That was her fault.

The Sausage’s fault.

7

From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the Fifth

I fear that in telling the next episode of my life, I may endanger the reputation of the sweetest and most virtuous lady to have come to my attention. I beg of you not to attempt to discover her name, no matter the temptation. I shall simply call her my darling Hippolyta. If she reads my poor offering, I would say to her what lies buried in my heart:

I have seen only you,

I have admired only you,

I desire only you.

J osie turned away, rather blindly, and walked straight through the crowd, heedless of anyone who might see her face without its rigid smile. That was a horrible, disgusting swine of a man. Without warning, Mayne loomed before her.

“Hello there,” he said, grinning at her. Then his face changed in a flash. “What’s the matter, Josie?”She swallowed hard and before she knew what was happening, Mayne was leading her out onto a marble terrace that lay white and shining in the light of the torches placed at its edges. He walked her to the broad balustrade that lined the terrace, turned her around and then stood directly in front of her so that no one could see the tears snaking down her face. “What happened?” he demanded.

The torches were throwing glinting lights onto Mayne’s tumble of black curls. His eyebrows were drawn into a perfectly straight scowl. “It was a horrid man,” Josie said, hiccupping ungracefully, although it didn’t matter because it was Mayne. “He said—He said—” But she couldn’t say what he said, because Mayne was so beautiful and it was all so humiliating.

He had a large white handkerchief in his hand. “Steady on,” he said, patting her cheeks dry. She tried to smile at him but her mouth wobbled. She turned away and leaned over to look at the borders below. The bushes were all in shadow.

“Who was it?” Mayne asked conversationally, but Josie heard the clash of steel in his voice.

“Is that sweetbrier or southernwood?” she asked. “It smells enchanting.”

“Josie.”

She turned back and shook her head. “I don’t know. Some acquaintance of Darlington’s.” She took the handkerchief from him and wiped her eyes again. Mayne was looking thoughtful, like a man who was about to pummel half the male population of London.

“What did he look like?”

“I hardly noticed. The room is poorly lit, and he is nondescript, really. It’s not that important,” she said shakily. “I know what they think of me. I know—” Her eyes filled with tears again and she groped for the handkerchief, forgetting she had it. It fell to the ground, and without thinking she bent to pick it up. And stopped with a small oof as her corset almost sliced her in half.

Mayne plucked it from the ground with an easy sweep. “What on earth?” he said, and then glanced about. “We’re far too public here.”

“Could we possibly leave the ball altogether?” Josie said. “I—I am not having a pleasant evening.” But then she remembered his fiancée. “Yet Sylvie will wonder where you are.”

Mayne’s whole face lit up when he smiled. “May I say how happy I am to hear you use her first name? And of course I shall take you away. Sylvie is, as I’m sure you recognized immediately, a singularly self-sufficient woman. She actually came to the ball with another party. My only fear is that she has little use for me at all, and she certainly won’t notice if I disappear.”

“That can’t be true,” Josie said. If Mayne were her fiancé—though the thought was inconceivable, because of course he was far too old—she would never let him out of her sight. The thought made her feel a little queer in the stomach, so she allowed Mayne to tuck her hand under his arm and concentrated on making her smile as rigid as her back.

They walked through the crowd at a leisurely pace. They were only stopped once, by Lady Lorkin, who put a thin hand on Mayne’s arm and crooned something to him.

She glanced once at Josie, but didn’t bother to greet her. Mayne bent toward her and she breathed something in his ear. Her eyes were bright and avid, like a child who sees a puppy running free on the lawn.

Mayne laughed a low, intimate kind of chuckle and murmured something. Then he gently removed Lady Lorkin’s hand from his sleeve and they walked on. After that Josie noticed the way women kept turning to look at Mayne, their eyes dancing over him in a manner that made her acutely aware of how prized he was. And yet Sylvie, who had won him, didn’t mind if he disappeared for a while. It was an odd fact of life, she had to suppose.

“We should find Griselda,” Mayne said, looking about. “After all, she is your chaperone and I must tell her that we are fleeing.”

“No!” Josie said, remembering suddenly that Griselda was presumably carrying out Sylvie’s order that she seduce Darlington. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Mayne said. “Isn’t my sister a good chaperone?”

“Of course she is. I simply wouldn’t wish to bother her,” Josie said weakly.

“There’s a great deal that I do not understand about you, Miss Josephine Essex,” Mayne said. “I suppose I can send her a note. A young lady should not trot away from a ball without informing her chaperone, you know. The chaperone might well assume the worst.”

“Not if I’m with you,” Josie pointed out.

“While your confidence in me is touching, I can assure you that there is many a mama in the room who would not wish her daughter to gallivant out of a ball by my side.”

“Don’t be foolish, Mayne. I’m the woman least able to be compromised at this ball.”

He raised an eyebrow but scratched a note on his card and told a footman to give it to Griselda. “Where would you like to go?” he asked once they were seated in his carriage. It was a gorgeous little vehicle, a dark glossy red picked out with his coat of arms on the door.

“Anywhere.”

Mayne was eyeing her in a peculiar way. “It would be thoroughly improper, but—”

“No one will believe I’m doing anything improper.” She said it flatly, because it was true.

“In that case,” Mayne said with a wolfish grin, “welcome to my parlor, young lady.” He rapped on the roof, shouting “Home, Wiggles!”

“Wiggles?” Josie said, feeling better the moment the carriage started to move away from the ball. “Wiggles?”

Mayne grinned at her. “Presumably the son of Papa Wiggles…one day the proud father of William Wiggles, Wilfred Wiggles, and perhaps even a Wilhelmina Wiggles.”

Josie smiled back, rather wanly. “Your house?” she asked. “Do you live in this vicinity?”

“All of two blocks away,” Mayne said, and even as he spoke the carriage slowed. “You will be unchaperoned, but I assure you that my house is absolutely awash with servants.”

“More to the point, you’re in love with Sylvie,” Josie said.

“That fact will likely curb any fiendish plans I have for your ravishment,” Mayne agreed.

She scowled at him. “Don’t you dare make fun of me, Garret Langham.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

She stared at him a moment, eyes narrowed, but his face looked genuinely surprised. “I know that I am not to anyone’s taste when it comes to ravishment. There is no possible way anyone would ever think that you had such plans—you, the man who has slept with every beautiful woman in London—so we can dispense with worries about my reputation.”