“I think you’ll agree that we’re about as distant as relations could be, Lady Henrietta.” His tone said the opposite. There’d been precious little distance between them not more than a quarter hour earlier.
“Good evening, Mr. Ellis,” she said sharply, taking her father’s arm. “Please show yourself out, since you arrived unannounced and uninvited.”
“Good evening, Lady Henrietta.” He bowed, his eyes flashing silver in the gloom. “I look forward to our next meeting.”
“As do I,” the duke enthused. “Bring some of that Glenlivet, will you?”
“Indeed, Your Grace. A bottle of aged Scotch whisky is one of life’s great pleasures.”
“A truer word was never spoke, m’boy.”
Hetty hauled her father away before he bonded any further with his new best friend.
It had been no accident that Mr. Ellis had repeated his line about life’s great pleasures.
He’d been reminding her of their waltz. And of their midnight kiss.
Reminding her who was in control.
And that’s when the full enormity of her folly pierced her like arrows raining down from a battlement.
Instead of courting the edges of danger, indulging in a manageable little thrill . . . she’d flung herself from the cliffs of doom.
Why? Why had she done it? This was a nightmare.
It was because she was wearing the gown she’d worn at her debut. She’d become seventeen-year-old Hetty again. Foolish and naive.
So very foolish. She’d deviated from the plan, the schedule, her duties, and her dreams.
She’d kissed The Devil’s Own Scoundrel. A ruthless gambler who’d set his sights on her father’s title.
And, make no mistake, there’d be hell to pay.
Chapter Four
A few hours later, Hetty and Viola sat together on a heap of cushions and bedding, garbed in cotton nightgowns with their hair loosely braided.
“You kissed whom?” Viola asked, her eyes wide with shock.
“The man I waltzed with. Ash Ellis. The Devil’s Own Scoundrel.” Hetty hugged a pillow to her chest. “I didn’t know it was him.”
“But what were you doing kissing anyone?”
“I don’t know.” Hetty groaned. “It’s difficult to explain. I hadn’t been to a ball in seven years—not since my debut—and I was having all of these memories of what it had felt like to be seventeen and to dream of moonlit kisses from handsome rakes. Do you remember what that was like, Viola?”
“I never had a debut. My father couldn’t afford one.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot.”
Viola shrugged. “That’s all right. I never wanted a debut. I would only be a wallflower with such poor prospects. But tell me more. I wondered why you disappeared for so long. How did it happen?”
“I danced with Mr. Ellis, and he was so confident and commanding, and I forgot myself. Or maybe I was trying to find some lost part of myself? We were on the balcony. There was the scent of roses. He’s sinfully handsome, but that’s no excuse, is it? I made a mistake. An enormous, irreparable mistake.”
Viola clasped Hetty’s hand. “He’s the devil who ruined Westbury—took his fortune at the gaming tables. Left him with nothing. And now his poor sisters have no prospects.”
“I honestly didn’t know it was him. I thought he was a nephew or a cousin of one of the guests I invited to the ball.”
“He didn’t . . . force himself upon you? If he did, I’ll strangle him with my bare hands,” Viola said fiercely.
Hetty smiled to think of the petite and peace-loving Viola strangling a dangerous beast like Mr. Ellis. “No, he didn’t force me to do anything. In fact . . .” She took a deep breath. Viola was one of her best friends. She could reveal the extent of her error. “I kissed him.”
Viola’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, Hetty. You didn’t.”
“I did. And that’s not even the worst of it!”
“There’s more?”
“My father saw us kissing, but I think he was misled into believing that we were only talking.”
“Your father saw you—oh, Hetty. You could have been ruined. You could have had to marry that . . . that fiend!”
“It gets even worse.” She covered her face with the pillow. “It all went wrong.”
Viola tugged softly on Hetty’s braid. “I can barely hear you through that pillow. What went wrong?”
“After our kiss, Mr. Ellis claimed to me and my father that he was the distant and long-lost heir to the dukedom of Granville.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did.”
“And what did your father have to say about that?”
“He was overjoyed. ‘It’s a midnight miracle,’ he said. ‘I’m saved! I don’t have to marry.’”
“Your poor father. He really doesn’t relish the idea of taking another wife.”
“He’s dead-set against it, and now Mr. Ellis has given him false hope.”
“You believe him to be a pretender?”
“What other explanation could there be? He’s a ruthless, fortune-hunting scoundrel. He wants to own Rosehill Park. He wants to own me.” Hetty clenched her hands into fists. “I’ll never let that happen. I’ll fight him tooth and nail.”
“Who is he claiming to be?”
“A descendent of the Honorable Ashbrook Prince, a distant relation from a junior line of the family. He’d be my seventh cousin. One would have to trace his ancestry back to the sixteenth century to find any connection, and it all hinges on a secret marriage to a scullery maid. It’s preposterous.”
“Did he present any proof of his claim?”
“He said he’d send it to my father’s solicitor tomorrow.” Hetty set the pillow aside. “I’m certainly not going to wait around for that crooked Mr. Higginbottom to decide the fate of my family. I’ll conduct an investigation of my own.”
“We’ll call an emergency meeting of the Boadicea Club,” said Viola. “The ladies will know what to do.”
“He’s a common trickster, an obvious imposter. The whole situation is unbelievable. And untenable. And I have to stop him. Wait.” She grabbed her friend’s hand. “I just had an idea.”
“What is it?”
“What does a gambler desire?”
“Why, a fortune, of course.”
Hetty leaped off the sofa and ran to her dressing table. She opened a drawer and pulled out her jewelry box. “I have a fortune in jewels, Viola.” Hetty began stuffing jewelry into a velvet reticule.
Only a few days ago, she’d been kneeling to examine the grapes, inspecting them for insects and mold, wearing her old gray gown with her hair tied up under an enormous straw bonnet. Now she was contemplating desperate acts of bribery to stop wicked scoundrels from stealing those vineyards away.
She would do whatever it took to make Mr. Ellis disappear from their lives. And then her father would select a new bride and sire an heir. And Hetty could return to the plan, set her life back on course.