away from him. “I need to find the retiring room.”
“Ginny,” Gabe snapped.
I didn’t wait for further comment or reprimand, but dashed toward the perimeter of the room, slipping into the shadows and away from watchful gazes. But it didn’t matter, I could feel the whispers following me like a rabid dog. Whispered words that burned, scalded.
Who is she?
The audacity. Why did he bring her?
Good lord, is she his mistress?
My face heated bright with shame. How stupid I’d been to believe I could blend in here. How stupid to think they wouldn’t see right through my fancy dress to the destitute servant below. I was nothing but a whore pretending to be a lady, and they knew it.
“Retiring room?” I desperately asked a maid who stood in the corner, a tray of champagne glasses in hand. “Please.”
“Up the stairs, my lady. To the left.”
I grabbed a glass of champagne, downed it, then hiked up my skirts. “Thank you.”
My body trembled as I raced up the steps. The room was crowded with women frantic to return to the gathering; no one noticed me as I inched my way inside. How very odd that a mere few weeks ago I was the maid in a retiring room, fixing the hems and skirts of these very ladies.
I pressed my back to the brocade wall. My heart hammered so hard I felt ill. Gabe had lied. He’d said he never lied, but he had. He claimed it would be a small affair, with not many in attendance. He’d lied, and that hurt most of all. But why? Why would he lie? Why was I here?
“My lady,” a maid said, startling me. “Do you need assistance with your hair?”
She looked so very innocent, but I realized she was probably only a year or two younger than me. How much I’d aged in the last couple months. She looked pointedly at my loose locks. Tentatively I touched my hair.
She assumed it had fallen from its pins, because no respectable woman would wear her hair down. Gabe had to have known, so why had he insisted? Did he want to humiliate me on purpose? Or was he so used to getting his way, he didn’t think about others, or how they would be influenced by his decisions?
“Um, no. Thank you.” I nodded toward the tray. “The lemon water, please.”
She scurried away to grab a glass, assuming I was someone important. If she knew the truth, she would have told me to get my own bloody water. Cautiously, I looked around the room. There were a few faces that seemed familiar. Visitors to the Landcaster ball? I prayed no one noticed me. I stepped even farther back into the shadows. What was I doing here? What had I been thinking?
I hadn’t been thinking, that was the problem. I’d let my rational mind become consumed with silly dreams and girlish hopes. There was nothing romantic about being a whore.
“Did you see him with that brazen woman?” a young lady hissed as she swept into the room. “You there.” She waved at a maid. “Fix my hem.”
“Oh Victoria, surely not an actual whore,” her friend whispered.
I froze, afraid to breathe.
The woman paused in the middle of the room, dressed in a pretty peach gown that showed off her glowing English complexion, as two maids scurried to her side. “Red? Who wears red, Eliza, but mistresses? Bodice entirely too low. Hair down to her backside like some country lass. What was he thinking? When Miranda hears about this—and as her best of friends, I do feel it our duty to tell her—she’ll be utterly devastated.”
My face flushed, my skin heating. She was talking about me. I slid halfway behind a dressing screen. Was my bodice too low? I glanced around the room. There were others with their nipples practically showing.
Victoria settled on a stool and patted her blonde curls into place. “You know why he’s doing it, don’t you, Eliza?”
“Well, if it’s to break the contract with his fiancé, it just might work.”
Fiancé?
My stomach churned. Gabe had a fiancé?
The woman laughed. “He could parade a team of whores through the ballroom and she wouldn’t break if off. She wants a title, and he, from what I heard, needs money. No, he’s doing this to get back at his parents. He knows he has to conform, but this is his last chance to have the upper hand.”
Everything was so confusing. Nothing made sense. I felt as if we all played a game and