Sixteen Scandals by Sophie Jordan

Author:Sophie Jordan [Jordan, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358469490
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2021-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Spots on a lady’s face announce that she has no care for her complexion. Society might then wonder what else she holds in so little regard.

—Lady Druthers’s Guide to Perfect Deportment and Etiquette

Why must one’s outer beauty matter so much more than one’s mind and heart?

Chapter Eight

They passed through the building’s double doors and plunged into the darker interior that smelled overwhelmingly of body odor, cologne . . . and a horse’s stall? Animal musk and waste. She remembered them from the one time she had visited the countryside.

A few years ago, she and Aster had accompanied Papa to call on an old friend in Kent. The two men had ensconced themselves in the library with their brandy whilst she and Aster explored the farm. Of course they had found their way to the barn, where a stable lad had shown them a tabby cat and her litter of newborn kittens.

Aster discovered she was allergic to cats on that day. Red splotches erupted on her skin, and her eyes almost swelled shut. But Prim had settled onto a comfortable spot among the hay, petting kittens, with the tang of animal musk, the stink of manure, and the aroma of loamy earth filling her nostrils.

She recalled that day, that moment, so precisely because she remembered thinking country living might agree with her. She might be considered a Londoner, but she had reveled in the brief taste of her father’s youth.

She had wished to no avail that Papa had never sold his family estate, so that she could have lived in Kent. She would have had the vast countryside to roam and explore instead of being left on her own in their cramped town house so often.

Perhaps that memory reassured her, stirring something inside her while also comforting her as she and Jacob entered the building, bodies pressing on every side of them. She did not think she had ever been in such close confines with so many people before.

It grew only more crowded the farther they advanced up the narrow ramp. At the top of the incline, they came to a stop and peered down at a circular pit below. A pole was staked at the center of it, the dirt around it stained in what she could only surmise to be blood.

She looked up and observed the raised arena surrounding the pit. The rotunda was already full to the brim with people seated on tiered benches. Eagerness hummed in the air. She could taste it, along with something else. A sour bitterness, like metal in her mouth.

It wasn’t pleasant and it gave her pause.

Someone bumped into them from behind, jolting Prim forward.

“Move along, would ye?” a voice snapped.

Jacob clasped her elbow and ushered her out of the way, casting a glare at the offending gentleman.

The lady at the man’s side tittered, slapping his arm lightly with her swinging reticule. “Have pity. The lass looks a bit green,” she said loud enough for Primrose to hear.

The man who bumped her cast

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