those names. They’d always moved in entirely different social circles than Geoffrey, but for a brief moment in time, when he’d been courting another woman and imagined a future with her, he had been connected to her two unconventional friends, the ladies Althea and Dorothy.
Despite himself, Geoffrey found himself scouring the crowd for the woman who had forever been part of that little trio, friends who’d become leading patrons of Society…
And he felt… oddly deflated when he didn’t catch sight of her.
Which was ridiculous. Of course Lydia would have never come to an affair as scandalous as this. Society had well known her to be not only eminently respectable, but happy in her marriage.
Odd that a pang should still strike his chest at the thought.
Feeling stares upon him, he glanced over.
Both Mowbray and Davenport stared back.
“What?” he asked gruffly.
“Are you paying attention?”
“I am,” Geoffrey lied.
“Yes,” Mowbray muttered. “paying attention to the latest entertainment my scapegrace son has set up.”
Yes, many years earlier, that would have been the likely supposition for either man, for anyone, to have drawn. Fortunately, this time, it proved a convenient out given to Geoffrey.
When he glanced out at the crowd once more, Lydia’s two friends were gone.
“Now…” Mowbray took command, bringing them back to their purpose in being there that night. “We split up. We find Harold and find out whatever you can about his interest in… this woman. I’ll check the billiards room. Davenport—”
“The cardrooms.”
Mowbray turned to Geoffrey. “That leaves you on the libraries. Everyone knows all lovers meet in libraries.”
“What in blazes am I supposed to do? Interrupt their assignation?” he asked dryly.
“Information. I want information on if it is serious. If it’s serious, they aren’t engaged in wickedness.”
“Oh, I think given the event the gentleman is hosting, it is quite safe to say just what exactly he and this young woman are up to. As such, I hardly think I need to—”
His friends had already turned and split off.
“Be here,” he mumbled that last part under his breath.
They’d already gone.
A young woman slid close. Pressing her naked body against him, she rubbed enormous breasts along his arm. “Are you looking for company, sir?” she purred in throaty tones that would have once enticed. She reached down and made a less than delicate grab for his shaft.
Alas, had Geoffrey ever sired children as his friends had, he could have had a daughter this young woman’s age.
Wincing, he disentangled himself from her cloying attempts. “If you’ll excuse me? I… have someone I’m meeting.”
With that, Geoffrey rushed off and cursed the woes that came with being a loyal friend.
Chapter 3
In the end, Althea had been right.
Lydia had gone.
Granted, she’d tried to sneak out the front door as soon as she’d arrived.
“Caught!”
She froze.
Alas, her escape was cut short.
Dorothy and Althea came rushing over. “Wherever are you going?”
“I forgot something… in the carriage,” she lied, even as they were taking her arms and steering her back in the direction of the most scandalous sight she’d ever beheld and certainly the most wicked affair she’d ever attended.
“Oh, splendid,” Dorothy said in her always-happy tones. “And here I feared you were trying to leave.”
“She wouldn’t dream of it.” Althea slid a sly glance Lydia’s way. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Of course. I can’t imagine anyplace I’d rather be than…” They again stopped at the front of the room. “Here.”
Just like that, the seemingly impossible happened for a second time. They, three almost-always talkative, not easily shocked women, found themselves silent as they took in the tableau unfolding in the ballroom. Couples in varies states of undress waltzed to the evocative whine of the orchestra’s string instruments. Periodically, partners would trade off with a nearby couple. Women danced other women about, kissing while they completed the steps of the dance, before swapping to join a masked, male partner.
It was a lurid display of sin and carnality that managed to heat Lydia’s cheeks with a blush like she were a debutante, and heat stirred within her, too. Desire.
Though, in fairness, Lydia had never before witnessed… this.
“Do you believe people we know behaved this way when we were their age?” Dorothy whispered loudly.
A tall, heavily muscled servant in a domino mask, his chest bare and his breeches tight-fitting, stopped before them. He extended the silver tray filled with champagne flutes towards them.
Lydia and her friends flanking her all jumped.
“Drinks?” he purred.
“Of course we want drinks,” Althea snapped. “Drinks, he asks,” she muttered to herself. “As if we wouldn’t because we’re what? Too old for