Free A Study in Ashes by Emma Jane Holloway Page A

walls into harmonious proportions. There was nowhere to look without seeing expensive objets d’art, unless there was a duchess or a cabinet minister standing in the way.
    It was the first time since early last November—almost eleven months ago, now—that her father, Lord Bancroft, had entertained on this scale. Eleven months of grief, and he’d done a decent job of wearing a long face and a black suit. It was what was expected of him and, after all, Imogen had been his favorite. But eventually his ambitions had got the better of him. Like a hound scratching at the door, he wanted back into the games of power, and this gathering of London’s elite was the signal of his readiness.
    And Poppy loathed him for it, because he had chosen tomove on. He either didn’t see, or refused to see, why his choice was so wrong—and whatever Papa decreed, her mother embraced. There would be no help from either of them.
    After all, it wasn’t as if Imogen was actually dead . She lay upstairs, deep in a sleep that should have seen her starve to death, or corrode in a mass of bedsores, or otherwise dwindle away in some nasty fashion. The nurses were able to administer broth and gruel, but little else. Yet she survived, lovely and remote as a fairy-tale princess in an enchanted tower.
    Of course, such phenomena worked better between the covers of a book. Poppy could read her father’s silences and frowns. As far as he was concerned, Imogen’s besetting sin had been that she simply would not die so everyone else could get on with things. Lord Bancroft’s pity only extended so far—eleven months, to be precise.
    Poppy would not forgive that. She trembled with fury at the tide of brittle laughter tumbling from the drawing room. She loved Imogen fiercely, and she wouldn’t give up on her. And perhaps that meant not being at this wretched party at all. Poppy turned, determined to march back to her bedroom and strip off the ridiculous ruffled gown the maid had stuffed her into.
    But before she made it three steps, her mother appeared out of thin air. “Penelope, you’re late.”
    She only got “Penelope” when her mother was upset. Poppy turned, cheeks hot with defiance. But Lady Bancroft—her fine brows drawn into a sharp crease—was having none of it.
    “My stays are laced too tight,” Poppy declared, a little too loudly.
    “Hush,” her mother whispered, since feminine undergarments were hardly drawing room fare. “That’s what you get for refusing to wear your training corset all those years.”
    “I can’t breathe.”
    “Young ladies are not required to breathe. They are required to be punctual.” Lady Bancroft, pale and slender as a reed, gave the impression of a delicate, biddable woman. Poppy had never experienced that side of her. “If I let youreturn to your room, in an hour I’ll find you with your nose in a book.”
    “No one else will care.”
    “Your task is to make them care.” Lady Bancroft grabbed her elbow, her pale pink gloves nearly matching the lace on Poppy’s sleeve. “You will go in there and be charming. If not for your own sake, do it for your father.”
    That was hardly incentive. “I’m not even out of the schoolroom yet! I have at least a year before I have to be pleasant to people.”
    “You need the practice, and there is never a time like the present to begin.”
    And to Poppy’s chagrin, her mother steered her through the door into the crowded drawing room. Poppy pulled her arm away and lifted her chin. If she were doomed to attend the party, she would face it with dignity. They hadn’t gone a dozen feet before Poppy was forced to plaster a smile on her face.
    “Lady Bancroft,” said Jasper Keating, emerging out of the crowd like a ship under full sail. From what Poppy could tell, he was usually a vessel of ill omen.
    Keating had thick, waving white hair and amber eyes that reminded her of some monster from a storybook. He bowed over her mother’s hand. “You are enchanting as