A Scandalous Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page B

plea for help with passion and planned a masquerade so elaborate and exclusive that everyone who was anyone would be there.
    It was an invitation the Carrolltons would not refuse—and they didn’t. The acceptance of Mrs.
    Carrollton and daughter were among the first to be delivered.
    Devon wasn’t much for masquerades, but it was the only way he could woo Leah without her recognizing him.
    The night of the ball, he was the first to arrive. Lady Mary met him at the door with a gruff “Where’s your costume?”
    He held up the snowy white ruff he had yet to fasten around his neck and the midnight blue domino. “I’m Sir Francis Drake.”

    She snorted her opinion before turning to the baroness. “Charlotte, look at him. His neckcloth isn’t even starched. What shall we do?”
    The baroness took a moment to right the botched knot of Devon’s neckcloth with a skilled hand before pronouncing, “Never mind, Mary, he appears his usually masculine self. Although, Devon, you might consider spending money on a decent valet.”
    Devon gave a mock shiver. “I prefer being my own man,” he answered as he walked into the empty ballroom, where the servants were moving flowers and performing the last finishing touches.
    Lady Mary made a disgusted sound and hurried off to give orders to her butler. Charlotte watched him from the doorway. “Nervous, cher?”
    “No, excited. I haven’t felt this sense of anticipation since I was a boy and Grandfather promised to take me hunting for the first time.”
    She laughed. “An apt comparison. May you have a successful hunt.” She toasted him with her wine glass. At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and the first of a crowd of guests arrived.
    Devon kept to himself through the first part of the evening. He decided not to wear the silly ruff and stashed it behind a potted palm before putting on his domino. With each guest, the costumes seemed more and more elaborate. Everyone was delighted with the silliness of pretending to be someone else.
    Music and laughter quickly filled the room.
    Waiting impatiently from his vantage point, where he could see the entrance to the ballroom, Devon decided Mrs. Carrollton obviously understood the importance of arriving late. He was absolutely certain that Leah couldn’t enter the room without his recognizing her.
    And he was right. Almost two hours into the party, Leah Carrollton and her parents arrived.
    Her costume was no disguise at all. She’d dressed as Titania, Shakespeare’s Queen of the Fairies. The spangles on her dress caught the light and sparkled with her every movement. Tiny paste jewels had been glued around her eyes, and one had strategically been placed at the corner of her mouth—close to her dimple. Already, before she could enter the room, she was surrounded by a bevy of male admirers. She laughed at what one gentleman said to her, the sound ringing with joie de vivre. In that moment, every man in the room fell in love with her.
    Devon cursed his own cleverness, especially as Lord Redgrave took Leah’s hand and led her to the dance floor. He knew Redgrave. The older man had come to town looking for a wife. He stared down at Leah as if she were a piece of almond marzipan he’d like to gobble up—or marry.
    Devon couldn’t waste time.
    Worse, there was a line of gentlemen forming to claim the next set the moment Redgrave walked her off the dance floor. Devon was in danger of losing her before he had a chance to even speak to her!
    He stepped out onto the dance floor just as Leah and Lord Redgrave circled each other in the pattern before skipping off to their respective lines. With a daring that would have done Sir Francis proud, he stepped in front of Leah and whisked her off in another direction before Redgrave or the others in the set knew what was happening.

    She felt incredibly light in his arms. He could have picked her up and carried her. Instead, he twirled her out through a side door and onto a private