Read Wanted: One Scoundrel for Free Online

ball was to be held, was too long for them to contemplate undertaking it at night in full evening regalia, so the hotel made a useful staging post. Uncle Henry had protested, then agreed to escort Esme. He waited downstairs.
    “Necklace.” Maud held it out.
    Esme turned and allowed the heavy array of sapphires to be fastened. She screwed the matching sapphire earrings to her ears and grimaced.
    “I swear, Esme, if you take them off, I’ll take a slipper to your backside,” Maud said. “You listen to Jane.”
    “Bullies. I’m surrounded by bullies.” Esme smiled. “And I appreciate you both. I bow to your judgment.” She curtsied instead. “And I guess I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”
    “Excellent.” Jane jumped up from the chair in which she’d collapsed, exhausted by the effort of getting Esme ready for the ball. “Let me run downstairs. I want to see people’s faces when they see you in my dress.”
    Esme and Maud listened to her light footsteps fade away.
    “Jane ought to be at the ball, too.”
    Maud’s shrug wasn’t unsympathetic. “Life changes. She’s not unhappy and thanks to all the gowns you’ve been buying, she can support herself. There’s many worse off.”
    “I know, but she’s always so cheerful.”
    “She’s a survivor, same like you. Now go on, get downstairs. Your Uncle Henry’s waiting and that’s not something he likes.”
     
    Uncle Henry didn’t like waiting, but he’d found some congenial company. Jed stood with him, resplendent in black and white evening dress.
    Jane clapped her hands in silent glee at the look on their faces as they caught sight of Esme descending the stairs.
    “Hellfire, we’ll be beating them off with sticks.” Uncle Henry tossed off the last of his whiskey.
    “Miss Esme, you are a vision.” Jed met her at the bottom of the steps and swept a formal bow. The custom was going out of fashion, but it conveyed all the gallant admiration of a thousand words.
    “Thank you, sir.” She accepted his arm, resting her gloved hand on his sleeve. The slight touch was sufficient to register the tension in his muscles. She glanced at him inquiringly.
    The corner of his mouth quirked, but his gaze remained serious and intent. “I am dazzled.”
    “I thought you would meet us at the dance.” Her words were meaningless, her attention for the electricity humming between them.
    “I hoped I might escort you. If you would allow me the honor?”
    “She’ll need her wrap.” Maud trod heavily down the stairs and draped a soft charcoal grey cape around her. “It’s cold out.”
    “Reeve looks heated enough,” Uncle Henry observed.
    “Hush,” Maud scolded.
    Esme flushed.
    “He’s right, though,” Jed murmured. “I think I have a fever.” The usual laughter returned to his eyes, displacing the disturbing intensity of a few moments before.
    “Perhaps then, sir, you shouldn’t attend the dance. Too much excitement.”
    He covered her hand on his arm. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
    “Well, they could me. Easily,” Uncle Henry said. “But if we’re going, let’s go.” He walked past the hotel’s famous doorman—a clockwork kangaroo. As it was designed to do, the pressure of Uncle Henry’s weight on the plate beneath the hotel’s welcome mat triggered the automaton into action. One paw raised its top hat, while its heavy brass tail pushed open the door.
    Esme had time to smile a quick good-bye at Jane and Maud before Jed escorted her out.
     
    The orchestra—three violins and a piano—had more enthusiasm than skill, but they emphasised the beat of the music and that suited the energetic rather than graceful dancers of Swan River. They stampeded through polkas and circle dances as well as waltzes and quadrilles. Jed partnered a giggling debutante and watched Esme whirl around in the arms of a sleek and handsome devil his own age, one whose golden fairness matched hers. The gas lighting gave them a shimmering angelic