The Viscount’s Violet (Hell’s Heiresses #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Tonight’s ball was the latest in an entire season of disappointments. Eliza Wayland was tired—tired of dull balls, bland suppers, and out-of-tune musicales. And she was especially tired of standing beside the wall, watching her sister twirl about in the arms of yet another suitor.

Beside Eliza, Emma Ainsley grimaced at a bite of something pastry-like in appearance, her auburn curls fluttering with the motion.

“That bad?”

“You know I am a terrible judge—none are as good as Mama’s. But yes. I think they’ve cut it with sawdust.”

A sympathetic wince crossed Eliza’s face. “I think they forgot to add sugar to the lemonade as well—best to avoid it.”

“Ravenous and parched… Delightful. At least the quartet is in key— Oh, there’s Rose.

” Emma raised her hand in a delicate wave, drawing the attention of Rose and Henry Grayson amid the overdone decor.

The room was a swirl of too-orange reds and too-yellow golds, casting everyone in a sallow tinge.

Marigolds, primroses, and a few unfortunate tulips drooped in mirrored glass arrangements—a melancholy march toward death that suited the evening a little too well.

Eliza’s cousin Henry—especially sallow in this lighting—wore a pinched expression. As Rose approached, Emma quickly switched from speaking to the familiar signed hand gestures Rose employed to greet her.

“Who has earned your ire now, Cousin?” Eliza asked Henry, low under her breath.

“Stewart and Fife.”

“Do I need to have Sophie tread on their toes?”

“If your sister trod on the toes of every friend that was rude to Rose, she’d never dance again,” he muttered as he reached for a glass of lemonade.

“Best avoided,” Eliza cautioned.

Henry stifled a groan before waving to catch his sister’s gaze and signing for her to refuse the drink as well.

“You’ve no time for lemonade, anyway. There are ladies in need of a partner,” Eliza signed as Rose and Emma turned to join them. Rose’s dark hair and pale skin stood in lovely contrast to the aquamarine of her gown.

“We’ve already danced a set tonight—any more will give rise to talk. Emma, do you have a space on your dance card?” Henry asked.

Emma offered her wrist for Henry to take, and he penciled his name beside the next set.

Across the room, the familiar bell-chime giggles of her sister swirled alongside the gruff chuckle of her partner.

“Excuse me, I need to refresh myself,” Eliza explained to the others before fleeing the ballroom. She made her way down the hall. The music was softer there, less overwhelming. Lady Linden’s hallway was every bit as overdone as the ballroom. Still, the air was fresher, which lent Eliza some relief.

It was easy to locate the ladies’ retiring room, blessedly empty for the moment. While the temptation to hide there until the time came to return home was nearly overwhelming, Eliza likely had five minutes, ten if she was lucky, before her mother or Aunt Kate sought her out.

Beside the carmine velvet sofa, a window beckoned to her. Without thought, Eliza threw open the sash and breathed in the night. The afternoon rain had given way to an evening heavy with lingering damp. The air was thick, allowing Eliza to sip it in great gulps.

She loathed this piece of herself. Sophie did not court the notice she attracted everywhere she went. Nor was it her fault that Eliza blended into the wallpaper. Eliza did not even desire a dance with any of the men who twirled her sister about the room.

It was only that she wished rather desperately that someone wanted to dance with her. Anyone. She longed for someone to see her beside the vibrant, striking Sophie, and for that someone to choose her, plain Eliza.

Feigning disinterest was the greater agony. If Eliza wished it, Sophie would skillfully goad a gentleman into asking Eliza to dance—he’d think it his own notion by the time Sophie finished with him. But that was not the outcome Eliza wished.

“Lord, I know. It is oppressive in there,” a feminine voice commented from behind her.

Eliza spun on her heels, placing her back against the window with her spine ramrod straight.

“Do not mind me,” the lady urged. “Hell, I might join you.”

She snapped open a gold fan that dangled from her wrist and fluttered it practically, with none of the guile Eliza had seen other ladies use.

Eliza didn’t recognize the woman—a novelty. Though she was not long in society, Eliza had quickly learned the names of all the families that circulated through the social season.

“Lady Arabella Sinclair,” the woman supplied without prompting. Her voice was low, luscious, and perfectly suited her.

A russet silk taffeta gown clung to her petite frame. Lady Sinclair wore the confidence of age but none of the trappings of it. Eliza supposed her to be perhaps five years her senior, certainly not more than ten.

“Miss Elizabeth—Eliza—Wayland. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Sinclair.” The woman dipped into an appropriate curtsy.

Her gaze narrowed the slightest bit. “Lady Arabella—Bella. I’m not married.”

“Oh, I—” Eliza’s cheeks burned as she broke off, unsure of how to finish that sentence.

“Do not apologize. I am not offended.” The lady ran a distracted gaze around the room, raising a brow without commentary. Eliza understood it to mean that she found the decor no more pleasing on greater exposure than Eliza had herself. “Care to share your window?”

“Of course! You may have it, in fact. I should return to the dancing before I’m missed.

” Eliza made to step away from the frame as the other woman joined her.

Lady Arabella’s eyes slipped shut, her head tipping back as the fresh night air washed over her.

A long silver hairpin flashed dangerously in her glossy curls.

At last, her eyelashes fluttered again, revealing rich brown irises. “The benefit of spinsterhood: I can do as I wish. But the next set is soon to begin. Your partner will be searching for you.”

Eliza had never known a woman to approach spinsterhood with such frank ownership. The declaration left her off-kilter. “I-I do not have a partner for the next set.”

“Truly? Well, do not trouble yourself. Men are fools—I avoid them whenever possible. I’m certain one will locate his ballocks from wherever he’s misplaced them soon and ask you.”

Eliza’s jaw dropped, though whether it was in response to the imagery, the vulgarity, or the forwardness, she couldn’t say.

“Oh, dear. I’ve shocked you. Forgive me. I have been away from town and in the company of only my brother for too long. My manners have abandoned me.”

“No— I’m not— I don’t…”

Lady Arabella failed to fight off a smirk. “Quite.”

Eliza’s eyes slid shut as she took a calming breath. “I’m not shocked. I hear much worse at my father’s cl— I’ve heard worse.”

She’d slipped. It had been so long since Eliza had met someone who was not acquainted with her scandalous origins that she’d nearly let it drop.

Her father, an illegitimate gaming hell owner, and her mother, the disgraced daughter of an even more disgraced earl, made a scandalous pairing.

As such, the Wayland twins should not be able to move through society, but money and power opened many doors that ought to have been closed—and left Eliza and Sophie infamous before they’d ever set a toe in society.

But this woman, Lady Arabella, didn’t know her. Wasn’t that a relief—to be met entirely without expectation?

“Well then,” the lady smiled. “I shall not waste my evening fretting that I’ve scandalized you beyond all sense.”

“Lizzie?” A bright voice called from the hall. Sophie.

“In here,” Eliza called back.

Lady Arabella’s head tipped to one side, her brow furrowing. Before Eliza could answer her unspoken question, her sister’s dark head popped around the corner.

Sophie Wayland was as effortlessly lovely as always, even flushed from her most recent dance.

The becoming peach shade washed over her cheeks.

Eliza’s elder sister was striking—that was the word everyone used.

Her inky waves caressed her sharp cheeks, offsetting the vivid, sapphire blue of her eyes and the burnished gold notes in her complexion.

Where Sophie was effortless, Eliza was precise, exacting. She wore her hair carefully styled, though her wild brown curls often refused to obey her whims and escaped her pins. Her pale skin was prone to splotchy flushing, and her eyes were an unremarkable brown.

“Mama was looking for you,” Sophie informed her. “We should return before the next set begins. I do not yet have a partner, and I intend to catch someone’s eye.”

Eliza arranged her lips into a facsimile of a smile before nodding a silent goodbye to her new acquaintance.

“Good luck,” Lady Arabella whispered to Eliza as she passed, earning a silent chuckle.

On Eliza’s return to the ballroom, her mother offered only a penetrating look—a scolding for her disappearance was in Eliza’s future.

The next set found her once again beside the wall, this time with Rose and a put-upon Sophie.

“What did I miss?” Eliza asked Rose with her hands, not bothering to employ her voice.

Sophie, unused to the wall, paid them no mind.

Instead, she pressed up onto her toes as though the added inches would help her find a dance partner.

She was slightly taller than Eliza, but neither girl could claim enough height to see above a crowd.

“Lady Linden is having an affair with her stepson,” Rose signed.

“Truly?”

“Yes, the footman is telling anyone who will listen. He does not cover his mouth when he speaks—and he enunciates so he’s quite easy to read. He has placed five shillings on her trying for a divorce.”

“Which one is the stepson?”

Rose tipped her head toward the quartet, where a tall, blond gentleman of no more than twenty stared across the room with longing in his gaze. Eliza supposed he was handsome enough—certainly more so than the geriatric Lord Linden.

“Is he to inherit?”

“No, he’s the younger.”

“The footman is wasting his money,” Eliza posited.

“The season has made a cynic of you. Your parents are one of the most notorious love matches in town. I’d think you would at least acknowledge the concept.”

“The season has made a realist of me. My parents are the exception that proves the rule.”

Sophie’s hand appeared between the two, waving to catch Rose’s attention. “Who is that?” she signed before pointing to someone behind Eliza. “Stop!” she interjected when Eliza made to turn. “Don’t look! We’ll be seen to be ogling.”

“It’s only the back of him,” Rose signed. “He’s speaking with a woman I don’t know. She’s quite pretty. I think—”

“Forget her. What are they saying?” Sophie asked.

“It’s quite far, and the lighting over there is— I’m not getting much of it. But she’s certain she’s selected the right… something. He’ll need to take his time?”

“Take his time for what? Are they together?” Sophie demanded.

“How should I know? Now she’s saying something is handsome enough that it won’t be a chore. Or someone, I suppose. I wonder if she’s looking for a husband?”

“Is this how you discovered the intelligence concerning Lady Linden? Because I’m much less confident in your gossip now,” Eliza teased, still resisting the urge to turn.

“They were closer,” Rose protested distractedly. She was still watching over Eliza’s shoulder, squinting. “It’s difficult to see all the way across a ballroom, you know. And people keep passing between us. Now she’s saying that someone is harder?”

It took the girls a beat before they each burst into a fit of giggles. A smile stretched across Eliza’s face, hidden behind her gloved palm.

Suddenly, both Sophie’s and Rose’s laughter died and they straightened, staring at something behind Eliza.

Eliza’s giggles vanished as she turned, only to freeze. She expected to find her mother or perhaps her uncle—having noticed his daughter’s gossip. Instead, her breath caught at the sight before her, heart tripping, racing ahead absent air.

Danger and beauty fought a valiant duel in the gentleman before her.

Each was etched in the full, sensual curve of his barely parted lips, in the rich, molten chocolate of his eyes, in the messy, tousled set of his waves, and the strength in his build.

Even his nose hinted at peril, crooked with the evidence of past brawls.

Breathless, Lady Arabella skittered to a stop at his side.

“Miss Eliza! I was hoping to introduce you to my impatient brother, Benedict, Lord Sinclair.”

Eliza’s palms dampened, clinging to the insides of her gloves; her knees wavered; and her heart—her heart was threatening to beat right out of her chest.

She worried her knees may not cooperate, weak as they were, when she bobbed a curtsy. But she managed it credibly.

The man’s dark eyes danced along her form.

They lingered scandalously on the curve of her bosom and the nip of her waist. When his lips slid shut and his throat dipped with a swallow, there was an intention behind his gaze.

Delivered to anyone else, Eliza might have read attraction in the movement, but that sentiment came from her foolish heart, not her realistic head.

“Lizzie?” Sophie’s voice cut in.

Eliza’s eyelids slipped shut, and she allowed herself the briefest moment of disappointment.

But she forced herself to battle it back.

“Lady Arabella, Lord Sinclair, I’d like to introduce my sister, Sophie Wayland, and my cousin, Miss Rose Grayson.

” She added her hand signs to the introduction for Rose.

Sophie’s curtsy suffered from no weak knees, though Rose’s might have. Lord Sinclair was an intimidating man, and Rose had seen no more interest than Eliza this season.

Eliza waited, a knot caught in her chest, as Lord Sinclair’s eyes flicked over to her sister and cousin. There was no doubt in her mind his gaze would never turn back to her again once it found Sophie.

“A pleasure, ladies.” His voice was as luxurious as the rest of him, a rich tenor, smooth like the finest aged scotch. It left the same burning warmth in her chest as well—pleasant and uncomfortable. Eliza resisted the urge for a cooling gasp.

And then her heart stopped entirely as his sparkling eyes returned to hers.

“Miss Eliza, may I request the favor of a dance?”