smoke curling up in the air.

Between them, a set of pale pink skirts darted.

Emily!

It seemed Emily had somehow circled back toward the ballroom. Rachel sighed with relief before understanding the position she had put herself in. By following Emily outside, she was now the one completely alone.

Turning back, she intended to hurry between the white stone statues and head back toward the ballroom. She moved quickly, only to find one of the statues moved. Yelping, she jumped, one hand to her chest again, when she saw it was no statue at all, but a man.

He was as tall as the statues and just as well built, with his fine dark blue tailcoat straining across his shoulders and his biceps. His dark brown hair was tousled, effortlessly styled, and his bold eyes stared back at her in equal alarm. He was classically handsome, in a way that made Rachel feel completely inferior. Clean-shaven with a heavy jaw and perfectly carved cheekbones, he stared at her.

I do not know him.

She was afraid at once, fearing who he was and why he was in the garden. When she jumped back and collided with a statue, it toppled over, and he ran toward her.

* * *

“Woah!” Daniel hurried past the lady and caught the statue. It was heavy, ridiculously so, to the point he wondered why he had bothered trying to catch it at all. Had it not been for his years in the army, he would have lacked the strength to stop it from falling.

“Oomph.” He winced at the pain and levered his thick shoulder against the statue, putting it back on its plinth.

Bending his head around the fine statue— of whom he presumed was the Roman goddess Venus, thanks to her scantily clad white bosom and the curl of her hand— he looked at the lady who had been so startled by his presence.

Now, who are you?

She was striking indeed, staring at him with her chest quickly rising and falling with fast breaths. Far from bearing the conventionally attractive face that Daniel had so often seen in statues like this, the lady was altogether different, much more unusual. She had wide lips stretching across slim cheekbones, tempting him at once to wonder what kissing such lips could be like.

Perhaps the most arresting thing about her were her eyes. They were so dark that they could have been black in this night sky. They were rather deep, endless even, to the point he stared at them far too long.

“I made you jump, my lady,” he said, stepping out from behind the statue. “My apologies.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be lurking amongst statues like that.” She waved a hand at the statues in reprimand and stood taller. “One would think they had come to life.”

“Ha! Is that what you thought?” He pleasantly laughed.

It has been a long time since I laughed.

“Fear not, I am no statue brought to life in the moonlight, just a man trying to escape the ball. By the way, you are welcome.”

“What?” She stiffened, flicking her head round to face him.

“I expected there would be a thank you in there somewhere.” He nodded his head at the statue. “For stopping it from falling.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said in a rush. “Though a gentleman should wait to be thanked, rather than expect one outright.”

“You seek to lecture me on what a gentleman is, my lady?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

She was bold, pleasingly so. Most people, when they learned who he was, either cowered away with their heads bent or were overly flattering in their attempts to charm him.

She is different.

“Well, only a certain type of gentleman wanders around a garden alone at such an event as this,” she said smartly, gesturing around the statues. She must have sensed the flaw in her argument, for she closed her eyes at once.

“You know what my next words are going to be already, do you not?”

“Pray, do not say it.” She tried to walk past him.

“If I am an ill-mannered man for wandering alone in the garden, in risk of scandal, then what is a lady such as yourself doing out here?”

“I asked you not to say it.” She hovered by the exit of the clearing, surrounded by the statues. “I think it best if we part at once, Stranger. I will return to the ball via the main door. Perhaps you should enter by another entrance?” She stood so tall that her curves became obvious in the moonlight.

The green Pomona silk hugged her breasts and the slim curve of her hips. It was quite an intoxicating sight, and one Daniel had to tear his gaze away from.

I thought I was a gentleman. Apparently not!

“As you wish.” He offered her a small bow. “Might I suggest avoiding gardens in the future if you do not wish to bump into gentlemen such as myself?”

“Advice I shall follow right now,” she said wittily and spun on her heel, then left.

The moment she was gone, Daniel smiled. It was not a meeting he had expected, and he was curious to know the name of the lady. After a night at an insufferable ball, where all he’d been able to think of was how meaningless it all was, she was a pleasant distraction.

What is the point of balls like this when soldiers are struggling to survive? All the airs and graces of a place like this are completely pointless! It’s ignorant and insane.

Finding his mind was spiraling out of control as usual, he turned around and thrust his hands into his hair, pulling on the strands.

Suddenly, a yelp pierced through the nearby trees. Recognizing it as the lady’s voice, Daniel turned and took off after her, hurrying toward the sound.

Is she well? Has she stumbled into another man out here? One not so proper as I, but debauched…

Worried at the thought, he brushed aside the branches of yew trees and came upon the lady standing in a shaft of moonlight. She was wrestling with one of the branches, which had reached out in her path and blocked her way. The twiggy sprig had caught on the green silk of her gown and torn it, creating a large rip across the bodice and the stays beneath.

The pale cream bodice of the stays made Daniel’s mouth dry.

What is wrong with me? I am not some rake, nor am I a man with loose morals. Look away!

“Go at once, I pray you,” she said hurriedly to him, trying to cover up the torn pieces of her gown.

“You are stuck, are you not?” he pointed out, moving toward her. “Here, let me help.”

“I will not!”

“Do you wish the branch to tear your gown off completely?” At his question, her eyes widened in horror. “Here.” He moved toward her again and tugged at the silk sleeve, trying to pull it free of the branch.

“Oh!” She stumbled on her feet, mere seconds from falling. His hand gripped her shoulder tighter, keeping her steady.

Then, a rustle grew nearby.

She flung herself back from him, trying to hide in the shadows of the bushes and pull at the silks, but it was too late. Daniel’s head jerked to the side to see a group of ladies hurrying through the garden.

Four in number, they abruptly fell silent when their eyes landed on Daniel and the lady. One raised a trembling finger and pointed at the lady. Another covered her eyes as if it was the last thing in the world she wanted to see.

“Well, well,” the Countess of Sussex drawled. Daniel stood very still, feeling darkness wash over him as he recognized their host for the evening, a lady who was known for her gossip. “Who would have thought I’d find the Duke of Elbridge in my garden, in the unclothed company of Lady Rachel Lock?”