Unveiled by Courtney Milan

Author:Courtney Milan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance.Historical
ISBN: 9780373775439
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

This was what happened when he used his brother as a shield. He ought to have met her alone and convinced her to take port with him. Now, instead of getting pleasantly drunk and snuggly, Miss Lowell was lecturing him on the construction of ball gowns. He must have lost his mind. He’d certainly lost his touch.

“Yes,” he said in a dry tone of voice. “I know how ball gowns are made. They are made of fabric.”

She snorted. “And?”

“Thread? Ribbons? Buttons?”

She simply looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Whalebone? Metal? No, wait—now I see. They are composed of lead, and are purposely made heavy, to force women to walk in a slow and elegant fashion.”

She still didn’t laugh. “They are sewn in place. That means there is no way to remove one once the ball has begun. Once it is on, it stays on for the entire evening. Think about what that means. One cannot simply relieve oneself at the drop of one’s breeches. One cannot, in fact, use the necessary at all. So before a ball, ladies do not drink or eat anything. Not for hours. During a ball, one can only wet one’s lips.”

He glanced at her. “Really?”

Somehow, that tone of disbelief made her blush, too. “Indeed. I’ve heard the maids talk about it. Eight hours on an empty stomach, whirling about, clad in seven petticoats. You would topple over, too.”

“I had no idea society ballrooms were so barbarous.” He said it with a smile, but still Margaret didn’t return the expression.

“No doubt,” she said with a lift of her chin, “you would think me a poor creature, too, if you swathed me up in layers of silk and withheld all water, just to see what would happen. I daresay I wouldn’t last the evening. Think, Mr. Turner, before you speak. If you rely on rumor, you will never understand.”

“You wouldn’t collapse.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

He stood up, taking a step towards her. “You don’t comprehend what I mean, Margaret. You’re stronger than that. You’d reach deep down into yourself—just as you’re doing now—and you would look the possibility in the face and tell it to go to the devil. Yes, just as you’re doing with me, at this moment. Some people crumble when they’re dealt a blow. You might stagger a bit, I suppose. But you? You would never collapse.”

“I wish I could hate you,” she said passionately.

“Yes,” he remarked. “It would be more convenient for you. Sadly, you’ve found it quite impossible.”

She stared at him. The corner of her lip twitched—not quite a smile, but the shadow of one.

“When he’s like this, Miss Lowell,” Mark offered from his seat on the sofa, “I usually take it upon myself to stamp out in a rage. It’s impossible to argue with him, once he starts asserting his correctness as a matter of unarguable certainty. And if you stay, he’ll turn your thoughts around until you don’t know right from wrong. Take it from me. Ash is both perfectly right, and horridly wrong.

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