The Whitmorelands Books 3-4 (EBOOKS)

London, Spring 1814, The Shillinghams’ Crowded Ball Room

Lady Jessica Whitmoreland had been waiting for this moment all Season. She’d begun to give up hope it would ever happen. She’d started to doubt the plan she’d laid out in careful detail at the start of her debut Season. But it was finally happening and now everything would be perfect. After all, it wasn’t every day that a young woman meets the man she will marry.

“My dear,” Lady Shillingham said in her high-pitched trill, feathers bobbing in her coiffure as she escorted Jessica across the ballroom to the Duke of Thornbury’s circle. “I shall be delighted to introduce you to His Grace.”

The duke stood with his back to them. Jessica’s belly flipped as she drew nearer. He was tall and his wide shoulders filled out the fine black coat he wore. His dark hair was longish, brushing his white collar. Jessica’s throat went dry. She’d only ever seen him from a distance, though she’d nearly managed to garner an introduction last month at Vauxhall Gardens before he’d disappeared into the night. And there’d been that near miss at Hyde Park a fortnight ago, but her dratted horse had thrown a shoe at the exact moment she’d convinced her brother Justin to present her to the duke. But her depressing streak of missed opportunities—an entire Season’s worth—ended tonight!

A thrill shot through her. In her entire rule-following, do-precisely-as-she-was-told life, Jessica had never felt such anticipation. This was what she’d been born to do, after all. Have her debut, be mannerly, behave exquisitely, and land The Uncatchable Catch.

Thornbury was the catch of the century. She’d selected him for precisely that reason. And now it would all go perfectly to plan. It had to. Everything Jessa did went perfectly to plan. And not by chance. Quite a lot of arduous work went into seeing to it, after all. It wasn’t wishing. It was orchestrated. That’s how things got done, with a firm grip controlling every single detail.

The trouble was, when she’d made her plan at the start of the Season, she hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to meet the blasted man. It was well known that he rarely attended ton events. Jessica, however, had never dreamed “rarely” actually meant “never.”

She’d started to doubt herself. To wonder if she’d made a mistake by hinging all her hopes on Thornbury. But when she’d heard he would attend this evening, everything had fallen into place. Which is why Jessica had presented herself to her hostess nearly the moment she’d arrived at the ball this evening and asked that esteemed lady if she would do the honors of introducing her to the elusive duke.

Lady Shillingham had been only too agreeable, and here they were, standing directly behind the man himself. Jessica ran a trembling hand over her coiffure and down the front of her exquisitely sewn light-pink gown. She’d chosen this particular dress for its demure neckline, subtle color, and fine quality. A duke looking for his duchess would notice such details. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, pasting what she hoped was a winning smile on her face. Not an overly familiar smile, but an adequately affable one. After all, she and the duke would tell their children and grandchildren about this moment for decades to come. It had to be perfect.

She wasn’t entirely confident. Far from it. In fact, she had the urge to turn and flee. She had absolutely no reason to believe the duke would choose her out of the scores of debutantes who flung themselves at him wherever he went. But she had been fortunate enough to be named the belle of the Season. Her reputation: above reproach. Her poise and manners: impeccable. Her family name: unassailable. And she had high hopes that all her hard work would pay off. Besides that, when out in Society, she’d made it a habit to pretend to be confident, and she’d found that it worked in nearly every circumstance when real confidence was lacking. And it nearly always was. Tonight, she needed that false bravado more than ever.

“Your Grace,” Lady Shillingham warbled. “May I have a moment of your time? I would like to introduce—”

“Who?” a deep male voice intoned.

Lady Shillingham’s words were cut off as the man in question spun on his heel to face them.

Jessica noted several things about the Duke of Thornbury at once. First, the man had startling blue eyes, the kind of blue with green circling the iris. Ever so arresting. Second, he was handsome, the kind of handsome that caused one to stare and one’s mouth to go dry. Most disconcerting. Third, the look on his face was a mixture of annoyance and arrogance. Oh, dear. Finally, the man was glaring at her as if she were the most bothersome creature on earth. Clearly, he could not care any less about making her acquaintance. Distressing and…rude.

If there was one thing Jessica Whitmoreland couldn’t countenance, it was poor manners. There was no excuse for them.

Jessica swallowed hard and stared back at the duke, raising her chin.

Condescension seemed to pour from him as he pinned her with his cerulean eyes and arched a dark brow. His possessing gaze raked her up and down in a haughty manner that made her feel as if he was imagining what she looked like without her clothing. She took a step back and narrowed her eyes at him.

She’d heard Thornbury was a trifle arrogant but had dismissed it as idle gossip from those jealous of his vaunted title. After all, her grandfather and her beloved brother-in-law Sebastian were dukes and excellent men with both kindness and elegant manners.

This duke, it would seem, possessed neither.

After completing his frank assessment, this duke raised his champagne flute to his lips, took a long draught, and said simply in a loud, deep voice that was every bit as condescending as his demeanor. “Another debutante? Sent my way via my mother, no doubt, eh, Lady Shillingham?”

If Jessica’s impeccable manners weren’t second nature at this point, her mouth would have fallen open. Never in her life had she been treated with such immediate insolence and disregard. And duke or no, she would not stand for it. She was just about to turn and leave when His Grace deigned to speak again.

He scoured her with his assessing gaze. “I admit you’re particularly pretty, but save your time, sweetheart. I can smell a lady looking to be a duchess from across London. Though you are a tempting morsel, I daresay.” He stepped forward, leaned down, and whispered in her ear. “And one with absolutely delectable…breasts.” And then the man had the unmitigated gall to reach out and trace the line of her bodice along the top of her décolletage with his finger.

The group of similarly smug-looking people he was standing with all laughed uproariously.

Jessica’s face heated. Humiliation bloomed in her chest. And then she did something she never would have guessed she was capable of. She grabbed the duke’s finger and clasped it tight in her fist. Her jaw clenched. “Touch me ever again, and I’ll break your finger.”

His eyes flared and registered the slightest hint of surprise before he narrowed them on her. “What did you say to me?”

“You heard me,” Jessica shot back, her nostrils flaring.

She let go of his finger, and he pulled his hand away. A half-smile quirked his arrogant lips. He kept his gaze on Jessica, but his words were addressed to his hostess. “Lady Shillingham, you should teach your charge here some manners.”

Anger. Sheer white-hot anger shot through Jessica’s brain, making her vision blur. He was accusing her of being unmannerly? Oh, that was it! The anger, some of it self-directed as her plans crashed down around her, caused her to rip the white kid glove from her right hand and deliver a slap to the duke’s conceited face without taking a moment to think of the consequences. A slap so loud it had to have been heard across the ballroom.

“Lady Shillingham,” she announced in as loud a voice as she could muster, “I never would have asked for an introduction had I known how arrogant, rude, and unbecoming the duke is. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

She met his gaze briefly, taking a moment’s pleasure in his wide-eyed astonishment. She didn’t wait for his retort, however. Instead, she turned, head held high, and stalked away from the odious man in search of her mother and siblings.

Gasps and whispers spread quickly through the ballroom as she marched. Her heart thumped in her chest. Her breathing came hard through her nostrils. What had she done? What had she done? The gossip would have to be considered at another time, however. A time in which she was not in imminent danger of crying. At the moment, all her dreams were crumbling to dust in her mind’s eye, and she was certain she would cast up her accounts at any moment.

And that was how the most wonderful moment of Jessica’s life, the moment that had been filled with the hope of an eighteen-year-old with an overly sunny disposition, the moment she’d spent years planning for, the moment she’d dreamed about, written about, and imagined a hundred times, turned into the worst moment of her life in a few short minutes.

A mixture of anger and disappointment consumed her. The man she’d wasted an entire Season waiting to meet was an absolute scoundrel. The man she’d been convinced she would fall in love with and marry was an arrogant horse’s ass devoid of all manners. The Duke of Thornbury wasn’t her dream suitor. He was a supercilious lout, and she wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man left in London.