Page 41 of What a Lord Wants

Startled at being caught, he froze for only a moment before he grinned wide in amusement. Glee shined in his eyes. The arrogant dandy was thrilled to know that Eve was there, taking joy in her pain and mortification.

As the guests turned to see what had captured his attention, the loud guffaws dulled into nervous twitters.

Williams hadn’t dared to utter her name as the lady who wrote those letters, but everyone knew. Whispers went up around the room as women gossiped about her behind their fans and the men tapped each other on the shoulder, then nodded toward her. Some had the gall to point openly.

Dom reluctantly released her elbow and stalked across the room toward Williams. The crowd parted wide to let him pass, as if they could sense the fury boiling inside him. Stopping in front of Williams, he glared disdainfully at him and realized again why he hated so many of England’s so-called finest.

“Enough.” He held out his hand. “Those letters are private. I’ll do you the favor of returning them to the lady who wrote them.”

Williams glared at Dom for stealing away his fun. His gaze darted to Eve as he considered what to do. But no one interceded on his behalf, whispering about him as much as they had about Eve.

Not one laugh sounded from anywhere in the room now. They might laugh at Eve right to her face, a merchant’s daughter who existed on the fringes of society, but they’d never dare laugh at Dom, a marquess and the most respected peer in the Lords.

With a murderous expression, Williams slapped the letters into Dom’s hand.

“Thank you.” Clenching the letters tightly to keep from drawing his hands into fists and bloodying the man right there, Dom lowered his voice so only Williams could hear. “Do noteverembarrass her in public like this again.”

“Or what?” He sneered with a laugh, “You’ll call me out for a duel at dawn?”

“Nothing like that,” he answered with deadly calm. “I’ll simply kill you where you stand.”

Williams blanched.

“Glad we’ve come to this understanding.” With a forced smile, Dom slapped Williams on the shoulder. Hard. The arse staggered forward a step to keep his balance.

When Dom turned around, Eve was gone.

Chapter 11

“Iam not accepting visitors today,” Eve informed Bentley, wringing her hands. Dom was downstairs and had asked to see her. Theverylast thing she wanted! Last night had been too humiliating to ever face him again. “Would you tell the marquess that I am indisposed?”

The butler nodded and turned to leave—

“Bentley, please wait a moment.”

Mariah lowered the ladies’ journal she’d been avidly reading—beingenceintehad suddenly made her oddly domestic—and peered over the cover from across the upstairs sitting room.

Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously.Thatwas the Mariah she knew.

When Bentley retreated into the hall to give them privacy, she asked pointedly, “Since when does the Marquess of Ellsworth call on you?”

Her shoulders sagged, and she partially dissembled, “Since he rescued me from Burton Williams’s poetry reading.”

Mariah’s expression softened. “I see.”

Eve turned toward the window, unable to bear any pity she might see on her sister’s face. Even if it accompanied concern.

After she’d fled the drawing room last night, she’d somehow convinced Mariah and Robert that they needed to leave the ball. Immediately. She was pale and shaking enough that Mariah believed that she’d truly fallen ill, so they’d taken her home before either of them learned of what happened.Thank God.Because the last thing Eve wanted to do was ruin the evening for them, not when they’d planned to share news of the baby with Papa. So she’d choked back her humiliation until she was safely at home in bed, where she could finally let the tears come.

But when Mariah learned this morning what had happened, she’d immediately come over to the townhouse to find out if Eve was all right and to hear the full story.

Well, Eve certainly wasn’t going to tell herthat! But she’d admitted that she’d come upon Burton reading her love letters as last evening’s entertainment and that he was the reason she’d suddenly felt ill and needed to leave.

She’d conveniently forgotten to mention the Marquess of Ellsworth.

“When His Lordship walked into the room and saw what Burton was doing, he asked him to stop.” She shrugged to sugarcoat the truth, that she’d half expected the two men to come to blows.

“But why would he do that?”