Page 87 of The Paid Companion

“My family was in desperate straits the year I turned eighteen. I had three sisters and two brothers as well as my mother and grandmother to consider. My father had died, leaving very little. Contracting a successful marriage was our only hope. My grandmother scraped together the money required to give me a single Season. I met Harold Lancaster at my very first ball. His offer was accepted immediately, of course.”

“And you did what you had to do for the sake of your family.”

“He was a good man,” Margaret said quietly. “And I came to care for him in time. The greatest difficulty was the difference in our ages. Harold was twenty-five years my senior. We had very little in common, as you can imagine. I had hoped to take comfort in my children, but we were not blessed with any.”

“What a sad tale.”

“But a very familiar one.” Margaret nodded toward the couples on the dance floor. “I expect there will be many similar stories repeated this Season.”

“No doubt.”

And the result would be any number of cold, loveless alliances, Elenora thought. She wondered if, in the end, Arthur would be obliged to make such a marriage. He had no choice but to wed, after all, whether or not he found a woman he could love with all the passion that was locked inside him. In the end, he would do his duty by the title and the family, regardless of his own feelings.

“I must say, you are right about this crowd,” Margaret said, fanning herself briskly. “It really is quite a crush tonight. It will take ages for Bennett to get back to us with the lemonade. We shall likely perish of thirst before he returns.”

The throng parted briefly. Elenora spotted the elaborately curled, old-fashioned powdered wig that was part of the livery worn by their host’s footmen.

“There is a servant over there by the door,” she said, standing on tiptoe to get a better view. “Maybe we can catch his eye.”

“For all the good it will do,” Margaret muttered. “This lot will have emptied his tray before he gets anywhere near us.”

“Stay here so that Bennett will find you when he returns.” Elenora turned to pursue the rapidly disappearing footman. “I’ll see if I can catch up with that servant before he runs out of lemonade.”

“Be careful you don’t get trampled underfoot.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

With a few polite murmurs, Elenora slipped through a cluster of middle-aged ladies and made her way as quickly as possible toward the spot where she had last seen the footman.

She was only a few paces away when she felt the brush of gloved fingers on the skin of her bare back, just beneath the vulnerable nape of her neck.

An icy chill flashed down her spine. She suddenly could not breathe.

Just an accidental touch, she assured herself; the sort that could occur so easily when so many people were crowded together. Or perhaps one of the gentlemen had seized the opportunity presented by the tight quarters to take liberties.

Nothing personal.

But it was all she could do not to shriek out loud. Because her intuition told her that the touch of those gloved fingers drifting intimately across her naked skin had been very personal indeed.

It can’t be, she thought. Not here. He would not dare. Cold terror prickled her skin in spite of the heat. Surely she was mistaken.

But the villain had come to her the last time in the middle of a crowded ballroom, she reminded herself.

Whatever she did, she must not give any sign that she was aware that he was near.

Forcing herself to stay calm, she turned slowly on her heel, trying to appear casual. She unfurled her fan with a flip of her wrist and used it to cool herself while she searched the crowd.

There were several gentlemen nearby, but none of them stood close enough to have touched her.

Then she saw the footman; not the one she had been pursuing, she realized, but a different man.

He had his back to her, striding swiftly away through the throng of chatting, laughing guests. All she could see was the collar of his green-and-silver jacket and the back of his powdered and curled wig beneath his hat. But there was something disturbingly familiar about the way he moved.

She plunged into the crowd, trying to keep the footman in sight.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled to the people she forced out of her way. “Beg your pardon. So sorry about your lemonade, madam. Did not mean to tread on your toe, sir...”

Eventually she reached the fringes of the crowd and came to a halt. There was no sign of the footman, but she saw at once that the doors that stood open onto the gardens provided the only exit on this side of the ballroom.

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