Page 39 of Sinful Persuasion of a Lady in the Making
She had forgotten all about that—hadn’t even noticed she had lost it. She felt a stab of guilt. Luke had worked so hard for all the lovely things they now had, and she had lost her shawl without a moment’s thought. It was so unlike her, too.
“And where is he now?” Jenny asked. “Has he gone to visit me to return it?”
Lady Diana scoffed. “He has some ridiculous notion to return it to you, yes, but first he had to retrieve it.”
“Retrieve it?” Jenny asked, her brow creased.
“Is it a habit of yours to repeat everything that is said to you?” Lady Diana asked. “Perhaps it’s a lower-class thing. No matter. He left it at the brothel last night, where he went after meeting you at the ball.”
“The brothel?” Jenny asked, taking a step back.
“There you go again! Yes, the brothel. That’s what I said.”
“But… what was he doing there?” Jenny asked, searching the floor for answers.
Lady Diana scoffed again, this time turning it in a piercing laugh that was more aimedatJenny than with her. Jenny felt an instant anger rise within her, furious at both Lord Hartwood for his actions and at Lady Diana for her rudeness.
“What is so funny?” she demanded.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Jones,” Lady Diana said, making her fallacious apology sound almost genuine. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable, but I would have thought that someone like you,” she pointed slowly at Jenny, eyes wide with excitement, “would understand exactly what goes on in a brothel.”
Jenny’s cheeks flushed an angry red, thanks more to rage than embarrassment, and she turned and fled the room to the ringing of Lady Diana’s cackling laughter before doing anything reckless.
She had no idea what to think—that Lord Hartwood was the man everyone said he was? That Lady Diana was a wicked sort? That there was some sort of reasonable explanation to it all?
She climbed into the carriage, the thudding of her heart reduced to a thick undercurrent of unease, and she bit of the skin on her lip.
Perhaps the rumors about him are true, after all.
