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“What’s the matter, dear? Don’t you like your Edward’s costume?”
    “Oh, God, it’s monstrous!” Lily whispered, aghast. “Oh,
why
didn’t he ask me first? What do you suppose he is?”
    “The Minotaur, obviously.”
    “Ugh, yes, so it would seem.” Lily blanched, took a large gulp of champagne, and braced herself to go and greet her suitor. Clearly, if she married this man, she’d have her work cut out for her.
    She couldn’t help staring at Edward as she and Mrs. Clearwell approached.
    Ed Lundy’s costume as the legendary Minotaur was apt. Perhaps a little too apt. He already possessed the monster’s hulking size and thick, bull-like neck all on his own, but between the wide, gleaming horns that bracketed the sides of his painted head and the makeshift brass ring that he wore in his nose, the likeness was slightly terrifying.
    He had not yet seen her as he loomed ahead, half-man, half-bull—or possibly half-mountain. He swigged a gulp from his tankard of ale and made half an effort to suppress his loud burp as the ladies joined him. Lily struggled to hide her revulsion, but Mrs. Clearwell failed.
    Edward bowed to them, offering a few gruff niceties, and Lily refused to be daunted. So what if he was a bit vulgar at times? After her mother’s oppressive propriety, a part of her reveled in the big ex-soldier’s unapologetic crudity. Besides, there would be time to work on his manners after they were wed.
    To be sure, big, boorish Edward would never have been fine enough for her mother, but he suited Lily’s purposes extremely well. Having started near the bottom of the East India Company’s private armies, years ago near Bombay, he had saved the life of visiting British dignitary Lord Fallow in the midst of a bloody raid by Pindari bandits.
    After Edward saved him from certain torture and death, Lord Fallow had repaid Edward’s act of courage by helping him to advance in life through his steady patronage, and over the course of twenty years he had ascended into the highest ranks of the East India Company. But although he had grown rich in the process, Edward still found himself rejected by most of Society on account of his low birth.
    Well, Lord Fallow had no intention of seeing his favorite shut out. Upon his recent retirement from public life, the earl had pushed through Edward’s appointment to some important parliamentary committee so powerful that now everyone had to accept him.
    He had been thrust into Society but now that he was in, God knew he needed all the help he could get to show him how to go about. What better ally could he hope for, Lily reasoned, than a bride whose aristocratic lineage was sufficient to impress the most arrogant nobs of London?
    Of course, the ton would think that she was throwing herself away on Edward Lundy, but Lily had secrets to hide, and with her great family sliding into financial decline, to her it seemed a match made in Heaven.
    Edward had money and Lily had class. He wasn’t stupid, but he was very rich, and as a lowborn man on the rise, he needed a pedigreed bride, just as she needed him—a fair exchange. Because of that Lily found herself able to trust him—at least more than she could have trusted the silky, highborn rakehells who trawled the ballrooms of London looking for young ladies to corrupt.
    Experience had taught her all too well to despise such men. Edward might be lowborn, but he treated Lily like a jewel, or like some sort of fragile porcelain figurine. Perhaps just a little in awe of her because of her loftier status and the aura of cool dignity that her mother had ingrained in her so well, he kept a reverent and respectful distance, and this pleased Lily very well. He did not touch her, and she did not want to be touched.
    As he complimented her on the sparkly pink gown that was part of her fairy-queen costume, Lily noticed the knot of guests nearby casting haughty looks in their direction.
    Edward followed her glance and took note,