Living London - By Kristin Vayden Page 0,50

worse, directly to your face — pointing, laughing and staring at your folly."

"Why would you wish that on any one?" I asked.

She smirked and walked away, glancing once over her shoulder. "Enjoy the rest of your evening. It's the last one you'll enjoy for a long time to come." She turned, and she sashayed away, leaving me fuming and confused.

I went to notify the footman to ready my carriage. I simply wanted to go home.

Chapter Fourteen

My head pounded so severely I could almost hear it. Strangely, it sounded like incessant knocking. Rolling over in bed, I prayed I'd fall asleep again and wake up without the pain in my head and my heart.

Bang, bang, bang, "Miss Westin!" came Mrs. Trimbleton's voice, and I realized the pounding wasn't my head. It was someone at my bedroom door.

"Yes?" I croaked, unable to muster the will to rise and open the door. "Come in." I buried myself further in the soft blankets, wondering what could be so important.

"Jocelyn! Get up! It's dreadful! I can't believe it! I can't fathom!" she lamented, rushing around the room, pulling open drawers and wardrobes as she set out my clothes for the day. She crushed a hairbrush to her ample bosom and finally considered me.

"Now, dear, don't you let it get you down. I know better than to believe a word of it, and that's the truth. You just hold your head up high. Don't pay any mind to those filthy lies."

She spoke as if trying to convince herself, not me. My headache was forgotten, and replacing it was the unnatural sensation of my blood running cold. "Whatever are you talking about?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

"Well, Jocelyn, you really should get dressed first. You're sure to have callers first thing, and it won't do to have you unprepared."

"Unprepared for what, exactly?" I tried again, foreboding sensations seeping under my skin.

"Well, it seems that the petty gossipers were quite busy last night, and the gossip papers were compelled to share their ill-gotten lies."

"What gossip and what papers?" Why, oh, why, won't she just spit it out?

"All of them. The Tattler, Lady B's, and Fig's." She spoke the names quietly, as if it would lessen the blow. I was familiar with all of them. Though I didn't pay much attention to them, I knew most of polite society did.

"What do they say?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"Oh, Jocelyn. They all claim — mind you, I don't believe it — that you were, er, compromised." She spoke with a slight blush that made me suspect much more to the story. After all, weren't rumors of compromised debutants common?

"And who compromised me?" I asked, waiting for the larger shoe to drop.

"Lord Ashby."

The name speared through my heart. The memory of last night washed over me fresh, and again I realized just how easily I had been played a fool, at least that's how it seemed. I was wrong about Morgan, wretchedly wrong. In so many ways.

"I'm so sorry, Jocelyn but I'm afraid there's more," she added quietly as she walked closer.

"Of course there is," I muttered.

Just then Libby burst into the room and stopped abruptly upon seeing my tears and Mrs. Trimbleton's attempt to comfort me. "Oh, miss. It's so terrible! Pack of wolves, all of them!" Her fury at the injustice gave me a small smile.

"They'd never have said such horrid things if they knew you. Lord Ashby wouldn't compromise you and leave!"

"What? Is that what they are saying? He compromised me and left me?" I asked, confused and hurt because their gossip sounded too much like the truth. "Why would they care? Why would it matter if he did or didn't?" I just wanted to go back to sleep and have it all be a bad dream.

"Because, dearie, you're a Westin, and there's nothing people love more than to see the righteous fall, hard," Mrs. Trimbleton murmured comfortingly.

"So how bad is it? What will happen now?" I asked, not really caring. My heart was broken anyway.

****

It was bad. Not only had the news been far more condemning than I had expected, but the only correspondence I'd received had been a scrap of paper notifying me that my voucher to Almack's had been revoked.

"How could this have happened?" I lamented, cursing Arynna Windton to the depths of Hades. She was the only one who would spread such lies. I picked up Mrs. B's society pages and reread the column.

On a scandalizing note, this author was deliciously