Free Sins of a Duke by Suzanne Enoch

This was neither. “Fine,” she muttered. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
    “Very well, but it won’t be me presenting you.” He lifted a hand and signaled at someone across the room.
    “Why not?” she demanded.
    “Two reasons. One, I will not put myself in the position of being turned away by anyone, much less those chits, and two, if—”
    “But you’ll have me put in that position?”
    “You already are,” he returned calmly. “As I was saying, two, if I present you, then rumors will fly that I’m courting you and that I’m trying to force Society to accept you. That will be the surest way to see that they don’t.”
    It made sense. “So you’re doing me a favor by abandoning me,” she said anyway.
    He snorted. “Princess Josefina, this is my aunt, Lady Gladys Tremaine. Auntie, may I present Princess Josefina Embry?”
    Josefina turned to face a stout woman wearing a matronly blue silk gown and an easy, infectious smile. “Good evening, Your Highness,” the woman said, sinking into a curtsy and then grabbing Melbourne’s free arm to drag herself upright again.
    Belatedly Josefina nodded back at her. “Lady Gladys.”
    “So you’re the one half of London’s been talking about,” Melbourne’s aunt continued.
    “Indeed she is,” Melbourne commented, slipping free of both of them. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
    And just like that he vanished into the growing crowd. “Infuriating man,” Josefina muttered.
    “Oh, he is that,” his aunt agreed. “Come along, there’s quite a crowd tonight. I think everyone’s here to see you and your parents.”
    With Melbourne out of sight, Josefina finally took a moment to look around. The assembly rooms seemed nearly stuffed to the rafters, and the part of the crowd that hadn’t surrounded her parents closed in around her. No one chatted with her, of course; they only wanted to stare. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, sending up a quick thanks to Melbourne for suggesting that she wear white. All of the other young ladies were.
    “When it’s our turn,” Melbourne’s aunt was saying ina quiet voice, “they’ll ask you a few silly questions and then they’ll all take turns nodding or welcoming you to the assembly.” She grinned. “Melbourne escorted you in, so they won’t have any choice.”
    “But he said he wouldn’t risk them making him look foolish.”
    “Gentlemen don’t make the presentation, so to his face one of them might have dared make a row over the break in tradition. With him looking on and having respectable old me do the honors, you’ll have as easy a time as anyone ever did, except perhaps for his sister, Nell. That was quite an evening, with everyone falling all over themselves to be nice to Eleanor, and her just eighteen.” Lady Gladys moved them closer to a group of a dozen or so women seated in chairs at one side of the room. “Oh, yes, they’re all here. And if they ask whether you waltzed at the Elkins soiree, tell them you don’t recall.”
    “You mean I can’t waltz anywhere without their permission?”
    “That’s the tradition. Believe me, if anyone would ask them to waltz, they wouldn’t care so much about what other girls are doing.”
    The crowd in front of them parted. How strange, that something she hadn’t known about an hour ago had become of tantamount importance. Her parents wouldn’t care whether she received permission to waltz or not, only that she made a good impression. No, this was about wanting to be able to waltz with Melbourne—not just tonight, but any night hereafter that she chose to do so.
    “Ladies,” Lady Gladys said, abruptly much more formidable than she’d been a moment before, “may I present Princess Josefina of Costa Habichuela? Her parents, as you’ve probably heard by now, are rey and queen of that country.”
    Josefina inclined her head, not knowing what was customary but refusing to curtsy before a group of social inferiors. One of them, Lady