Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“You look beautiful, Beatrice!”
“Thank you, Lydia,” Beatrice smiled politely at the Marquess of Loudwater’s eldest daughter, a society woman for whom Beatrice had no love at all. “So do you.”
“Thank you,”
As always, the other woman was pleased with the compliment and pressed her hands against her silvery silk gown. Beatrice noted that Lydia’s gown was the height of fashion, but that did not stop the other woman from looking at Beatrice’s gold satin and white lace gown with tremendous envy.
“What an exquisite fabric!” Lydia said, fluttering her huge ostrich fan with glittering eyes. “Did you choose it yourself?”
“No,” Beatrice almost rolled her eyes in frustration, groaning internally. She found this kind of conversation absolutely dire, and yet she had lost count of the amount of them she had endured with ladies like this at various society events.
“Mrs. Klane did,” Beatrice added, looking pointedly at her sister-in-law, Anna, who was barely paying attention to the conversation, her eyes wandering around the room with excitement.
Unlike Beatrice, who had yet to meet a ball she enjoyed, Anna had been completely starved of balls for the last year and a half since she had given birth to her son, Caleb.
This was Anna’s first outing into society since the birth, and she was eager to dance with her husband, Silas, who stood nearby, chatting with business associates.
Beatrice was happy for her sister’s happiness but just wished she didn’t have to endure a ball for it to come about.
“Anna?” Beatrice prompted.
“Oh, yes,” Anna glanced at Lydia and then reached out a gloved hand to stroke the sleeve of Beatrice’s dress. “I found it in London. Doesn’t it flatter Beatrice’s skin so beautifully?”
“Completely!” Lydia gushed. “Such a perfect find, Mrs. Klane! You must give me the name of your dressmaker.”
Beatrice tried not to snort derisively at Lydia’s sycophantic remarks to Anna.
At Beatrice’s first ball, Lydia had revealed her true colors as a terrible gossip and a manipulator by trying her hand at putting Beatrice down in front of Anna, and the latter had firmly put the fear of God into the young heiress.
Now Lydia was sugary sweet towards them all.
Beatrice couldn’t stand the falseness of it all, and how could she ever warm to a girl who had taken such delight in her discomfort at their first meeting?
Beatrice was distracted by her thoughts at that moment as a fair-headed young man with a prominent forehead approached Lydia.
“Lady Lydia, might I claim your hand for the first dance?”
“Oh, how flattering, Baron Clare, but I am unavailable for this set,” Lydia simpered, blushing with pride to be able to turn the young man down. She had her sights set higher, and everyone knew it. At the moment, Lydia’s gaze continually fluttered over to the Earl of Essex.
“But perhaps…my friend? Miss Klane?”
Beatrice saw the way the young baron’s eyebrows raised at her name.
Once upon a time, this would have been Lydia’s way of needling her, highlighting Beatrice’s comparatively low status beside her own.
Still, since the Klane family had risen so high in society, it was a different matter.
Now, Beatrice knew that the young man would be considering her fortune, her brother’s desirable business connections, and her sister-in-law’s impressive social influence when he looked her up and down.
“I would be most happy to,” Baron Clare bowed before her. “If you are available, Miss Klane?”
“Sadly, she is not,” Anna stepped in, smiling gently at the Baron.
Beatrice knew from experience that Anna considered the first dance of the night an indicator of intent.
She would never allow Beatrice to stand up with a callow young baron that she and Silas were unsure of.
With Silas’s reputation and history, they were cautious about who they entertained as possible suitors for Anna.
Also, Anna would not permit Beatrice to take a partner whom Lydia had rejected, simply out of spite.
“But thank you, Baron Clare,” Anna turned to Lydia, “and thank you, Lady Lydia, for being so considerate, but we would not want to take away from your opportunities. Do not be held back from a turn with the Baron on our account.”
“Of course,” Lydia smiled, clearly trying not to look put out that Anna had turned a situation where Beatrice was forced to take her cast-offs into a situation where Lydia was cornered into doing the same. “I should be delighted, Baron Clare.”
He smiled, clearly relieved not to come away empty-handed, and took Lydia’s hand.
Lydia accepted it but managed to glare some daggers over her shoulder at Anna as they walked away.
Anna simply smiled sweetly and waved. Beatrice knew that her sister might look all sweetness and innocence, but she never forgot those who had wronged her family.
Beatrice noticed the way the assembled ladies and gentlemen watched the pair move towards the dance floor with interest. Every ball was the same.
Beatrice sometimes felt as if she was the entertainment at these events, as though her only reason for being there was so the married ladies could provide commentary on who might be setting their sights at her this evening.
“He is a nice boy,” Anna sighed, fluttering her fan in front of her mouth to hide her words. “But though he is handsome and sweet, Silas tells me he has a gambling problem.”
Beatrice nodded, trusting Anna’s word. If anyone knew the financial status of every man in the city, it was her brother.
“You have an alternate in mind?” Beatrice asked, knowing Anna never attended a ball without a plan of how to use the occasion to advance her sister’s position in society.
“Indeed,” Anna smiled. “A viscount, no less.”
Beatrice wished she could feel more excited, but the notion of dancing with another pampered gentleman of the Ton only filled her with dread.
Anna had begun a conversation with Lydia’s mother about eligible gentlemen, and just the thought of it made Beatrice’s blood run cold.
She feigned interest, nodding to imply she was listening, but actually let her mind wander.
To distract herself, Beatrice looked around the room.
Unconsciously, her eyes immediately sought out her brother.
He was talking quietly with a small group of gentlemen with an ease that she knew he would never have been able to achieve before he was married.
Anna had changed him in all the best ways.
Still, their courtship had not been without its difficulties.
Even now, nearly two years after it had happened, Beatrice felt a tightness in her stomach when she recalled the dreadful trauma of Anna’s kidnap at the hands of one of Silas’ old business partners.
Even though both Anna and Silas had recovered and moved on, Beatrice had struggled.
In crowds like this, she found herself repeatedly seeking out the faces of those she loved, checking they were still here and well.
Anna, Silas, and Silas’s right-hand man, Giovanni.
It was how she reassured herself that nothing bad would happen.
Across the crowded sea of gentlemen in fine coats and ladies in soft silks and floating organza, through the whirling couples dancing in the center of the wide polished floor, Beatrice saw her brother standing off to the side, as he often was at social events, near the doorway.
Silas caught her gaze and jerked his head for her to join him.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Beatrice said, dropping into a curtsey. She ignored Anna’s raised eyebrows at being left alone with Lydia and walked to join Silas on the edge of his group.
“Are you well?” Silas asked quietly, linking her arm with his.
“I am,” Beatrice felt herself relaxing in her brother’s close presence. The warmth of his body next to hers gave her energy and strength.
“Fending off the suitors?” Silas nodded at the young Baron Clare as he stood whispering with Lydia by the windows. “Must I challenge that young rogue to a duel?”
“No!” Beatrice laughed softly, enjoying her brother’s ever-predictable over-protectiveness.
When everything in her current world was designed to remind her that she was a lady, soon to be a wife, she enjoyed this aspect of their relationship that still allowed her to feel like a young girl.
“He was perfectly nice, but Anna sent him on his way. She has plans to introduce me to the?—”
“—Viscount Milton, I remember,” Silas interrupted, nodding. “He’d be a good match for you.”
“I have not met him yet,” Beatrice quietly reminded him.
It was a matter of slight tension between the two siblings.
Silas had only seen a picture of Anna before accepting her as a bride, and they’d only met once prior to their wedding.
Silas sometimes forgot how rarefied their match was—that a couple brought together under the strangest circumstances had found their deepest love and appreciation for one another.
“You will tonight,” Silas said diffidently as if it were nothing to be worried about.
“I shall not marry a man I barely know, Silas,” Beatrice reminded him softly, trying not to get irritated.
“No one suggests you should,” he said in a placating tone, but Beatrice knew he didn’t really understand.
He thought the way forward was to find a man she could imagine being comfortable with, a man she could consider knowing intimately.
He never considered that the man might already be in her life.
“Where is Gio?” Beatrice asked.
“Over there,” Silas smiled ruefully as he looked at his right-hand man and best friend, gesturing to the other corner of the room. Beatrice’s stomach contracted slightly as she looked at Giovanni Amante, the man she had secretly lusted after since adolescence.
“It seems that the ladies here tonight are quite taken with his Italian charms,” Silas shook his head, laughing quietly. “It’s like Anna always says: Giovanni is a charmer!”