Ballrooms and Blackmail by Regina Scott Page B

you be whipped within
an inch of your life, then castrated.”
    Nathan raised his brows.
    Priscilla rose majestically from her seat
and put herself between him and his accuser. “Oh, dear Lady
Minerva, I so appreciate your zeal on my behalf, but we must be
merciful, even if we are denied mercy.”
    Lady Minerva peered around her, as if
gauging how Nathan was taking all this. He turned to his
goggle-eyed butler. “Leave us a moment, Pierson, and take Lady
Minerva with you. I’m sure she’d appreciate a tour of the house.
Keep the door ajar.”
    Lady Minerva glared at him a moment before
suffering to be led out. He couldn’t help noticing she was
fingering an ivory broach at her throat, very similar to one he had
seen Miss Tate wearing recently.
    As if she’d been abandoned by her last
friend, Priscilla returned to the chair, shoulders slumping. Nathan
went and crouched beside her. “Come now, Miss Tate. It cannot be as
bad as all that.”
    Her sculptured rosy lips trembled. “You
think not? You asked Bow Street to investigate me!”
    Nathan rocked back on his heels. “Of course
I did. That is standard practice when His Grace shows particular
interest in a person.”
    Her eyes widened, an expanse of emerald.
“You investigate everyone who comes close to the duke?”
    He nodded, rising. “Everyone. So, you see,
it’s nothing personal.”
    “Nothing personal?” She stood, head on a
level with his. “Of course it’s personal! You gave strangers the
right to pry into the most intimate details of my life!”
    Put that way, he sounded like a peeping Tom.
He returned to the safety of the desk and straightened his cravat.
“If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.”
    She shook her head, and the histrionics fell
away. “You truly have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”
    Something in her attitude nettled him. “I
have done my duty, Miss Tate.”
    “I see.” She cocked her head, and more of
her golden curls spilled over her shoulder, like sunlight piercing
the clouds. “These other people you’ve had investigated, how many
were women?”
    Did she think him a misogynist? “Several, I
assure you: maids, the cook, a seamstress.”
    “All servants or in trade,” she
summarized.
    “I fail to see the distinction. I am
informed any number of families use Bow Street for similar
purposes.”
    “So I have heard.” She approached the desk.
“And I can tell you truly think that if I am innocent, I will not
suffer. But there you are wrong.”
    When Nathan frowned, she continued. “You
must have been exposed to the gossip that passes through the ton faster than gold leaves a spendthrift’s pocket. What do
you think will happen when it becomes known that Bow Street is
investigating me?”
    “Bow Street is very discreet,” he started,
but she held up a hand.
    “So very discreet that I was able to
determine I was being investigated within a few hours of your
commission. No, Mr. Kent, the word will get out. Even when your
investigation proves me innocent, the damage will have been
done.”
    Her lower lip was trembling again. The look
made him want to gather her in his arms, hold her close, and
promise her everything would be well. He didn’t move from the back
of the desk.
    “You see, no one will believe my innocence,”
she said, voice throbbing with emotion. “Where there’s smoke,
there’s fire, they’ll say. No decent man will take a chance on
marrying me. No lady will wish to be seen in my company lest she be
tarred with the same brush. I will be ruined, Mr. Kent, a pariah,
just because of your standard practices.”
    He wanted to doubt her. He’d seen those
green eyes brim with tears on the least provocation. Yet the bleak
look on her face, the way she picked at the stitching on one glove,
told him this time she truly was hurting.
    And he knew enough about Society to realize
her fears were grounded in reality.
    “I’ll contact Bow Street immediately,” he
said. “Assure them it was a mistake. If