Page 71 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
Cissie turned at once. “Well!”
Jane looked positively luminous. “She was impressed.”
Arabella, still watching the direction in which the countess had gone, said carefully, “She was… would you call that look ‘impressed’?”
“She was very pleased,” Cissie supplied. “Very pleased indeed.”
An hour passed as the three women made their way around the bolts of fabric, and the several pieces that the modiste had set out special for the new duchess.
Before they departed, the bell at the front of the shop chimed again, and one of the footmen in Lampton livery appeared at thethreshold of the rear room. He carried a salver in gloved hands and bowed first to Jane and Cissie before turning to Arabella.
“Your Grace,” he said, “I am directed to place this in your hands.”
Arabella looked at the cream envelope resting on the silver tray.
The Lampton seal was unmistakable.
She took it slowly, her pulse quickening for reasons she could not entirely explain, while Jane and Cissie watched with unabashed interest.
When she broke the seal and unfolded the card inside, her eyes moved swiftly over the elegant hand.
An invitation to the masquerade. Addressed personally to her, and urging her accompaniment to be that of her husband.
Arabella lowered the card just slightly, the paper still warm from her fingers.
And as she looked up again, the energy of the afternoon had altered so completely that even the air within the little shop seemed changed, charged with a consequence she had not expected when the day began.
“I have been formally invited.”
The footman bowed, then turned slightly, presenting the tray once more. “Miss Harcourt. Miss Whitcombe.”
Jane and Cissie exchanged a glance before each accepting their own envelopes, smaller, less ornate, but sealed with the same unmistakable crest. Cissie broke hers open first, her eyes scanning quickly before widening with unmistakable delight.
“Oh,” she breathed. “We are included as well!”
Jane’s expression followed a moment later, softer but no less surprised. “The same evening,” she said quietly. “The same instructions.”
Arabella’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her own card.
Accompaniment required.
Maxwell.
Cissie looked up at her, the excitement still present but sharpened with something more perceptive. “Well,” she said, “that is very clear, is it not?”
Jane did not speak at once, but her gaze remained fixed on Arabella, thoughtful, searching.
Arabella did not answer immediately.
The invitation remained open in her hand, the ink steady and unchanging, as though it carried no weight beyond the surface of the page. And yet, as the quiet of the moment stretched, she felt the implication of it settle more firmly than any rumor had done.
This was not a general inclusion, or a courtesy, or even a passing thought. It was a deliberate acknowledgment, and one that did not come without a price.
CHAPTER 18
When the carriage at last turned onto the familiar London street, the rhythm of the wheels shifted, slowing as it joined the quieter order of the square. Maxwell did not move immediately, though he was aware of the change in pace, the subtle difference in sound between the open road and the contained stillness of the city.
The journey had been long enough to settle into habit, but as the house came into view through the carriage window, something in him adjusted in a way that had little to do with distance traveled.
