A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides by Elizabeth Essex Read Free Book Online

you?” Mama continued to fume. “You have no shame, no control. No sense of what is right. You know how important this evening is to your sister. To all of us.”
    “I have a perfect sense of what is right, Mama. Which is why I acted as I did. And I won’t be made to feel as if I’m the one in the wrong. I’m sorry if you feel I’ve embarrassed Cassandra—”
    “Sorry?” Mama’s anger was bubbling out of her now. “Let me tell you one thing, Miss Antigone Preston. If so much as one breath of scandal touches your sister, I will wash my hands of you.”
    “ Will wash? What do you call entering into this whole ruinous arrangement with Lord Aldridge to begin with? You’ve fed me like a lamb to the wolf.”
    Antigone knew she wasn’t being fair. She knew she ought to think of the money and the plans and Cassandra and Mama. But her mother and Lady Barrington weren’t being fair to her. She really wasn’t to blame. And so she let the hot tide of her anger and resentment spill over the top. “If you think this little contretemps will blow a breath of scandal, you’d best lash down your stays, Mama, and prepare yourself for a howling gale.”

 
    Chapter Four
    Commander William Arthur Jellicoe missed the sea. He missed the clean salt tang of the air, he missed the steady rise and fall of the deck beneath his feet, and most of all, he missed the deep sense of purpose in fulfilling his duty. As far as he could tell, the land offered nothing but inactivity, pretense, and until a few moments ago, death by boredom.
    He had almost been saved from such an ignominious end by the timely intervention of an avenging angel in the earthly form of a marvelous slip of a girl, who had dispatched Gerry Stubbs-Haye in front of his very eyes, with all the aplomb of a twenty-year bos’un. It had been brilliantly done.
    But the matrons were hauling her away like a merciless press-gang before he could do anything more than speak to her. Before he had even gotten her name.
    Damn. The room glowed from the warm light of hundreds of candles, and the air was thick with the smell of beeswax, the heavy scent of too much French perfume, and the heady opiate of fresh scandal. Will thought he would choke.
    “Antigone Preston.” The gossips were already pronouncing her name with hungry, spiteful delight, like sharks circling in the water, ready to strike at the smell of blood.
    The rigors of battle frightened him not a whit, but ten years at sea in the exclusive company of men had left him feeling ill-prepared for the damnable hidden agendas of the rumormongering matrons of even country ballrooms. He had been there less than an hour and was already contemplating something neither he nor any of his previous naval commanders had ever considered—a hasty retreat.
    God’s balls. This is what he had come to—uselessly propping up the walls of country drawing rooms.
    He needed a drink.
    A real drink, not the lukewarm champagne footmen were passing out on trays as a diversion from the set-to on the dance floor. The damned starched cravat was strangling him, and the form-fitting evening coat he had been made to borrow from his slightly smaller older brother felt as hot and tight as a shroud. Why he could not have been allowed to appear in his own comfortable, albeit worn uniform, was beyond him, but so were most of society’s strictures. Like the strictures that said a crowded ball was a worthwhile way to pass one’s evenings. If it were already this bad his first week back on land, before his family repaired to London for the Season, the coming months would be nothing short of torture.
    William shoved himself away from his post against the wall, and ducked down a corridor, steadfastly avoiding the eyes of any female, whom it seemed, always wanted to dance. He had agreed only to escort his mother and sister—he drew the line at dancing with every wallflower in the place. Young ladies’ minds were full of desperate agility—they made the mental