Free Revealed by Kate Noble Page A

than not, Phillippa was thankful for her freedoms. For every time she would have welcomed a supporting presence and the wisdom of her elders, there had been a dozen others that the restrictions a mother or chaperone wrought would have hampered her most unduly.
    She liked being able to do as she pleased, no matter how lonely it became.
    But she wasn’t alone, she thought, shaking off such a ridiculous notion. She had friends, like Nora, to keep her company. She had rivals, like Lady Jane Cummings, to keep her occupied. She had Bitsy, who relied on her completely—except for those times Bitsy had business to attend to, wherein his walker took him out—and she had Totty, who pinched Phillippa in the arm to bring her attention back to the table.
    “Ouch! Totty!” Phillippa jolted back, rubbing her arm.
    “Well, stop thinking while I’m talking. Who gave you such license? I was telling you all about the commotion at Lady Draye’s!”
    “Why, what happened at Lady Draye’s?”
    “I cannot believe you were not there! It was madness. That Marquis you’ve got your eye on, he gave his dance with Lady Jane away to Mr. Worth! He did the reel with your friend Nora instead.”
    Phillippa nearly spat out her tea. “Marcus Worth! How did he get to Lady Draye’s?”
    Totty looked at her charge with an expression of astonishment. “Carriage, I expect. Much like the rest of us.”
    “Of . . . of course,” Phillippa said coolly, delicately dabbing at the corner of her mouth. But all the while her mind was reeling: How did dust-covered Marcus Worth recover his appearance enough to go to the Draye affair after being encased in a sarcophagus with her? Maybe he really was a spy. Such quick-change abilities certainly warranted a mark in the pro column.
    “So . . . how did Lady Jane feel about having her circumstances so reduced?” Phillippa tried to maintain coolness in her voice.
    “Hmph,” Totty said, gulping her tea. “To watch Lady Jane, you would think that dancing with a second son instead of a Marquis is no step down at all. Rarely have I seen anyone so gracefully cool.” At Phillippa’s eyebrow, her chaperone added, “Excepting you, of course, my dear.”
    “Lady Jane’s too insipid to lay any claim to grace. Still, she could not have been happy with Mr. Worth’s dancing abilities.”
    “Actually, I believe he acquitted himself rather well,” Totty said on a yawn. It was still very early for her.
    “Really? But he’s so tall; it must have been awkward,” she mused.
    “Truly, darling, I have little idea. You can’t expect me to pay attention to Lady Jane’s dance partners all evening, you know.”
    While Totty, having finished with her hearty breakfast of tea, tomato juice, and alcohol, turned her attention to the morning’s stack of invitations, Phillippa tapped her teeth in what she knew to be an unbecoming fashion.
    But in times of truly deep contemplation, teeth-tapping tended to occur.
    Really, she shouldn’t care as she did. Who gave a fig if Marcus Worth was England’s premier spy against the French? The war had ended twice over, and his name—or pseudonym—no longer graced the papers. She had no reason to pay any attention to his movements.
    But what had he been doing dancing with Lady Jane?
    Stop it, Philly! she told herself harshly. Her concern was not whom Lady Jane had danced with; it was whom she hadn’t. Namely Broughton. He had done as she bade and refused a dance with Lady Jane. That brought a slow, sure smile to her face. Broughton had played the game admirably, and the next challenge would be his to issue. Phillippa felt a small twinge of fear as to what the challenge could entail, but all in all, this season was going wholly according to plan. So she should not allow her attention to be diverted by someone of no importance and no proven secret identity.
    “Your mother writes,” Mrs. Tottendale said with a raised brow as she scanned a letter, “to remind you not to book the same