The Lady’s Last Mistake (Bow Street Duchess Mystery)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Cassie sipped her second glass of champagne as she peered through the fronds of a potted palm. The ballroom had been a crush when she’d arrived, and yet somehow, he’d still spotted her. Mr. Hunt was here, somewhere, and if she valued her sanity, she needed to avoid him.

This ball was an unmitigated disaster. She had expected no less, since nothing good ever came of anything associated with Lady Minerva Dutton.

The woman was brash, unyielding, and an incurable gossip, and no event she hosted ever concluded without at least one debutante erupting into tears.

It was rather unfortunate then, when Cassie’s good friend Marianna had accepted the hand of the dowager viscountess’s youngest son.

“I told you not to marry him,” Cassie said to a rather weepy Marianna. Her dragon of a mother-in-law had just roundly criticized her, saying she looked like an overripe tomato in her gown.

Marianna sniffled. “But Gerald is sweet. He is nothing like his mother.”

Her husband might not have been conniving or cruel, but he was terribly dull. Which Cassie thought might be worse.

“If you say so,” she replied, her gaze still scouring the crowd.

“You’re looking for Mr. Hunt, aren’t you?”

“I am not looking for him, I am watching for him. There is a difference.”

Had she known that Mr. Horace Hunt would be in attendance and would descend like a hawk upon her arrival, she would have given her regrets.

She hadn’t wished to attend the ball in the first place.

But Marianna’s increasingly desperate pleas had swayed her.

The poor girl was terrified of her mother-in-law.

So was Gerald, leaving them both little more than quivery lumps of nerves whenever forced to be in the dowager viscountess’s company.

What Cassie’s presence could do to shield them was not entirely clear; Marianna had clung to her arm all evening, and Lady Dutton had still closed in for a smattering of verbal cuts.

Gerald, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

What a hero.

“Mr. Hunt isn’t so bad,” Marianna said, joining Cassie in her perusal of the evening’s guests through the green fronds. It seemed all of London was here. “He reminds me of a river otter.”

Cassie lowered her champagne. “How is that not so bad?”

“River otters are adorable little creatures!”

Cassie sighed and finished the last of her champagne.

Her older brother, Michael, the Duke of Fournier, had introduced her to Mr. Hunt the previous week while strolling through Hyde Park.

Michael had arrived at his former Grosvenor Square home, which Cassie now occupied, and suggested a brisk walk.

She’d been suspicious and had considered giving an excuse that she was on her way out.

However, Michael might have asked her destination, and she wasn’t prepared with a good lie.

She certainly could not tell him the truth.

So, she’d gone for the stroll, and there Mr. Hunt had been, waiting by the steely gray Serpentine.

The two men had pretended surprise at running into one another, but Michael was a horrible actor, and Mr. Hunt even more atrocious.

Her brother had not yet given up in his quest to find her a suitable husband, and it seemed every time she requested that he stop, he lost the ability to hear.

Tonight, Mr. Hunt had swept up to her and declared his intention to have her first dance of the evening.

Her swift fib that she was not dancing due to a twisted ankle had not deterred him.

Instead, he’d asked for the honor of fetching her some punch.

When he’d gone for the refreshments table, Cassie slipped away. She’d been avoiding him ever since.

Marianna clutched her arm. “Don’t turn your head, but there is a man who keeps looking at you.”

“If it is Mr. Hunt, I am climbing into this plant and living there forever. Send my belongings.”

“No, no, it’s not him. This man is different. He’s handsome. Quite handsome,” she said a little too breathily. “It is one of Lord Lindstrom’s sons if I’m not mistaken.”

Cassie’s spine went rigid. “Which one?”

“I have no idea. They all look alike.”

Slowly, Cassie glimpsed over her shoulder and through the palm fronds.

The man Marianna had noticed stood a good head taller than the other men in the ballroom.

His broad shoulders filled out the black superfine of his jacket with irritating precision when compared to the artful looseness of his cravat.

Thick midnight black hair fell forward over his brow, reaching toward pale green eyes that had already spied her behind the potted palm.

He formed a sly grin and tipped his drink to her in acknowledgement.

She immediately turned her back. “Blast.”

“Do you know the gentleman?” Marianna asked, still staring at him in open admiration.

“Unfortunately. It is the Marquess of Lindstrom’s fourth son, Lord Grant Thornton.”

It had been nearly two years since she’d last seen him, and as always, there had been friction between them.

They’d been at Lord and Lady Neatham’s home on Berkeley Square during the birth of Hugh and Audrey’s first child.

Lord Thornton had been there to support his closest friend, and as Audrey’s former sister-in-law, Cassie had been there too.

Seeing Audrey and Hugh hold their little girl for the first time had brought tears to her eyes.

However, it wasn’t until she’d slipped away into the small morning room that she’d allowed the veil of joy to drop, and the sobs to take over.

After a few ugly wails, drawn up as if from the pit of her soul, a throat had cleared.

“If those are tears of happiness, I do not want to imagine what your tears of sorrow must sound like.”

Grant Thornton had already been seated in the morning room when she’d entered, the tall backing of the chair obscuring him completely. Cassie had quickly dried her cheeks, wiped her nose, and chastised him for not announcing himself, as any gentleman should.

“And no lady should sound like a bleating goat when she cries,” he replied. “What are these tears for anyhow? A baby has been born. It’s an exultant occasion, or so I’m told.”

It was an exultant occasion, and that was why Cassie had waited until she was alone—or at least believed herself to be—before she’d let her tears fall. She wondered whether she would ever see a newborn baby and not feel stabbing heartache first and foremost.

“My tears are none of your concern,” she’d said before storming from the room. “And I do not sound like a goat!”

Now, here Lord Thornton was again. He looked much the same.

Just as devilish and just as unimpressed with his surroundings.

What was he doing at Lady Dutton’s ball?

This was a society event, and it was well known that the fourth son of the Marquess of Lindstrom, and the physician to several ton peers, did not go out in society.

He was a flirt, a libertine, and, as Cassie had learned from personal experience, so arrogantly confident that he made her back teeth ache.

There had been a time—a very short time—when she’d harbored an attraction to him. But that had been before they’d been thrown together during a few of Audrey and Hugh’s investigations. Being in close proximity to him had easily cured her of her affliction.

Cassie refrained from looking behind her again, and after several minutes in which Lord Thornton did not approach, she breathed easier.

“There you two are. I should have known I’d find you crouched behind foliage.” Mrs. Jane Riverton grabbed Cassie’s arm and tugged her out from behind the shrubbery. She arched a brow. “You’re hiding from that man. The one that looks a bit like a beaver.”

She rolled her arm free. “I’m starting to feel sorry for Mr. Hunt.”

“Oh, yes, a beaver is a much better comparison than a river otter,” Marianna said.

“Why are you hiding from him? He isn’t so awful. You must admit, he has a better chin than Gerald.”

Marianna glared at the insult to her husband. Jane had always said anything she liked without thought for whether it was nice. But ever since she’d married the wealthy and distinguished Mr. John Riverton, she’d gone from mildly pretentious to overtly superior.

“Looks aren’t everything,” Jane went on. “Ask Marianna, she’ll tell you. Besides, I’ve heard Mr. Hunt is quite rich.”

Marianna sharpened her glare while Cassie reached for another glass of champagne on a passing tray.

“So am I,” she murmured before taking a long sip that tickled her nose.

“Not until you are married,” Jane said with a roll of her eyes.

Cassie grimaced. She’d reached her majority two years ago, when she’d turned twenty-one, but her brother the duke had staunchly refused to give her the annual income it provided.

Three thousand pounds per year was far too large a sum for a single woman to manage, he insisted, and it would also make her a target for any immoral, money-hungry cad looking to charm and use her.

Her brother would not be swayed, and so, after many arguments and some artful calculation, Cassie had struck a compromise.

She would agree to take the much smaller annual sum without complaint—if she could live independently from Michael and his wife, Genie.

It wasn’t that she disliked them, though her brother got under her skin like no one else.

But Cassie needed privacy. She needed room to breathe.

Michael had agreed, albeit with extreme reluctance.

She now lived alone at his former Grosvenor Square residence with a small staff, but he had continued to work tirelessly to see her married off. Case in point: Mr. Hunt.

“Darling, at three and twenty, you don’t have much time left,” Jane said. “The pool of peers is rapidly thinning.”