Ballrooms and Blackmail by Regina Scott Page A

shaking.
    Priscilla enveloped her in a hug. “Oh,
Emily. I’m so sorry.”
    It was a testament to her friend’s state of
mind that she, who rarely showed any emotion, allowed Priscilla to
hold her a moment before pushing back and wiping away a tear.
    “Enough of this,” Emily said with a sniff.
“We must determine our next steps.”
    “Oh, I know my next step,” Priscilla assured
her, dropping her arms. “I need to borrow your most somber
pelisse.”
    Emily pursed her lips. “It will be a little
short, and it won’t close properly as I have not been blessed with
your curves.”
    Priscilla smiled at her. “In this case, the
cut doesn’t matter. I must look serious and pitiful.”
    Emily chuckled. “So naturally you want to
raid my wardrobe.”
    “You are serious, Emily,” Priscilla
answered, heading for the door. “Leave it to me to manage the
pitiful. I know just what to do to get Mr. Kent’s attention.”
    *
    Nathan frowned over the many papers the
duke’s steward and man of affairs had brought to him. The duke’s
position as head of a large family and owner of multiple properties
required dozens of decisions on a daily basis. Nathan hadn’t the
authority to make those decisions, but his influence over his
cousin had helped sway His Grace one way or the other, until
recently. He didn’t know whether His Grace was growing more
confident in his role or whether he was being advised elsewhere.
But Nathan didn’t like the feeling that things were out of his
control. Too many lives depended on him giving the duke wise
counsel and keeping him on a steady course.
    “Miss Tate, please! Allow me to announce
you!”
    Nathan heard his butler’s cry a moment
before the library doors burst open and Priscilla Tate all but ran
into the room. Her hair had come loose of its pins on one side,
shadowing her face by a golden curtain, and her figure was outlined
in a smoke-colored pelisse of watered satin.
    Nathan was on his feet before he thought of
it. “What’s happened?”
    She rushed up to the desk that straddled the
back of the room and held out her hands beseechingly. “Please, Mr.
Kent, have mercy! Don’t ruin my family name!”
    Close up, he could see tears glistening on
her pearly cheeks, and her eyes were wide with panic.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Kent,” the family butler
said, coming more slowly into the room behind her. “She simply
wouldn’t listen to reason.”
    “And why should she?” Lady Minerva, sister
to the Duke of Emerson and aunt to Lady Emily, stalked in past the
butler and narrowed her eyes at Nathan with lethal intensity. “You,
young man, are a dastard!”
    The butler shifted from foot to foot as if
unsure whether to offer her a restorative cup of tea or throw her
out on her ear.
    In front of Nathan, Priscilla heaved a sigh,
and no man alive could have ignored the rise and fall of her
exquisitely molded chest. “Lady Minerva is quite right. How can I
be reasonable when my life is over?” She threw herself onto the
nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. The sobs echoed
against the white-lacquered bookcases surrounding them. He was
certain the sound would have melted the hardest heart.
    “Now see what you’ve done?” Lady Minerva
scolded. “I warn you, she won’t stop until you’ve settled this.
That girl is a regular watering pot.”
    Priscilla’s shoulders tightened, as if she
meant to raise her head and protest, but her wails only grew in
volume.
    Nathan felt like a curmudgeon for ignoring
them. He bowed to Lady Minerva. “Your ladyship, if you would be so
kind as to explain what I have done to so discompose Miss Tate, I
will do everything in my power to make the matter right.”
    Was that a pause in Priscilla’s sobbing, as
if she were listening?
    Lady Minerva put her hands on the hips of
her gray lustring gown. “Why should I tell you anything? You know
very well what you’ve done to this poor girl. I have a mind to turn
you over to the magistrates and demand that