Free Cynders & Ashe by Elizabeth Boyle Page B

designs.”
    Ella absently sorted through the notes in her hands. “That gown cost a fortune, and if Lady Fitzsimon doesn’t pay for it—”
    Hazel nodded in grim agreement.
    It would come out of Ella’s salary. Glancing over at the silk, which now lay on the work table, she sighed, for it was ever so lovely a dress and it had been meant to be worn this night and this night only.
    Lady Fitzsimon was utterly mistaken on the matter. Lord Ashe would never have thought that gown common. He would have loved it.
    “Gar, Ella! Whatever is that in your hand?” Hazel said, coming around the work table in a flash.
    Martha had slipped into the workroom just then, a stack of sample brocades in her arms. Her mouth fell open and she nearly dropped her burden when she saw what Ella was holding. “Oh, as I live and breathe! It is.”
    “Is what?” Ella said, before she glanced down at the thick cream card in her hand.
    Viscount Ashe
    Invites the bearer of this invitation
    To his masquerade ball
    The 11th of April
     
    Ella’s mouth fell open. An invitation to the Ashe Ball.
    Hazel began to laugh. “That old cow must have dropped it when she went off in a huff.”
    “She won’t be able to get in without it.” Ella crossed the room and caught up her cloak. She started for the back door, when Hazel caught her by the arm.
    “And just what do you think you are doing?”
    “Returning this to Lady Fitzsimon.”
    “Why would you be doing that?” Hazel held her fast.
    “Because she can’t get in without it,” Ella told her, pulling her arm free and reaching for the door.
    “Well, she don’t need it now, does she?” Martha said. “Since her daughter hasn’t got a gown to wear.”
    Something about the girl’s words – nay, suggestion – stayed Ella’s steps. “Whatever do you mean?”
    Martha glanced over at Hazel, who nodded in agreement. “That we didn’t work our fingers raw to see that gown spend the night here, being taken apart, so the mistress could not only charge you for it, but sell the makings off again to someone else, taking the profit twice over.”
    Hazel nodded.
    “You could go, with that gown and that invitation,” Martha whispered.
    Ella shook her head. “I couldn’t—”
    “And why ever not? It isn’t like you aren’t quality, and it isn’t like that gown doesn’t fit.”
    “You could see him again, Ella,” Hazel said.
    “No,” Ella gasped, staring down at the name on the invitation. Viscount Ashe.
    Him.
    “I can’t . . . I would be discovered . . . Think of the trouble . . .”
    “Think of seeing him again,” Hazel said. “You know very well that you sewed that gown with him in mind. So he would think it was you.”
    “I did no such—” But she stopped herself. She had. Shamelessly designed and embroidered every stitch for his eyes, his favour.
    “Wouldn’t seeing him again be worth a bundle of trouble and then some?”
    “Julian, you vowed tonight would be the last time,” Lady Ashe said, over the tea table.
    The Ashe residence was a flurry of activity as the servants and the added help that had been hired for the ball continued working at a furious pace to ensure that everything went off as planned.
    “Yes, yes, Mother, I recall my promise,” Julian, Viscount Ashe, told her.
    “You will choose a bride tonight and no more of this foolishness about finding ‘her’.”
    Julian glanced out the window at the garden beyond. Her. His mysterious lady love. The one who’d come to the first Ashe Ball five years earlier.
    The Ashes had always been a romantic lot, and family tradition held that the Ashe viscount had five seasons to find his true love. Five. A bride to be plucked from a masquerade before the five years were out.
    Julian had found his the very first year.
    Found her and lost her.
    He’d spent the last five years searching for the mysterious lady who’d come to the ball, danced with him, kissed him – Julian glanced over at his mother who was deep in discussion