How to Marry an Earl (A Cinderella Society 1)

“Anyway, you tried to protect me from the fireworks, and again in the barrow this morning, didn’t you? I’m quite in your debt it seems. Why?”

“If you’re truly looking for a wife,” she absolutely would not choke the words out like bitter medicine, “Being discovered with me would not exactly help you.”

“Nor would it help you, I imagine.”

“I suppose not.” She sounded exactly as concerned over the possibility as she felt. That was: not at all. Adding more salt to a dish too salty to taste in the first place hardly mattered.

“Surely there is someone here who has designs on your hand?”

She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. “Are you trying to be witty?”

“Not at all. I am merely assessing the competition,” he replied, bending to press a kiss to the back of her wrist, right at the edge of her glove. She felt it burn through her. He escorted her back to her chair. Persephone knew she was smiling foolishly as she retrieved her book from the palm tree, mostly for something to do with her hands that didn’t involve pressing them to her flushed cheeks.

“You know an earl can’t marry a girl with your reputation,” Holly said from the next chair. She said it gently, kindly even. She wore the debutante white, spotless, and gleaming with silver beads. “You’ll break your own heart.”

Persephone shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about my heart, Miss Carter.”

She was worried enough for the both of them.

“Oh, there youare,” Tamsin said as Persephone entered the Pendleton ballroom. She sat on a padded bench; her violet silk shoes abandoned on the parquet floor. The small table next to her held a tea service and a dizzying array of treats, no doubt for Meg’s benefit. Her sweet tooth was a thing of legend. She stood nearby, wearing a canvas apron over her day dress, her black hair in its usual braids woven into a simple and practical coronet.

Persephone stopped to admire her artwork. The duke had decided to partition the ballroom down the center, one side to display his Egyptian artifacts, and the other for Rome. It made for a stunning effect, especially as he’d asked Meg to paint murals on the walls. She fair glowed with the joy of it. “That’s coming along beautifully,” Persephone told her.

She was working on a floor to ceiling rendition of Atalanta holding a basket of golden apples. The gilt paint shimmered prettily but Atalanta’s expression was surprisingly fierce.

“She hasn’t said anything amusing in at least an hour,” Tamsin complained.

“I’m busy,” Meg retorted mildly.

“Too busy for your oldest and dearest friend?” Tamsin teased. “You wound me.”

“I shouldn’t. You know Percy is my dearest friend.”

Tamsin lobbed a candied pecan at the back of Meg’s head. “She’s so good at putting on quiet, docile airs,” she said to Persephone. “One can almost forget what she is truly like.”

“Not with you though,” Meg said, unruffled.

“True. But then I’m a duke’s daughter,” she grinned. “So, I can do what I like.”

Persephone took aturn about the enormous room, examining the shelves of the duke’s artifacts which had been brought from all over the house. They would be augmented with twice as many items on loan. Even now though, the collection was impressive. Canopic jars, beaded collars, a scribe’s palette. A mummified body propped up in its painted casket.

And a pair of carved gaming dice carved from bone.

Persephone clicked her tongue. “These doesn’t belong here.” She picked them up carefully. A thousand years ago a Roman soldier had used these to pass the time while on campaign. They were worn and yellowed with wear. She crossed the floor to drop them properly in Ancient Rome. And noticed a cat carved from black stone, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “Oh, honestly. This is all sixes and sevens.”

As Persephone began a thorough inspection of Roman coins, Tamsin groaned. “I’m not going to get any decent entertainment from either of you now.”

It was at least an hour before Tamsin could get any attention at all. By then she was sliding along the gleaming waxed floors in her stockinged feet, as she had when she was little. She could never abide being indoors too long. “Don’t tell my stepmother!”

“Especially not when it was your mother who taught me how to slide when I was past old enough to know better,” The Duke of Pendleton remarked drily as he strode into the ballroom.

Tamsin grinned proudly. “She made a terrible duchess by all accounts.”

“Which is why we liked her so much,” he agreed. Tamsin’s stepmother was not well liked. She was distant and chilly, carved out of diamonds and ice. “All my doves, in one place. Well, nearly.”

Tamsin snorted. “Doves?”

“You’re doves to me.”