Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter

your father or Roger, there will be compensations for your suffering this time. With your mother’s permission, I will see to it.”
    “I would rather you did not.”
    Daphne studied her. Then she rose as if the conversation had ended, and slid her book back into its place in the mahogany bookcase.
    “It will be very chilled tonight,” Daphne said. “Lizzie, please go and light the fire pots in the greenhouse. Celia, I would be grateful if you helped her.”
    The two of them left. Audrianna stared at the fire, and tried to imagine what it would be like to live down this scandal. It might be a very big one, the way Lizzie assumed.
    Then again, perhaps not. It could remain confined to London alone. She might still be able to maintain her obscurity out here in the country. How many people who passed by Mr. Trotter’s shop had also heard the gossip, after all? When one thought about it, a woman shooting a man was not an absurd image to put on the top of a song titled “My Inconstant Love.” It might all remain fairly quiet and—
    “Audrianna, I fear that I must break my own rule.” Daphne’s voice, right behind her head, made Audrianna startle.
    Daphne walked around her chair and sat once more in her own. She leaned forward and reached out to take Audrianna’s hand. “As my relative, and as a young woman new to her independence, you are not merely a guest here. Your mother agreed to your staying here because she assumed you would be safe.”
    “And I have been.”
    “As you say. However, this image—I must ask you to tell me again what happened at the Two Swords, Audrianna. And this time I implore you not to leave half the story out.”
     
     
     
     
    S ebastian perused the stack of papers on his writing desk. Besides the engraving given to Morgan, five others had now been procured in town by the servants, at Sebastian’s instruction. Yet another adorned the top of a piece of sheet music published by Mr. Thomas Trotter of Albermarle Street.
    The music and song had been written by none other than Miss Kelmsleigh herself. “My Inconstant Love.” Sebastian hummed the melody in his head while he read the words. It appeared a heartfelt song, ripe with the fresh ache of a broken heart. It appeared that Miss Kelmsleigh had been disappointed in a matter of the heart, and had released the pain in this sad little song.
    He turned his attention to several notices in scandal sheets from the last week. He had not been named in any of them, but anyone aware of the rumor about the doings at the Two Swords—and he assumed that meant all of society now—would have no trouble following the direction that speculation was taking. It appeared that the scandal was going to stick, and stick hard.
    To be accused of seducing Miss Kelmsleigh, when he had not, did not surprise him too much. He had all but invited that when he implied to Sir Edwin that he and she had met because they were lovers. The world knew he had not been a saint, so he could hardly expect anyone to view the evidence otherwise.
    These engravings and notices did not imply a liaison, however. The accusation was that he had used his role in the investigation of her father to coerce her into bed. One might easily assume that he had discovered more than he had ever revealed about that bad gunpowder, but buried the evidence in trade for Miss Kelmsleigh’s favors.
    That made him a scoundrel of the worst kind. He was being depicted not only as a man who would cynically prey upon the innocent, but also as one who would compromise his duty to his position and to the truth in return for ill-gotten pleasure.
    He noted that Miss Kelmsleigh, whose willfulness had brought all this about, was treated most sympathetically in all these images and insinuating notices. The engravings showed her as sweet, innocent, frightened, confused, dismayed, resistant, and victimized—even the ones that drew a pistol in her hand.
    The assassination of his character distracted him enough that