Free A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides by Elizabeth Essex

dread. Hated how her body had begun a low, jittery trembling. Hated that Will Jellicoe had seen and felt her faltering nerves, because he pressed his hands against her arms to still the involuntary movement. She turned her face away, ashamed of her weakness and angry at herself for giving Aldridge such power over her. “I have to answer the door.”
    Jellicoe nodded, squeezed her arm gently, and said it again. “Courage.” And let her go.
    Antigone satisfied her urge to touch him—to touch something, anything, to quell the dratted tremors—by running her hand down the folds of the curtains, quickly straightening and arranging them to her satisfaction, before she retreated halfway across the room and ordered her voice into a reasonable facsimile of defiant confidence. “Who is it?”
    “Aldridge.” His lordship sounded both subdued—as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear him—and cross at being made to wait. “What goes on in there?”
    “Nothing.” She put the same crossness at being disturbed into her own voice. “What do you want?”
    “To speak with you,” he said with deliberate carefulness.
    “What about?” More confidence that time, with only a little peevish disdain.
    “What do you think?” His voice took on the edge of impatience. “What are you doing in there?”
    Having a great deal more fun than she would ever have out there. She cast her gaze about the room, over the chairs, and the glasses of cognac, until it came to light upon the book. “Reading. That’s what one does in a library.”
    The doorknob rattled again but the barrier of lock and chair held. “Miss Antigone. Are you going to let me in?”
    “No.” The decision took no thought. “I think not.”
    “Antigone.” The voice behind the door lowered to a frosty growl. “You’re acting like a child.”
    “That’s what young people do, sir, when they get their feelings hurt. When no one stands up for them. They act accordingly.”
    “Stands up? Good Lord, you unruly child, Mr. Stubbs-Haye can barely stand up. The footmen had to carry him off.”
    Antigone stifled her laugh, and shot a glance over at her friend behind the curtains. Hadn’t she joked that— Oh, but it was Cassandra with whom she had made that outrageous prediction about the footmen, and not Jellicoe. Funny how it had felt for a moment as if it had been him. Funny.
    “What did you say?” The door creaked as if Lord Aldridge had pressed his ear up against it. He must have heard her laughter.
    “I didn’t say anything, sir.” It was a good thing he could not see her roll her eyes as she answered.
    “Are you quite sure? Antigone? Who is in there with you?”
    Well. Lord Aldridge, for all his officious frost, had the instincts of a hunter, and he was no fool. She would do well to remember that. She pushed all traces of sarcasm from her tone. “No one, sir. I am quite alone. As I would prefer to remain.”
    “You cannot mean to let the ball go on without you. You cannot mean to remain the whole evening through when everything has been planned and prepared for months.”
    More statements that should have been questions, but weren’t.
    A second realization blazed its way across her brain. If she did not appear at his side, Lord Aldridge could not give any weight to his private announcements of their arrangement. And without her, he certainly could make no public one, either. Without her, the tittle-tattle was more likely to remain nothing but idle rumor.
    She could satisfy both herself and Mama. “Yes, sir. I think it best to remain here for the rest of the evening. Quite safe from creating any further shocking spectacle for your guests.”
    He must have heard the arch smile, the unmistakable delight in her voice. His own was full of barely patient frustration. “Antigone, child. I’m trying to understand you, but you make it so very difficult. You…”
    Whatever else Lord Aldridge had come to say faded into nothingness. But Antigone was not fooled. He