The Cursed Countess (The Daring Drake Sisters 1)

“Of course I will. I’m sure I’ll discover he is just a handsome man interested in a beautiful woman.”

“Shh,” Tessa scolded. “You are being inappropriate.”

“I always am inappropriate,” Louisa said with a smile and a shrug. “It’s part of my charm.”

“I am leaving once I speak with Emma. She has been impossible to catch tonight.” Tessa smiled, seeing her youngest sister speaking with a handsome earl. Happiness swelled in her, and she prayed Mamma would let Emma find a man she could love.

“Come along, I shall walk with you so you don’t get eaten up by the gossipy hens here tonight,” Louisa commented with a smirk.

They made their way through the crush until they reached Emma and Lord Killam. Once the earl spotted Tessa, he made a quick excuse and left.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” Tessa apologized. “I don’t mean to drive away your friends with my presence.”

“Well, then they are foolish indeed,” Emma said with a bright smile. “And I am extremely happy you made an appearance tonight.”

Her youngest sister shone like an angel in her white seeded pearl silk gown. With her hair swept up and a hint of powder on her face, she looked older than her eighteen years.

“You look so beautiful tonight, darling,” Tessa said, pulling her sister into a tight hug. “I must leave so I don’t ruin your ball. There has been far too much talk of me and not enough of you. This is your night.”

Emma pulled back, her lips in a pout. “Please don’t go. I do not care what any of these people say about you. You are my sister and you are not cursed. You just seem to have terrible luck with marriage.”

Tessa smiled wryly. “Yes, I do, which is why I shall never enter into marriage again. But still I must take my leave. Enjoy your evening.”

“I will.”

Tessa walked down the stairs to the front door and then waited for her carriage to be brought around. It felt odd to wait for her personal carriage with no man, no mother, and no sister waiting to chaperone her. Another wave of true freedom flooded over her as it had when she finally spoke up to her mother. She could do as she pleased, whenever she pleased...and with whomever she pleased. She was finally ready to embark on her new life.

~*~

The next morning, Tessa awoke and dressed in her blue muslin. She had completed her mourning. Stanhope had been a very nice man, but it was time to move on with her life.

By noon, her conviction was steadily decreasing. Since she had publicly declared the end of her mourning last night, she had hoped for an invitation to some event tonight—a soiree, perhaps even a short musicale—but she’d received none. For all her thoughts on the attraction of freedom, if she were never invited to an outing, she would be alone in this house forever. Perhaps she and Louisa should settle here together.

At two, a knock on her door finally brightened her mood. Hopefully, this would be Louisa with news on Mr. Raynerson. She looked up from her needlework with a smile when her butler opened the salon door.

“A Mr. Raynerson is here to see you, my lady. Shall I show him in?”

Raynerson. Here? Before she had even discovered any information on the man. Drat him. “Yes, please show him in and bring us some tea.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Tessa folded her needlework and set it in her basket before checking her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. She pushed a few wispy curls behind her ears and then raced back to the sofa where she sat perfectly still.

“Mr. Raynerson, ma’am,” Roberts said, and then backed out of the room.

“Lady Stanhope,” he said with smile before giving her a bow. “It is lovely to see you again.”

“Mr. Raynerson, when you asked to call on me, I truly did not expect you so soon.” Nor looking more handsome than she’d remembered from last night. In the light of day, his brown hair appeared slightly lighter, and his eyes a softer brown with amber tints that mesmerized her.

“I thought I had better beat the competition.” He looked around the room with a half-smile and appeared to notice three of her cats looking up at him from their positions on assorted chairs in the room. “Do I have competition? Other than the cats, that is.”

“I’m not certain you are in the competition at all,” Tessa quipped. “Or that there even is a competition.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. She hadn’t noticed the slight dimple in his chin last night. He sank in the chair across from her still smiling. “I believe you are quite wrong on that account, Lady Stanhope. But having no rivalry only increases my odds.”

“Odds of what exactly?”

“Seeing you,” he replied in a low tone that sent a shot of desire down her body.