More or Less a Temptress by Anna Bradley

Author:Anna Bradley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-07-18T00:17:30+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The Third Ball

Lord and Lady Hayhurst

Request Miss Hyacinth Somerset’s company

At a pleasure ball on Tuesday, February 10th

At 7:00 o’clock in the evening

33 Charles Street

Berkeley Square

“It’s insupportable you shouldn’t have danced at all tonight, Hyacinth. Every single gentleman in this ballroom should be horsewhipped.”

Isla flopped onto one of the tiny gilt chairs lined up on the side of the Hayhursts’ ballroom, but jumped up again at once, and turned around to glare at it. “My goodness. That’s the most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat on.”

Hyacinth sighed. It was even more uncomfortable if you’d been sitting on it all night, as she had. “Perhaps the chairs are Lady Hayhurst’s way of encouraging the young ladies to dance.”

Isla snorted. “Or to punish them for being wallflowers.”

Hyacinth glanced down the long row of chairs lined up along the wall, many of which held a glum-looking young lady. “One would think being a wallflower would be punishment enough. I don’t think any of us would choose to be here if we could help it.”

Isla plopped back down into the chair with a long sigh of her own. “No, I suppose not. These English gentlemen are easily intimidated, aren’t they? Why, if we were in Scotland, you wouldn’t be permitted to sit out a single dance, no matter what scandal followed you.”

That the scandal was following Hyacinth was now beyond question. If she’d held out any hope Lady Bagshot’s ball was an aberration, it was dashed the moment she set foot in Lord Hayhurst’s ballroom this evening. Aside from the sneers and whispers, the ton had made a great show of ignoring her.

But then someone must be punished for the scandal, mustn’t they? One couldn’t simply go about accusing innocent gentlemen of murder and face no consequences for it. Wasn’t there something, well…unseemly about that youngest Somerset girl’s hysterical swoon?

No, it simply wouldn’t do.

The ton was obliged to take someone to task for the debacle. It stood to reason it would be the Somerset chit. If Lord Huntington and Lord Dare weren’t in London to witness the girl’s disgrace, so much the better. One didn’t like to make an enemy of them—if one could avoid it—but the way was conveniently clear in that regard.

Hyacinth was still invited everywhere, but once she arrived, she was roundly shunned. Not just by Lady Joanna and her set, but by all of London.

She’d been a fool not to have seen at once how it would be. After all, all the signs were there. No one had spoken a word to her at Lady Lovell’s musical evening two nights ago, and she hadn’t been invited to play at bowls or shuttlecock with all the other young people at Lady Otis’s picnic yesterday.

It wasn’t until tonight, however, that she’d been made aware of the extent of her punishment.

Fully, painfully aware.

It might have been bearable if everyone had simply dismissed her, but she wasn’t even permitted to suffer her disgrace in private. Her skin was crawling from all the cold stares aimed in her direction, and her ears burning from the scathing comments whispered behind her back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.