The Importance of Being Wicked by Miranda Neville Read Free Book Online Page A

like brother and sister. I’m very sorry he died, and now I have to go to all the trouble of finding a different husband to look after the Brotherton estates. I hoped Castleton would suit.”
    â€œAnd so he may.”
    â€œSo you don’t advise me to reject him?”
    â€œIt’s too early for me to judge if he is anything more than a Lord Stuffy. But I would say he isn’t without promise. He just needs to be tested a little.”
    â€œMorrissey won’t be pleased if I reject such an ideal match.”
    â€œWe have months before he returns from Ireland. Plenty of time to get rid of Castleton if you don’t like him. In the meantime, you must give him a chance.” That was reasonable. Unusually reasonable for Caro, whom she would have expected to urge rebellion.
    â€œApparently he is going to escort us to Almack’s on Wednesday. Er . . . What is Almack’s?”
    â€œAn assembly room in King Street that holds weekly balls. Only the very best people are admitted.”
    â€œExcellent. You and I are, after all, two of the very best people. Are the balls entertaining?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know, having never attended. It’s necessary to obtain vouchers from the lady patronesses.” Caro didn’t have to explain. Anne understood that the Townsends, despite impeccable birth and connections, had always preferred to avoid the ton. “Not that I’ve ever been denied admission. I’ve never applied.”
    Anne heard a note of bravado in Caro’s voice. Even for her dauntless cousin, it was one thing to eschew such places, quite another to be denied admittance. “I think it sounds very dull,” she said. “Let’s make sure we always have something better to do on Wednesdays.”

Chapter 4
    A t eleven o’clock the doors to Almack’s closed, and late arrivals were no longer admitted. Of Miss Brotherton and Mrs. Townsend, there was no sign. Thomas, who’d spent an hour and a half dancing and making small talk with the sort of girls he’d have courted if Felix Brotherton hadn’t done him the favor of dying, was not altogether surprised. When he’d received Mrs. Townsend’s excuse of an early-evening engagement, he’d smelled a rat. It will be more convenient if we meet you at Almack’s , she wrote. More convenient for whom?
    Clearly, she was determined to keep her cousin away from him, but she wasn’t going to succeed. If the heiress didn’t want to have him, that was her privilege. But he’d be damned if her little snip of a cousin was going to make the decision.
    He excused himself from his hostesses and a bevy of disappointed chaperones, and made his way on foot to Conduit Street. He didn’t really anticipate that the ladies would be home; he certainly didn’t expect to be handed a note, addressed to His Grace the Most Noble Duke of Castleton in a florid and definitely ironic hand. Mrs. Townsend informed him that their plans had changed and gave him new instructions. Apparently the game wasn’t quite what he’d thought.
    He continued his walk north to Oxford Street and the Pantheon Theatre, where a masquerade ball was being held. The management of the establishment wasn’t worried about conflicting with the assembly at Almack’s. It catered to a very different crowd. Not that Thomas knew firsthand. It wasn’t at all the kind of place he frequented.
    At almost midnight, revelers were still entering through the columned front. A hawker on the pavement offered a variety of masks, but Thomas decided not to bother. The new arrivals, both men and women, sported a wide variety of dominos and costumes from a ludicrous range of historical periods. Since many wore ordinary evening clothes, he wouldn’t stand out, and he thought it unlikely, though not impossible, that anyone would recognize him. If someone did, he hoped his presence would lend countenance to the