Season for Surrender Read Free Page A

brick.
    Louisa joined her aunt among the swarm of people in front of the Hall. Faces, familiar and strange, eddied around her, and her legs wobbled as she recognized gentlemen of the haut ton who had been witness to her disastrous London season, her engagement-that-wasn’t.
    There was Lord Lockwood, some sort of cousin of Xavier’s; a dark-haired man with a wolfish grin. Lord Kirkpatrick, a Byronic-looking baron who was inclined to toss himself into swooning but brief love affairs. Freddie Pellington, a cherub-faced wastrel whose good humor far outstripped his good sense. Lord Weatherwax, a gentleman in early middle age with hair like candy floss and the loud voice of the constantly inebriated.
    A few less reputable sorts were roaming around, too. Louisa spotted Mrs. Lillian Protheroe, a toothy blond widow who wavered along the edge of propriety. Nearby was an olive-skinned woman whom Louisa recognized as a notable operatic star—and, if rumor was right, the mistress of one of the royal dukes. Though the singer’s fur-lined pelisse looked warm, she had unfastened the frogs to display a gown of rich claret-colored velvet, of which very little fabric had been allocated to cover her bosom.
    Lady Irving gasped. “I confess I’m shocked,” she muttered. “Absolutely shocked.”
    â€œI’m sure we needn’t consort with anyone improper,” Louisa said, though that was exactly what she’d been hoping to do.
    Her aunt shot her a withering look. “Don’t worry your head about me, young miss. I’ll consort with whomever I like. But I’m shocked to see Sylvia Alleyneham here with only two of her daughters.” She tutted. “Sense of a sheep, has poor Sylvia. Why stop with two? She’s got five daughters to marry off, you know.”
    â€œYes, I know,” Louisa said drily. She’d met Lady Alleyneham’s endless supply of offspring the previous year. They tended to be more concerned with fashion than friendliness, which hadn’t endeared Louisa to them or they to her.
    Louisa and her aunt threaded between sculpted topiary across the close-clipped lawn in front of Clifton Hall. Graying grass, dried out and dormant for the winter, crunched underfoot.
    Lady Irving waved at her acquaintances as she muttered instructions to Louisa. “Stand up straight. Bite your lips to make them pinker. Nod and smile at the other guests. We are to be spending a lot of time with them over the next two weeks, you know, whether they’re matchmakers or light-skirts. Smile , girl.”
    But far from putting Louisa at ease, the familiar faces unsettled her. Surely anyone who’d met her would already have catalogued her, based on her awkward Season: Wallflower. Lacking in conversation. Paltry fortune. A triple failure for a marriageable young woman.
    Of course, she wasn’t really in attendance as a marriageable young woman. She was here for a new start. She smiled at no one in particular.
    â€œGood God, don’t smile like that ,” hissed Lady Irving. “I can see every one of your teeth. You look mentally defective.”
    A laugh popped from Louisa’s mouth before she realized it. “Ah, that’s better,” said Lady Irving. “You’ve got a spark in you, for all you try to hide it. Now tug down the bodice of your dress and let’s go find our host. This is your chance to catch yourself an earl for Christmas.”
    They spotted Xavier on the front steps of his home, surveying the chaos on his drive with an expression of bemused tolerance. If Louisa could have translated the expression into words, it would read something like, “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
    She trailed after Lady Irving, taking in every detail of her host. He played upon the darkness of his hair and skin, the lightness of his eyes, with crisp white linens, gray waistcoat, black coat. He stood nearly a head taller than Louisa, she knew, and his