Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James

out the carriage window, trying to see whose coach was fol owing theirs.
    “That’s not a riddle; it’s Latin.”
    “I see no difference. And besides, I know why you wish to attend the bal , Charlotte.”
    “For the pleasure of it?”
    “Because you’re hoping that her uncle wil have come to town to see his niece. Lord Barnabe Reeve.”
    “I had forgotten about him,” Charlotte said, less than truthful y. “Didn’t he retire to the country? Of course he won’t be there.
    You know as wel as I do that he’s not right in the head.”
    “Like al the Reeve family,” May said. “Did you hear that the duchess is bringing the daughter of the Mad Marquess into society? I expect there are bets in White’s about her eccentricities, to put it kindly. Natural y the Mad Marquess and the Reeves share some part of their family tree. It only makes sense.”
    May had the most annoying titter in the entire world. “I want to see the duchess’s arrangements,” Charlotte said. “I heard that she intends to serve a table of fruit embedded in Parma violets. I’ve seen fruit embedded in moss; haven’t we al ? But violets? That must cost three hundred pounds.”
    “I am more curious to see her clothing,” May said. “That is, if she wears any. She may repeat herself and be delivered on a platter.”
    “I discount that tale entirely. It would be most uncomfortable, as one would be in constant danger of fal ing to the ground.”
    May looked unconvinced, but just then the carriage drew up in front of Beaumont House. “Wel , you can’t tel me that you have forgotten the Duchess of Claverstil ’s bal . Not after making an exhibit of yourself dancing al night with Barnabe Reeve.”
    Charlotte had a low opinion of her sister’s intel igence, and this question did not improve it. How could she—Charlotte
    —have forgotten that bal ? ’Twas the one at which she fel in love with Barnabe Reeve. Though he’d never asked for her hand, and left London shortly thereafter, she hadn’t forgotten.
    There was a cacophony of noise around them as carriages unloaded and footmen shouted. May was dressed most becomingly in blue, with moderate hoops. Charlotte, who prided herself on being elegant, was resplendent in sprigged silk.
    Unfortunately, the best they could hope for in terms of compliments were words like becoming and resplendent. It was a far cry from the bal when Charlotte danced al night with Lord Barnabe Reeve, dance after dance, certain she would be married within months.
    “Let’s enter, shal we?” she said, adjusting her drape of Anglican lace around her elbows. “We have a duchess to see!”
    But in fact the first person they saw was not the duchess, but the duke.
    “He’s glowering,” May whispered, as they approached the receiving line. “I cannot think why Her Grace returned from Paris. They cannot be happy together.”
    “Perhaps she was tired of France. I’ve heard that it can be miserably hot in the summer.”
    “There must be something more to it,” May murmured, with the kind of intensity that suggested she would spend the entire night talking of nothing else.

    “Good evening,” the duke said, bowing before them.
    They curtsied.
    “The duchess has made her way into the bal room,” the duke said, looking glacial y disapproving. “I know she wil be most happy to see you, Miss Tatlock, Miss Charlotte.”
    “Goodness,” May whispered as they hurried past him. “He couldn’t be more forbidding, could he? Is that Vil iers on the other side of the room? It can’t be. He never speaks to Beaumont.”
    “He might know the duchess…How interesting that would be!”
    “What?”
    Sometimes May was quite dense. “If Vil iers made a set at Beaumont’s wife,” Charlotte said patiently. “Vil iers hasn’t a mistress at the moment, has he?”
    “Who would know? The only thing that man real y cares about is chess.”
    “I know, but he seems to cut a wide swathe through the female half of the ton in