A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2) - Sarah MacLean Page 0,41

replied.

“What way is that?” Green asked.

“She says him in such a lovely tone,” Lily pointed out, feeling rather dizzy speaking to this group. “As though there’s some emotion aside from loathing in my feelings for him.”

“Loathing isn’t the opposite of love, you know,” Yellow said.

“Ugh.” Red echoed Lily’s thoughts. “Don’t listen to her. We all rue the day Sophie married for love.”

Sophie.

Like that, Lily identified the quartet.

“You’re the Dangerous Daughters!” she blurted out before clapping one hand over her mouth, as though she could have kept the observation from flying loose.

Smiles turned to grins. “The very same,” Sophie said.

Sophie was Lady Eversley, nee Sophie Talbot, now Marchioness of Eversley and future Duchess of Lyne, married in an utter scandal, six months prior. Which meant . . . Lily turned to Green, the most petite of the three, draped in green. “You’re Lady Seleste, soon to be Countess Clare and . . .” She turned to Blue, fairest of the group. “That makes you Mrs. Mark Landry.” Rich as a queen, married to a man who, by all accounts, was loud and crass and would be thoroughly unwelcome in the aristocracy if not for his outrageous sums of money.

Mrs. Landry inclined her head. “You may call me Lady Seline.”

They were four of the five daughters of the Earl of Wight, a coal miner with a skill for finding valuable stores of the fuel—skill enough to have bought himself, and his daughters, a title. Renowned social climbers, the women had been labeled The Dangerous Daughters by London’s scandal sheets. Lily had always thought that much better than the other, less kind name—The Soiled S’s.

Of course, now that three of the four had been identified, Lily knew who the fourth was. Her gaze slid to the exceedingly tall woman, beautiful and buxom in her form-fitting red gown, one that would have been utterly scandalous on anyone else if not on Lady Sesily Talbot. On her, it simply looked gorgeous. Beautiful enough to remind Lily that she paled horribly in comparison to the woman.

The woman who had been, only a year prior, linked to Derek Hawkins.

Suddenly, Lily was not so comforted by the appearance and the tacit acceptance of this group of women.

“You know us,” Lady Sesily said, “and the rest of the room seems to know you, so who are you?”

“Sesily,” Lady Eversley cautioned. “Don’t be so rude.”

She didn’t want to tell them. She didn’t want them to dislike her for her past with Derek. She’d heard about what women did to those with whom they felt they competed. And she rather liked this group.

Not that she knew them, really. But she liked them from the scandal sheets. And from the fact that they were speaking to her instead of whispering about her behind their fans.

They didn’t even have fans.

Lady Eversley turned to her. “Though, I will say, you are in my home, so it would be very nice to meet you,” she said with an amused smile.

“You’re right, Sophie. That was far more demure than I was.”

Seleste laughed. “As though any one of us has ever been demure.”

Sesily clasped Lily’s hands. “She is wearing a dress made of dogs. She doesn’t care about demureness, obviously. And she has no choice but to tell us who she is so we can protect her from the wolves beyond, who obviously lie in wait.” She leaned in close. “Wolves go after dogs.”

“As though you’d know a thing about wildlife. When was the last time you left London?” Seline snorted at her sister.

Lily did like them. So, it was time to end it. “I’m Lillian Hargrove.”

There was a beat of silence as they all heard her, and Lily waited for Sesily to release her hands and push her away. She did not expect the other woman to clasp them tighter and say, “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, Lovely Lily.”

Confusion flared, followed by a cacophonous mix of suspicion and nerves and disappointment and, at its heart, a kernel of hope.

Lillian blushed. “You wish to know me.”

Sesily tilted her head to one side. “Of course I wish to know of you. All of London wishes to know you.” She leaned in. “Some more biblically than others, I imagine.”

Lily blushed at the words.

“Sesily!”

“Well, really. Look at her. She as beautiful as they say.”

“She means you wish to know her in spite of Hawkins,” Seline pointed out, her husband’s notorious bluntness clearly a quality Mrs. Landry boasted as well. She turned to Lily. “Sesily doesn’t