A Debutante In Disguise

‘She might have found someone young and pleasant.’

The young woman glanced down so that her long lashes lay like fans against her cheeks. Her skin was pale, but touched with just the hint of pink along her cheekbones. ‘Except I will not marry. I am quite decided on it.’

He was struck by the room’s silence. For a moment, time and space seemed distorted, stilling and narrowing so that everything seemed focused on this one moment in this one room.

‘That almost seems a shame,’ he said.

Then she shifted again, her smile widening and transforming her serious demeanour into one of wry humour. Her amusement was contagious and her smile engaging, the more so because it seemed a rare thing. ‘Not at all. Indeed, I believe it would be a goal quite destined for disappointment, given that I resemble a cabbage.’

He looked at her and, while she was quite strikingly different from other young ladies, he would not put her in the category of leafy vegetables. Indeed, she was almost beautiful in a strange, unconventional way. Her eyes widened as hot colour flushed into her cheeks at his scrutiny. He saw her inhalation. Her lips parted.

‘I apologise.’ He stood abruptly. ‘I was rude again. I seem to be making a habit of it. And really, I should return to the dance and doubtless your mother is looking for you.’

‘Indeed. Her brows drew together as she looked to the mantel clock. ‘And I am not even done the article.’

With renewed urgency, her gaze returned to her book, and he had the odd and unusual feeling that he had been dismissed in favour of the more fascinating topic of cowpox.

He strode to the door, but paused, his hand on the handle. ‘What is your name?’

‘Lettuce Barton,’ she said.

Chapter One (#u90f429ed-7cf0-57d6-95da-1c4519e89f15)

August 2nd, 1815

His head hurt. The pain thudded, pounding and stabbing into his temples with every beat of his heart. Tony pulled himself to an upright position, squinting at the obnoxiously bright daylight flickering through the narrow gap of the drawn curtains.

‘Good day, my lord,’ Mason said, crossing the floor and pulling open the curtains with a raucous rattle. Bright sunlight spilled through the glass, filling the bedchamber.

‘Must you make it so infernally bright this early in the morning?’

‘It is past noon, my lord.’

‘Fantastic, time for another drink,’ he muttered. ‘Why are you here anyway? Didn’t ring for you. Sleeping.’

‘Lady Beauchamp is downstairs, my lord.’

‘Actually, not so much “downstairs” any more,’ his sister announced, laughing from the doorway.

‘Elsie!’ he said, keeping his injured hand hidden under the bedclothes. ‘You can’t come barging into a gentleman’s bedchamber, even if I am your brother.’

‘I have visited for three days and I am tired of waiting. You are either out or sleeping or in your cups. Besides, you do not return one’s calls.’

‘And you insist on visiting in the middle of the night. Anyway, what is so damned urgent?’ He spoke too loudly so that he winced at the noise of his own voice.

‘I need to go to the country.’

‘Then go. You do not need my permission.’

‘I wanted to talk to you first. Provided I could catch you in a moment of sobriety.’

He glared. ‘Fine. We will chat, but for goodness sake, wait outside while I make myself decent.’

‘Very well, I will see you in the breakfast room, but do not think you can lope off again.’

With those words, his younger sister gave a decisive nod and, thankfully, left the room, the door shutting firmly behind her.

He again flinched, glaring irritably at the closed door. Truthfully, he had been avoiding her. Her presence reminded him too much of the gaping holes within their family.

As well, there was this peculiar, detached feeling. He knew her to be his sister and knew that he loved her, yet could not seem to find the emotion.

He lay back on the bed, staring between half-closed eyes at a crack in the ceiling. Even the concept of rising felt exhausting.

And his bloody head hurt.

‘My lord?’ Mason said, clearing his throat.

Tony groaned.

‘She will be back.’

He nodded, pulling himself upright. His sister had always been persistent. ‘Stubborn and obstinate as a mule,’ their brother had said.

While George, her husband, had called her ‘steadfast’ and ‘resolute’.

But she was his family. Even though he couldn’t find the emotion, he knew he loved her, or had loved her. He knew he had been best man at her wedding. He could see himself. He could see George. He could see Elsie.

But everything felt distant. As though recalling something he had observed—a wedding that was pretty, charming, happy, but in no way closely connected to himself.

Perhaps that was it. Everything felt distant. Both the wedding and that which had come next: the cannons, the corpses, the smell, the blood...

And Elsie and George and Edgar and his father, the happy and the sad, all seemed intertwined, so that he wanted only to shove them from his mind and lie within the dark, oblivion of this room.

* * *

Shaved and dressed, Tony exited his bedchamber. He still had a headache. As always, movement hurt. It was not excruciating any more, but rather a raw tautening, as his skin and muscles moved where the bullet had lodged within his ribcage.

He was already looking forward to his next drink.

Elsie glanced up as he entered the drawing room. As always, she wore the latest fashion. Of course, she was in deep mourning but even this suited her. George, Edgar, their father. Gone.

He hated black.

Sitting opposite, he stretched his feet towards the hearth, wincing slightly with the movement. ‘So why are you going to the country?’ he asked without preamble. ‘It seems a departure from your usual habits.’

Elsie had a low tolerance for boredom. In their youth, he’d tended to egg her on while Edgar, always responsible, had bailed her out of numerous scrapes until she married George, who had then assumed the role.

Until Waterloo.