A Most Scandalous Proposal (18 page)

As they pushed their way through the crush, Julia saw that her mother’s notion of a select few included Lady Epperley. The peacock plumes drifted above her blue turban as she inspected the crowd.

Beside her, Highgate edged a safer distance from the feathers. Not fast enough. She leaned across him to exchange a few words with Lady Wexford, and, in a sudden, violent motion, he threw back his head in a sneeze.

Julia’s gaze passed beyond Lady Wexford, glowering in purple bombazine, to settle on her father—and a distinctly unwelcome sight.

An icy sense of foreboding washed over her, and she pulled up short. “What’s Mr. Ludlowe doing there?”

Mama turned. “Come along, dear, we’ve waited long enough.”

At the same moment, Ludlowe caught her eye and smiled, his gaze shrewd, piercing, too perceptive. An urge rose within to spin on her heel and march straight from the ballroom, but the combination of Sophia’s gloved fingers digging into her arm and the surrounding crowd made flight impossible.

Bad enough that her parents were about to announce an unwanted betrothal, doomed to failure ahead of time—they were about to do so in front of the one man whose proposal Sophia would accept without hesitation.

What a disaster, with most of the blame laid at her parents’ feet.

“Ah, there they are at last.” Her father raised a glass of pale liquid to his lips. Bubbles rose to the surface in dizzying spirals. Champagne. “My ladies, each more lovely than the last.”

Julia’s gaze narrowed in on his nose—suspiciously red, of course. He must have imbibed a great deal of the sparkling wine to make such ebullient pronouncements.

“Come, come.” He stepped aside to make room next to Highgate.

Sophia’s fingertips threatened to leave bruises on Julia’s arm. “You agreed to this,” Julia grated to her sister. “Now you must go through with it.”

As Sophia trudged to her place next to Highgate, Papa cleared his throat. Fortuitously—for him—the final notes of the reel sounded just then. In the ensuing quiet, his next words rang out loudly.

“My lady.” He nodded toward Lady Epperley. “I’m sure you’ll be interested to hear this.”

The dowager was not alone. Nearby, heads turned.

“It seems I have a rather splendid bit of news. My daughter Sophia has accepted the suit of Highgate, here.”

The lorgnette snapped out as Lady Epperley eyed the couple from head to toe. “I knew the gel would get there at last. How many proposals did it take her before she came to her senses?”

A blush crept up Sophia’s cheeks, and Julia’s heart made a sympathetic flip for her sister’s sake. Papa raised his glass to the couple. Around them, the buzz of conversation
rose. St. Claire was finally going to marry off a daughter.

One down, one to go.

The buzz grew in intensity until it seemed to fill the ballroom, enough to make the orchestra hold off launching into the next number. Another icy jolt coursed through her. Why couldn’t they begin the next set?

And then the unthinkable happened.

Papa held up his hand and cleared his throat once more. In their corner of the room, the buzz died away into silence.

“Seems I have a second bit of news. Most astounding, really.”

He phrased his words as if he were addressing Lady Epperley in a private conversation, but all around them bodies strained in their direction. No one wanted to miss this.

“I’ll be marrying the other one off, too.”

Julia’s jaw dropped. Angry words, most of them gleaned from conversations with Benedict and thus unfit for utterance in front of the
ton
, crowded into her mouth, each jumbling into the next until none of them escaped. They jammed together in the base of her throat and formed a knot, impeding both speech and breath.

Her mother’s sharp elbow made painful contact with her ribs, and she tripped forward. Ludlowe loomed out of the group to take her arm.

No!

But the denial could not escape. It remained trapped in her throat, joined the knot of words, and held back the scream she so desperately wanted to release over the ballroom.

“My lord Clivesden here has offered for Julia. Well, of course, I accepted.”

The buzz started up again, swelling this time into an overwhelming rush. It drowned out all other sound.
Julia’s feet remained rooted to the spot. Next to Ludlowe—no, he was Clivesden now. A title, an earl. Her mother’s dream for her, a dream whose fingers dug sharply into her flesh, leaving no opportunity for escape.

How Julia wanted to escape. For all she could focus on was the expression of utter betrayal on Sophia’s face.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
LL AROUND
Julia, a chorus of congratulations erupted. Well-wishers crowded her toward Clivesden, whose fingers curled about her arm to pull her close. She was too numb to protest, too numb to move from the spot.

Nausea roiled in her gut. If she took so much as a single step, she might double over and spill the contents of her stomach all over the pale rose chiffon of her ball gown.

Mama and Papa glowed with pride, but Julia’s most pressing concern was her sister. She threw Sophia a glance of desperation.

Her sister’s blue eyes glittered coldly in response. That expression of awful betrayal—rosy cheeks turned to chalk, lips pursed, chin puckered—engraved itself on Julia’s heart. “I never meant for this to happen,” she wailed, but shock turned her voice thin and reedy. Her words were lost in the uproar.

The news was spreading—it must have already extended to the other side of the ballroom. By morning, word would have reached the ears of even the most reclusive members of society: The infamous St. Claire sisters, both betrothed in a single night.

No doubt her parents had planned the announcement this way so Julia could not say a word against it without creating a scandal. No matter. In the morning, she’d have a talk with her father away from prying eyes, and
she’d make him see. She was not about to tolerate this turn of events.

S
OPHIA
inhaled through her nose and fought for a calm demeanor—no mean feat when inside her emotions warred. Anger and heartbreak fought for the mastery, but on the exterior, she trembled with cold.

Five years. Five years she’d loved that man in vain, and it all came to this. He’d chosen her sister, who had never paid him a whit of attention.

It was not fair.

She’d have gladly offered him her beating heart on a platter, but he didn’t want it.

Black spots danced before her eyes. No. She’d resolved never again to swoon at one of these functions. She would not do it now. Not here with only Highgate to catch her.

Mechanically, she accepted congratulations of one of her mother’s acquaintances. She barely noticed who. Faces blurred into one another, and the entire ballroom closed into a single, stifling cell.

Air. She needed air. More than that, she needed to get away from that insipidly grinning idiot she’d cast her heart away on, that idiot who’d taken her sister’s arm, who shook hands with all and sundry.

“I say, gel, are you feeling faint?” The words solidified in her ears, the sounds rearranging themselves to make sense. She blinked. Lady Epperley frowned from behind her lorgnette.

“Of course not.”

“Of course you are. Don’t try to put that past me. I’m too old for the likes of you to fool.”

Sophia peeled her fingers away from Highgate’s arm. Some instinct warned her that she didn’t want him to
take heed of this conversation. “Now that you mention it—”

The dowager’s sharp nod set her jowls quivering. “The fashion might be all for pale skin, but your complexion is downright sickly. I doubt you’ve fooled even Lord Pendleton, and he’s as blind as a bat.”

She slipped farther away from the crowd about her family. “My lady, really—”

“There, there, dear.” With surprising strength in one so apparently frail, Lady Epperley clapped her on the shoulder. “Chin up, and all that rot. This, too, shall pass.”

For the first time in her life, Sophia looked at Lady Epperley, really looked. Beneath the crusty demeanor and lined countenance lurked a knowing intellect, quite apparent in her glance. While her red-rimmed eyes appeared short-sighted, a spark behind them betrayed the accumulated knowledge of decades of keen observance. Sophia’s lower lip trembled, and she clamped down on it with her teeth.

“Got your attention now, haven’t I?” the dowager went on. She nodded at Highgate. “You may not believe me at the moment, but one day you might just look back on this evening and realize what a close shave you’ve had.”

Anger blazed to the surface, and Sophia drew in a breath to lend it voice. Lady Epperley knew nothing of her circumstances. Nothing!

“Don’t get your feathers so ruffled. You give Highgate a chance and see if I’m not right.”

Sophia gripped her fan hard enough to snap several of its ribs. “Give him a chance? Why, not half an hour ago, you asked me why I was throwing myself away on him.”

“Perhaps I’ve changed my mind.”

“Changed your mind?” A few more ribs on Sophia’s beleaguered fan gave way. Age must have rendered Lady Epperley daft. There was no other explanation. “What gives you the right to pronounce on my future at all?”

Lady Epperley raised her considerable chin. “Experience, my dear. Should you be so fortunate as to reach my years, you might well discover the advantages of becoming a leader of society.”

Daft, definitely. Given Mama’s background, society would never allow her that sort of power. “I fail to see—”

A cackle cut her off. “You shall, should you have my fortune. Imagine. I can say what I want to whom I please and no one dares gainsay me. I can contradict myself all I like. Why, I’m free to make all the young chits squirm by insisting on all the rules of decorum, even when I think they’re utter poppycock.”

Sophia wagged her head from side to side. “But—”

“You give your earl a chance, and he’ll set you up marvelously for such a place in society one day. Given his age, your chance might come sooner than later. As long as she’s discreet, a widow can do as she pleases.”

With that, the dowager sailed off through the crowd, leaving Sophia to gape after her towering peacock feathers. Why no one had sent the dowager off to Bedlam ages ago was beyond her.

“What was that about?”

Sophia turned to meet Highgate’s keen glance. Here was another who saw entirely too much. While Lady Epperley simply aroused a vague uncomfortable feeling, Highgate stripped her completely naked. She resisted the impulse to cross her arms as a shield.

Unable to stand his scrutiny, she settled for studying his neatly tied cravat. Nothing garish or outrageous in that knot. “I’ve no idea. I think she’s gone a bit soft in her old age.”

He ducked his head in an attempt to capture her gaze, and she trained her eyes stubbornly beyond his shoulder. Bad idea. Julia came into view, still standing next to Clivesden as she accepted enthusiastic good wishes from Henrietta Upperton.

“Sophia.” Her name hissed through his lips, harsh and low, but powerful enough to cut through the surrounding buzz of conversation.

That did it. Her gaze snapped to his. “I have not given you permission to address me by my given name,
my lord
.”

“I will, nevertheless, use it.”

“You shall—”

His hand closed about her wrist in a shackle, and the remains of her fan dropped from her limp fingers. “Come with me.”

As much as she wanted to escape this room, she planted her feet.

“Come,” he said, his eyes softening.

No. Sophia would not allow herself to give in. She wanted to get away from this nightmare, but not on his orders. Not with him. All she wanted was to go home, where she could give in to her tears in the privacy of her room, as she had so often in the past.

And Julia—

A sob clawed its way to her throat. She wouldn’t even be allowed that small comfort. How could her sister console her? From now on whenever she closed her eyes, she would see nothing but Julia standing next to Ludlowe—in Sophia’s place.

Bowing her head, Sophia gave in and allowed him to lead her away from the crowded ballroom, vaguely aware of his muttered excuses to passing well-wishers. They were standing in the entrance to the Pendleton town house, Highgate ordering his carriage, before she came to her senses.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she grated.

“Taking you home.” His tone was unreadable. “You do not look at all well.”

She couldn’t go home and face the room she shared with her sister, but any other destination was unthinkable.
Even his squiring her, betrothed or no, was beyond the pale. Betrothed. Dear God, what had she let herself in for? “You cannot. It’s unseemly.”

“I am afraid, my dear, you have no choice in the matter. If it’s any comfort, I shan’t lay a finger on you.”

She took a step closer. “Do you not recall our agreement?” she asked, low, allowing her anger to resurface. “You will make it impossible to cry off with any hope of preserving my reputation.”

“Did you honestly think you’d come out of this with your reputation intact?”