Free Scandal by Carolyn Jewel

was Sophie heading for the door with short, rapid steps. Head down, she had her skirts fisted in one hand.
    Tallboys stepped back, hands lifted. “No need to snarl, my lord. If you reciprocate her interest, I won’t interfere.”
    â€œI don’t,” he said. He didn’t even care that he sounded curt. Sophie was moving at an angle to where he stood, but someone must have called out to her, because she hesitated, and he caught a glimpse of her face. Deathly white. And the tremble of her hand over her bosom. Then she fled. With a flash of the satin trim down the back of her gown, she was gone. “Damn,” he whispered. Well. Let her go then. Frankly, she had the right idea. He needn’t stay for this torture, either. He could leave while Sophie was in the retiring room fixing whatever disaster had happened to her rather shopworn gown. Couldn’t Mercer be bothered to properly outfit his sister for Town?
    â€œI thought perhaps you’d met her before tonight,” Tallboys said. “You knew her late husband, after all.”
    Banallt stopped staring at the empty doorway and looked at Tallboys. “Late husband?” To his knowledge, Mr. Peters was on the other side of the room. He wasn’t often caught flat-out stupid, and he’d just been, he realized. “Mrs. Evans, you mean?”
    â€œWhy, yes, my lord.” Tallboys scanned the room. “She’s absolutely charming. Not the way you prefer them, but she’s got something all the same.” He smiled. “I’m relieved you don’t mind. The way you were staring at her tonight I thought you might.”
    â€œI was not staring at Mrs. Evans.” This entire evening was a fiasco, and he really couldn’t stand another moment of it. “Excuse me, Tallboys, won’t you?”
    Tallboys nodded. “My lord.”
    He dodged Mrs. Peters and left, heading for the stairs, mentally composing the excuse he would give a servant to deliver to Vedaelin. At the top of the stairs, where the corridor went one way to the ladies’ retiring room and another to God knows where in the house, a soft sound stopped him.
    Sophie was standing in a darkened portion of the corridor with her forearm on one of the marble columns that ran the length of the tiled walkway. Her head was hidden in the crook of her elbow.
    She gave no sign of having heard him. He could walk away. Continue down the stairs and out of the house. Away from here. He ought to. He took a step in her direction even though he didn’t intend to. Her shoulders heaved.
    â€œMrs. Evans?”
    She stilled. Her forehead pressed into her arm just once before she lifted her head and looked in his direction. She opened her mouth to say something—probably, he decided, an order to leave her alone—but her breath stuttered, and her eyes ... Her eyes were bleak. Broken.
    â€œWhat’s happened?” He was instantly cast back to Rider Hall, to the days when they’d been friends despite the relentless pull of his desire for her. He moved closer, near enough to touch her. He didn’t dare. “If it’s me who has upset you, please, dry your tears,” he said. “I have been called away. I’m on my way out now.”
    She put her back to the column and stared at the ceiling. Her breath hitched again, but softer this time as she struggled with whatever it was that had shattered her. Banallt’s chest shrank around his heart. “That‘s—” She cleared her throat and started again. “That’s—It’s not you,” she whispered.
    He stared at her as she struggled to master herself, and for the first time since he had met her, he thought she might lose the battle. “Sophie,” he said. He took a breath. “Please, let me speak, and then you may either dismiss me or tell me what is the matter, as you wish. Agreed?”
    She nodded. Her hands were fisted and pressed against the