Chapter Two
Julian stood beside his best friend, Damion, on the walk outside the Gillerfords’ London home, attempting to convince himself to go inside.
As an old friend of the family, he couldn’t very well not make an appearance at their ball.
More pressing even than that, his mother would summon him to Broadwood House before breakfast had even cooled the next morning to ring a peal over his head if he didn’t spend at least a full hour at the Gillerfords’ ball, dancing and socializing and generally pretending he was happy to be there.
“Don’t turn lily-livered on me now, old boy,” Damion insisted. “You’ve ducked out of nearly every social obligation these past two years. I’ll not keep making excuses for you.”
Julian groaned and dragged himself forward.
“I doubt Miss Gillerford will be waiting on the other side of the door with a vicar and a license,” Damion reassured him. “You’ll be obligated to a single set with her. You’ve courage enough for that, surely.”
“Dancing with her is like a prisoner tying the knot in his own noose.”
Julian plastered a smile on his face as they stepped into the front foyer.
His anxious executioners stood there, waiting for him.
Mr. and Mrs. Gillerford grinned with glee at seeing him.
Mary’s eyes took on that eerie aura of possessiveness she’d first adopted when she was eleven and he was twelve.
He liked it even less now than he had then.
He made his bows as quickly as possible without being rude. Mary opened her mouth to say something. Julian cut across her. “I do not see Miss Elizabeth.”
Mrs. Gillerford hit him playfully with her fan. “You know full well that she is not out in Society yet.”
He did, indeed, know, and it bothered him to no end. “But she is quite of an age to be so.”
Mr. Gillerford’s chest swelled with indignation. “She’ll have her come out when it is proper.”
In all truth, the “proper” time had come and gone. Beth ought to have made her bows the year before. He could easily picture her upstairs, watching the carriages arrive and quite eloquently decrying the ridiculousness of her exclusion from it all.
He found her absence trying as well. She, along with her brother, who avoided London as one would a den of hungry wolves, was the only member of that family with whom he enjoyed spending time, Beth being preferable even to Gregory.
She conversed with intelligence. Her sense of humor displayed her innate wit.
She didn’t flaunt her wealth or beauty the way her mother and sister insisted on doing.
In short, she was pleasant company, a rare enough thing in Society. He’d always liked her.
“You will be pleased to know that our Mary has her supper dance open,” Mrs. Gillerford said.
Julian was far too adept at sidestepping such things to fall into that trap. “I shall be certain tomorrow to ask my mother what fortunate gentleman was granted the privilege of claiming it.” He took a step closer to the ballroom. “Forgive me for holding up the reception line so long.”
With that, he made good his escape.
“Excellently done,” Damion said, slapping him on the back. “Does Wellington know your knack for stratagems?”
“I have had years of practice.” He glanced back at the reception line, barely holding back a shudder.
“The Gillerfords have it firmly in their heads that I am destined to be their son-in-law. They would eagerly take a supper dance, or an overly long glance, or my willingness to be in the same room as their older daughter as tantamount to a declaration. They’d have our announcement in the papers by morning. ”
They stepped into the ballroom with its din of voices. He and Damion cringed in unison. Together they’d survived more than their share of Society functions.
“Time for the ‘two-in-a-row’?” Damion asked the question to which they both knew the answer.
“I’ll meet you at the punch bowl in an hour,” Julian said. “Make certain to greet enough matrons to warrant whispers over tea tomorrow. If we’re forced to be here, we may as well receive credit for it.”
They set off in opposite directions, in search of two young ladies they could ask to dance. Experience had shown them that two sets within two hours, plus a few well-placed “Good evenings” gave the impression they had spent far more time at a ball than they actually had.
Julian had made a point of choosing for his two-in-a-row partners young ladies who didn’t seem likely to have any other partners.
Those ladies relegated to the lonely corners were often neglected and ignored.
They deserved to be treated with kindness.
And he generally found they were finer company than the belles of the ball.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a silhouette in an unused doorway.
He couldn’t say just how he knew, but he identified her in an instant.
Did Beth always spy on her parents’ balls, or was today a special occasion?
He intended to ask her, though doing so meant abandoning his efforts at securing a partner for the first set of dances.
Damion’ll have my neck. Still, he moved quickly in the direction of Beth’s hiding place. He might manage to fit in two sets after speaking with her. But time or no time, he wanted to see his old friend.
Just as he reached the doorway, she disappeared into the darkness. With a quick look around to make certain no one in the ballroom saw him, he slipped out and stepped into the room beyond.
Only moonlight spilling through the French window illuminated the space at all— Mr. Gillerford’s library, by the looks of it.
“I know you’re in here, Beth,” he whispered.
“If you give me away, so help me—”
He turned back in the direction of her voice and found her watching him from beside the door, arms folded defiantly across her chest. She’d always been firmly independent. That was one of the greatest things about her. Julian snatched up her hand and pulled her over to the French window.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Outside,” he explained. “If we’re found in here, I’ll have to run myself through with my own sword.”
“Rather than be forced to marry me, is that it?”
Being caught alone meant not merely a forced marriage, but also leaving her reputation in ruins, painting himself as a cad, and destroying their friendship. So, yes. He’d rather they not be found out. He shrugged, keeping to the more casual tone they’d thus far employed. “More or less.”
A few people wandered about on the terrace. Julian slipped Beth’s arm through his. “Pretend that this is commonplace,” he whispered. “We’d best not attract too much notice.”
“No amount of pretending will change the fact that I’m not dressed for a ball.”
He hadn’t noted her attire until that moment. Her dress was decidedly plain, but at least she wasn’t in her night-rail or anything equally scandalous. They kept to the edges of the small, lantern-lit garden. Poor Beth looked deucedly uncomfortable. He wouldn’t keep her but a moment.
“What is this nonsense I hear about you not having a Season again this year?”
“Didn’t you know, Jules?” she answered dryly. “The Gillerfords are stalwart and cling stubbornly to even the most archaic of notions.”
“That makes me wonder if you’re actually a foundling.”
Beth had more sense in her smallest toe than her entire family did combined. “What half-witted notion is your father clinging to this time?”
She picked a flower from an obliging bush. “He won’t allow me a Season until Mary is married.”
Julian eyed her sidelong. “Has he met your sister? You’ll never get a Season.”
“Believe me, I am fully aware of that.” She spun the little yellow flower in her fingers. “I am hatching a plot to abduct an unsuspecting gentleman and force him to wed her.”
He stopped right in the middle of the path. “Is that what this is? You’re walking me to my matrimonial demise?”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She kept walking, leaving him behind.
He hurriedly caught up to her. “You didn’t actually pick me for Mary, did you?” He was busy enough disabusing Mary of that idea without Beth taking up the same notion.
“Good gracious, no,” she answered. “If you ever set your cap at Mary, I’ll—”
“—run me through with my own sword?” he finished for her.
She shrugged. “More or less.”
Lands, Beth was always vastly fun to spend time with. She deserved her share of Society and diversions.
“Your banishment must be remedied,” he said firmly.
“It’s not banishment so much as forced hermitry.” She sighed, though without any of the theatrics so many young ladies employed. “At times I feel trapped in this house.”
“What would you do if you had London at your feet and the freedom of being out in Society?” He was honestly curious.
“Hatchard’s. Hyde Park. Dinner parties. The theater. At this point, I would settle for anything other than these corridors and this back garden.” She held her hands up in helplessness. “I said ‘hermitry,’ and ‘hermitry’ it is.”
“We must find a way of getting you out of this house.” There had to be a solution.
Beth tossed him a lopsided smile. “Are you volunteering to sacrifice one of your friends for Mary’s cause?” Her eyebrow arched doubtfully.
“I have far too few friends to risk losing one in such a drastic fashion. They would all abandon me after that.” He took her hand in his and met her gaze. “I will think of something, Beth. I swear to you, I will.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she warned.
He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “Now, sneak back in and up to your room. I’ll return to the ball after I’m certain you haven’t been spotted.” No point working on her entry into Society if he’d ruined her reputation beforehand. “Dream of a glorious Season, my friend.”
“Or Mary’s untimely demise,” she said.
He grinned. “Whichever brings you the greatest satisfaction.”
He kept to the gardens for a long moment after she slipped away and around the back of the house. It was utterly unfair that she was denied Society and all its enjoyments simply because her older sister was too wretched to be courted.
“I will find a way to help her,” he vowed. “I will.”