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Chapter Sixteen
The house at 48 Berkeley Square was in utter chaos when Perdie arrived the day after the ball. Her reticule swung from her wrist, heavier than the slip of paper she tucked into it warranted. The paper was a note that had been sent along with a single blue iris from Thaddeus. It was simple. No flowery bits of insincere poetry. Only a single line: I’m still thinking of our dance last night.
So was she. And so, as it turned out, were the other ladies at the club.
Perdie froze in the entryway as the ladies descended en masse. There were six of them here at the club despite the early hour. Perdie had taken Felicity and left her townhouse as soon as the flowers from Thaddeus had arrived. Seeing them—reading his note to her—had made her feel effervescent. She knew that flutter in her belly, and she didn’t trust it. She didn’t want to have to confront her family’s questions or even Felicity’s teasing on the matter. Felicity was the only one of them all who knew the truth. As far as her mother was concerned, she and Thaddeus had met last night at the ball.
Lady Elizabeth was first to reach her elbow, waving a scandal rag like a flag of war. “Have you read the broadsheet? You’re in the gossip column!”
Shock jolted through her. Perdie tried not to groan. She was the sister of a duke, and that meant it was not uncommon for a lady with her status to find her way into the pages of a scandal rag. However, this was the first she had made it there. “What are they saying?”
Lady Elizabeth’s eyes shone with delight. “If it was true that you were the only woman the Earl of Sherburn danced with last night at his introduction ball, then yes, every word of it is true.”
Perdie couldn’t help herself. She snatched the scandal sheet from her friend’s hand and searched the columns until she found her name.
Or the semblance of it. Those who wrote the gossip columns were discreet enough not to list the full names of the parties, only alluded to them. Everyone in the ton could deduce the identities from the pieces of information the authors let slip.
Only days after the news of her broken engagement reached us, Lady P—has made a new conquest in the new Earl of S—. Confidential sources inform that on the night of his introduction, he had eyes for no one but her. Do we hear wedding bells in the future? Or will she break another besotted heart?
Perdie dropped the broadsheet like it was on fire. Felicity lunged to pick it up, her lips parting in pretend shock. “He had eyes only for you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Perdie glared at her. Felicity’s rosy cheeks and wide smile betrayed that she was only teasing.
Last night the look in his eyes had hurt Perdie. Perdie had turned their situation around in her thoughts. What if she had awoken alone, after their most incredible time together, and found him gone without a farewell?
The pain of it perhaps would have cleaved her in two. The mortification would have burned her cheeks bright.
He might have felt differently, but it was inescapable that Perdie had wounded him by leaving after they’d made love. As if she thought so little of him and his marriage proposal.
The vulnerability Thaddeus showed in that emotion had lulled her to relax with him, the way she had while they were travelling along the road together. Dancing with him, being enveloped in his arms again, had brought the memories of their night together rushing back.
Last night, their dance had been chaste in comparison, but somehow it had been laden with no less longing. Had they been alone, she would have run her fingers over his jaw to see if it was as smooth as it had looked. Had they been alone, she would have untangled his hair from that queue and let it fall freely to his shoulders again. But they hadn’t been alone, and as far as anybody in the ton needed to know, it was the first they had met.
“It’s an exaggeration. I danced one set with him.”
Lady Prue elbowed her way in between two other ladies to latch on to Perdie’s other arm. She was beaming. “I was there, my dear, and the scandal rag doesn’t lie. Even when you were not dancing, his gaze continually fell back to you.”
She led Perdie into the customary drawing room, where Perdie added her shoes and bonnet to the pile in the corner. Lady Prue tugged her onto the settee like she was a queen holding court. “No other woman in that room could entice him to dance, let alone remember their names. As far as that man was concerned, the ball was held solely to introduce him to you.”
In a way, Perdie supposed it had been. It had been the first time that they had shucked the armor of their anonymity and introduced themselves as they were. Peers. Equals. And with a more complicated relationship than Perdie would care to admit.
“The earl seemed really taken with you,” Prue said softly. There was curiosity in her eyes and a knowledge that set Perdie’s heart in her throat. Surely no one had guessed the truth of the matter.
Lady Judith pouted as she took a seat on the floor and crossed her legs. “You told him of the wager, didn’t you?”
Perdie waved a hand in casual dismissal. “I did not. And even if I had, I would already have won. The wager was for his first dance.”
As if Perdie had said not a word, Lady Judith continued to pout. “Nothing I said to him could entice him to dance. There were even ladies sitting down during several of the dances. The scandal rag ought to have considered that. It was rude of him not to offer to stand up with anyone else.”
Perdie silently sighed.
What did she expect Perdie to do to rectify the matter? Perhaps Lady Judith would only be appeased if Perdie sent Thaddeus a harshly worded letter repudiating his behavior.
She suppressed a smile as Felicity said, “I hear he hails from Scotland.”
Lady Judith sighed and leaned back on her hands. “That explains it.”
“What does it explain?”
