The Hellion is Tamed by Tracy Sumner

Author:Tracy Sumner [Sumner, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: tracy sumner

Chapter 10

She was going to apologize.

To Simon. For the trip to the past she’d taken with Mollie.

Emma gave the ivory fan she held a punishing rap against her thigh, recalling how much she hated apologizing. Although it appeared they’d saved Mollie’s sister from ruin. Except for meeting up with the tracer and coming back bloodied and unconscious, the adventure had worked. A successful endeavor.

Like a canny wager at Simon’s gaming hell.

She would remind him of that after the apology.

Emma stalked the fringe of the duke’s ballroom in search of the veranda doors she’d seen Simon slip through minutes earlier, this quest leading her in the opposite direction of the retiring parlor she’d said she needed to visit to repair a hem that wasn’t damaged. The baron whose dance she’d rejected had offered to fetch her an ice sherbet, lingering in the event she had another open slot on her dance card. His determination stunned her when perhaps, it shouldn’t. Society had accepted the falsehood about her being a duke’s cousin, accepted her wobbly accent, her sudden appearance in their ranks, her hesitancy to provide details about her background, simply because the Duke and Duchess of Ashcroft demanded it.

Because they’d created a false history for her. Shy, retiring, Emmaline Breslin. Which she was not and never would be.

Even now, the ton’s gazes clung to her, interested, too interested, the men appreciative, the women speculative. She felt exposed and uncertain, sure she was a misstep away from disaster despite looking like she belonged. Her gown was a glorious pewter confection, a color Madame Hebert claimed no one else would dare wear. And she was right.

Ignoring the impulse to fidget, tug her suede gloves high on her arms or twirl her dance card, Emma nodded and smiled, hoping she looked demure, not determined, and continued on her way. She was following instinct, the moment of serenity at seeing Simon Alexander stroll down the ballroom staircase guiding her like a tug to her hand. With every man dressed in black, Simon’s navy coat set him apart like a chrysanthemum in a field of weeds, his height making it impossible to ignore him as he’d moved through the crowd. Accepted, even as the byblow of a viscount, because the duke and duchess required he be.

Same as her.

She wondered what years of living a lie had done to the rookery scoundrel Simon had claimed to be. Had it tangled him up until he didn’t recognize himself? This experience was changing her in ways she wasn’t sure she liked. Altering the person reflected in the cheval mirror in her lavish bedchamber.

Now, a cultured voice rolled from her lips, her extravagant gown—she smoothed her hand down her bodice—costing more than all the clothing she’d owned in her past life.

The chandelier’s radiance, a gaslight glory that still astounded, winked off her silver slippers as she lifted her skirt and stepped through the doorway and onto the veranda. The footman guarding her followed, but not too closely. Drawing a hydrangea-and-lilac

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