glanced quickly over her shoulder toward Lady Catherton. Fortunately, her employer was distracted by chatting with a lady with plumes in her hair.
The butler boomed, “The Dowager Countess of Farris, Baron Mentmore, and Viscount Pickhill.”
Her stomach sank. Three guests from the Bazaar, here, now. And Noel.
She felt as though she’d been thrown into the middle of a lake and could only slap at the water to stay afloat.
“Jess.”
She dragged her gaze back to Noel. “Noel, I mean, Your Grace—”
“Miss McGale.” Lady Catherton’s voice sounded right behind her. Jess pivoted to see her employer standing a few feet away. “I think it’s time we . . . I beg your pardon, Your Grace.” To Jess’s horror, her employer smiled at Noel and executed a flawless curtsy. “Ah, I see you’ve met my companion.”
Noel looked back and forth between Jess and Lady Catherton. “Lady Whitfield is your companion.”
“I—” Jess managed before her employer spoke.
“Lady Whitfield? I’m not certain who you’re talking about.”
“The person standing right beside you.” Noel gestured to Jess.
“I do hate to contradict Your Grace,” Lady Catherton said deferentially, “but this person is Miss Jessica McGale, my hired companion.”
“Miss McGale?” Noel said, his gaze fixed to Jess.
There were only a few times in Jess’s life when she’d truly prayed. When her parents both fell ill, and she’d sent pleas to Heaven for them to get well. She’d prayed, too, that the fire would not destroy the family farm.
Her prayers had gone unanswered. Now she prayed that something, somehow, would stop this cataclysm.
Yet again, her fervent appeal to the heavens went unanswered.
Because she saw it then—she saw the moment that Noel understood.
The heartbreak in his dark eyes nearly made her crumple. She actually staggered as it seemed the floor would give way beneath her. But the floor remained in place, Jess continued to stand, and she watched in abject misery as the wounded man vanished. In his place was a cold, indifferent duke who gazed at her as if she was merely a speck of dust that had landed on his pristine black jacket.
Just as the music ended, Lady Catherton said, “Miss McGale is most assuredly not someone named Lady Whitfield.”
“Come again?” Lord Pickhill appeared, with Lady Farris and Baron Mentmore beside him. “We’ve spent the week with her, haven’t we?”
“She was Lady Whitfield then,” Baron Mentmore said. “But now she’s Miss McGale?”
“McGale & McGale soap.” Lady Farris stared at Jess, and the wounded look in her eyes was a fresh stab of guilt. “You conspired to infiltrate the Bazaar and then plant the idea of investing in the soap operation.”
“It was a ploy.” Baron Mentmore’s face darkened with outrage. “The whole time, a mercenary ploy.”
Lady Catherton looked astonished. “Miss McGale—is this true? You’ve pretended to be a lady?”
“She wore that very gown,” Lord Pickhill said, waving toward Lady Catherton’s dress. “Your gown.”
In an instant, Jess saw her family’s fortunes break apart. Lady Farris and the others would withdraw their investment capital, the repairs going unmade, the operation crumbling, and her siblings scattering to the wind. She’d ruined the business, ruined them.
All the nearby guests stared at the spectacle of Jess being confronted with the devastating outcome of her lies.
She tried to speak, but words did not materialize. Her eyes had gone hot and dry, and she could only stand there, rooted to the spot by a burning spike that went straight through her.
Lost. It was all lost. Because of her.
“My plan worked,” Noel said.
Silence. Then Lady Farris said, “Your Grace?”
His voice a wry drawl, Noel said, “A lark, really. It’s all been so tedious lately, everyone and everything the same as always. I used to pull pranks all the time in my school days, so I thought it would be amusing now, finding someone of ordinary birth to pose as one of us. Adding her to the Bazaar would make it even more droll. Miss McGale agreed to my proposed scheme—it was even better that she had a business in need of investors. A soap-making business, you know, and quite excellent.”
Gaze moving over the crowd, fully in command of everyone’s attention, he continued. “At my direction, she presented herself as ‘Lady Whitfield,’ then, through the subtlest of means, presented McGale & McGale to the others. She followed all of my instructions. And,” he added with a smirk, “everyone fell for it.”
Jess stared at him. Was he truly saying all this? Protecting her?
“You cannot be serious, Your Grace,” Lord Pickhill said.
“Believe what I say or don’t, Pickhill. It hardly matters to