Seducing an Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

would enjoy. Shall we leave the crowd and walk home, Alice?”
    “Some people,” her former governess said as they set off across an almost deserted lawn, “ought to have their mouths smacked and then washed out with soap. It is no wonder their children are so badly behaved, Cassie. And then they expect their governesses to exert discipline without scolding or slapping the little darlings.”
    “It must be very provoking to you,” Cassandra said.
    They walked for a while in silence.
    “You are going to go to that ball, are you not?” Alice said as they stepped out onto the street. “Lady Sheringford’s.”
    “Yes,” Cassandra said. “I shall be able to get in, don’t worry.”
    “It is not about your not getting in that I worry,” Alice said tartly.
    Cassandra lapsed into silence again. There was no point in discussing the matter further. Alice must have come to the same conclusion, for she said no more either.
    The Earl of Merton.
    Mr. Huxtable.
    Angel and devil.
    Would they be at the ball tomorrow evening?
    But even if they were not, plenty of other gentlemen would be.
    Cassandra was forced to spend some of her precious diminishing hoard of money on a hackney coach to take her to Grosvenor Square the following evening. It really would not do to walk the distance at night, dressed in evening finery, especially when she had no male servant to accompany her. Even so, she did not ride the whole way. She had the driver set her down in the street outside the square and then walked in.
    She had timed her arrival to be on the late side. Despite that fact, there was a line of grand carriages drawn up outside one of the mansions there. The windows of the house blazed with light. A red carpet had been rolled out down the steps and across the pavement so that guests would not have to get their dancing shoes dusty.
    Cassandra crossed the square and stepped onto the carpet, up the steps, and inside the house in company with a loudly chattering group. She handed her cloak to a footman, who bowed respectfully when she murmured her name and made no move to toss her out into the night. She moved to the staircase and climbed it slowly along with a number of other people. Presumably there was still a receiving line at the ballroom doors and that was what was causing the delay. She had hoped to avoid that by coming late.
    She had forgotten—if she had ever known—that in order to be late at a ton entertainment one really had to be very late indeed.
    Everyone about her was greeting everyone else. Everyone was in a festive mood. No one spoke to the lone woman in their midst. No one gasped in sudden outrage, either, or pointed an accusing finger or demanded that the impostor be removed. As far as she knew, no one even looked at her, but then she looked directly at no one and therefore could not be sure.
    Perhaps no one would remember her after all. She had come to London two or three times with Nigel, and they had attended a few entertainments together. But it was altogether probable no one would recognize her now.
    That hope soon became quite irrelevant. She gave her name to the smartly uniformed manservant outside the ballroom doors with cool, languid voice and, though he consulted a list in his hand and clearly did not find her name there, he hesitated only a moment. She raised her eyebrows and leveled her haughtiest look on him when he glanced up at her, and he gave her name to the major-domo inside the doors, and he announced it in a loud, clear voice.
    No one could have missed hearing it, she thought, even if they had been humming with fingers pressed into both ears.
    “Lady Paget,” he announced.
    And with those two words went any hope of anonymity.
    Cassandra proceeded to shake the hands of the dark-haired ladyshe presumed to be the Countess of Sheringford and of the handsome man beside her, who must be the notorious earl. But this was no time to study the two of them with any sort of curiosity. She curtsied to the