A Scandal for the Notorious Duke (Scandals of the Ton #3)

Chapter One

“You look as though you’d rather be anywhere else.”

William Bradworth, Duke of Hollowshade, accepted a glass of champagne from a passing footman and raised an eyebrow at Lord Worthington, who had materialised at his elbow with the persistence of a man who had known him too long to be intimidated by his reputation.

“I would rather be anywhere else,” William confirmed.

“I would rather be at my club, drinking brandy that costs more than most men’s annual income.

I would rather be at the opera, where at least the performances are intentional.

I would rather be in my bed with…” He paused, considering.

“Well. With anyone who isn’t currently in this ballroom. ”

“And yet here you are.” Worthington’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “At the first major ball of the Season. Surrounded by debutantes and their ambitious mamas. Looking, if I may say, rather like a wolf who has wandered into a sheep pen and isn’t certain whether to feast or flee.”

“Your metaphors need work.”

“Your attendance needs explanation. You never come to these things, Will. Not this early. You usually wait until the Season is half-dead before deigning to appear, by which point the most desperate mothers have already married off their daughters and the remainder have learned not to expect anything from you.”

William took a sip of champagne, adequate, though not exceptional, and surveyed the glittering expanse of the Worthington ballroom.

Crystal chandeliers blazed overhead, casting their light across a sea of pale muslin and dark evening coats.

The orchestra was competent. The flowers were excessive.

The assembled company was exactly what he had expected: a marriage market dressed in silk and pretence, every smile calculated, every conversation a negotiation conducted in the currency of bloodlines and bank accounts.

He had attended a thousand events exactly like this one.

He knew every variation, every permutation, every possible configuration of ambitious mother and marriageable daughter.

He could predict with reasonable accuracy which young ladies would simper, which would flirt, which would affect disinterest in hopes of intriguing him. He had seen it all before.

It bored him unto death.

“I was restless,” he said finally, which was not quite a lie. “The alternative was an evening at home with my own thoughts, which I did not find appealing.”

“Your thoughts must be dark indeed if you prefer this.” Worthington gestured at the crowd. “Look at them. Circling. Assessing. That woman in puce has been edging toward us for the past five minutes, dragging her unfortunate daughter behind her like a sacrifice to the gods of matrimony.”

William glanced at the woman in question, Lady Something-or-Other, he could not recall the name, and watched her trajectory with detached amusement. She was indeed approaching, her path a masterwork of social navigation that would deposit her directly in his orbit within moments.

“I give her thirty seconds,” Worthington murmured.

“Twenty. She’s determined.”

“Shall we retreat?”

“And deprive her of the opportunity to parade her daughter before us? That seems cruel.” William’s lips curved. “Besides, I find myself curious to see this year’s offerings. Perhaps there will be something… unexpected.”

Worthington snorted. “There is never anything unexpected. There are diamonds and there are wallflowers and there is everything in between, and none of them is any different from the diamonds and wallflowers of last year, or the year before, or the year before that.”

“You are unusually cynical this evening.”

“I am merely realistic. As are you, usually. What has got into you?”

William did not answer, because he did not have an answer.

He did not know why he had come tonight.

He did not know why, for the past several weeks, he had felt a growing restlessness, an itch beneath his skin that neither wine nor women nor any of his usual diversions could scratch.

He was thirty-two years old, wealthy beyond reason, titled beyond reproach, and absolutely, catastrophically bored with his own existence.

This was not a new feeling. He had been bored for years, decades, perhaps.

But lately the boredom had taken on a sharper edge, a quality of desperation that unsettled him.

He found himself going through the motions of his life, the clubs, the mistresses, the endless social engagements, without any sense that any of it mattered.

Without any sense that he mattered, except as a title to be coveted and a fortune to be captured.

Not that he would ever admit this to anyone. The Duke of Hollowshade did not have existential crises. He had champagne and cynicism and a reputation that preceded him into every room he entered.

Speaking of which.

“Your Grace!” Lady Puce had arrived, slightly breathless, her daughter in tow.

The daughter was blonde, pretty in a conventional way, and looking at William with an expression he recognised intimately: calculation disguised as admiration.

“What an unexpected pleasure! I did not know you would be attending this evening.”

“Neither did I,” William said pleasantly. “And yet here we are, both of us surprised by my presence.”

The daughter giggled. The mother’s smile flickered with uncertainty, she could not quite tell if she was being mocked, before resettling into determined brightness.

“May I present my daughter, Miss Amelia Crawford? She has just come out this Season, and I know she would be honoured to make your acquaintance.”

Miss Crawford curtsied with practised grace. Her eyes, when they met his, held exactly what he expected: awareness of his reputation, interest in his title, and a complete absence of anything resembling genuine feeling.

She was pretty.

She was available.

She was utterly interchangeable with a hundred other girls he had met over the years.

“Charmed,” William said, and meant none of it. He exchanged the required pleasantries, deflected the mother’s increasingly pointed hints about dances and promenades, and extricated himself as soon as politeness permitted.

“That was almost kind,” Worthington observed as they retreated toward the relative safety of the terrace doors. “You usually dispatch them more brutally.”

“I am feeling generous tonight.”

“You are feeling something. I’m not certain it’s generosity.”

William did not respond. He was scanning the room again, that restless survey that had become habitual, looking for something he could not name. Something different. Something that might, for even a moment, make him feel less like a ghost haunting his own life.

His gaze moved across the crowd, cataloguing and dismissing with practised efficiency.

Diamonds in their white gowns, sparkling and identical.

Matrons in their silks, watching and calculating.

Young bucks posturing near the entrance, their cravats tied in increasingly ridiculous configurations.

Wall of ferns near the corner, behind which—

He stopped.

There was a girl behind the ferns.

Not hiding, exactly, she was too visible for true concealment, but definitely positioned for minimum exposure.

She was holding a glass of lemonade with an expression that suggested it had personally offended her, and she was watching the ballroom with an air of bemused detachment that William recognised because he wore it himself.

She was not beautiful. That was the first thing he noticed.

Her features were pleasant but unremarkable, brown hair, modest figure, the sort of face one might describe as ‘agreeable’ before moving on to more interesting subjects.

She was dressed appropriately but not fashionably, her gown a simple cream muslin that did nothing to distinguish her from the dozens of other young ladies in similar attire.

There was absolutely no reason for him to be looking at her.

And yet.

Something about her posture caught his attention.

The way she stood apart from her companions, close enough to appear social, distant enough to suggest she’d rather be elsewhere.

The way her eyes moved across the room with what appeared to be genuine curiosity rather than strategic assessment.

The way she seemed to be studying the assembled company as though they were specimens in a naturalist’s collection rather than potential allies or rivals in the great game of social advancement.

She was watching the room the way he watched the room.

With distance. With detachment. With the faint air of someone who had wandered into a foreign country and was still learning the customs.

Interesting.

William let his gaze linger, waiting for her to notice.

Women always noticed when he watched them.

It was one of the few reliable constants in his experience, the moment when awareness flickered through their eyes, when their posture shifted, when they began the performance that his attention inevitably triggered.

The girl looked up.

Their eyes met across the crowded ballroom.

And she looked away.

William blinked.

She had looked away. Not with the calculated disinterest of a woman playing at coyness, not with the nervous flutter of a debutante overwhelmed by his attention. She had simply… looked at him, registered his existence, and returned her gaze to the far more fascinating lemonade in her hand.

As though he were furniture.

As though he were boring.

“Will?” Worthington’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “What are you staring at?”

“Her.” William nodded toward the ferns. “The girl by the plant. Brown hair, cream gown. Who is she?”

Worthington squinted across the room. “I… believe that’s Miss Hayfield? Country family, Devonshire. First Season. Middling dowry, respectable connections, nothing remarkable.” He paused. “Pleasant enough face.”

“She looked away from me.”

“I beg your pardon?”