Seducing an Angel Read Online Free PDF

elderly gentleman who was seated beside them. She assumed he was the reclusive Marquess of Claverbrook.
    “Lady Paget,” the countess said, smiling. “We are so happy you could come.”
    “Enjoy the dancing, ma’am,” the earl said, smiling too.
    “Lady Paget,” the marquess said gruffly, inclining his head to her.
    And she was in.
    As easily as that.
    Except that her name had preceded her inside.
    Her heart thumped in her bosom, and she opened her fan and plied it languidly before her face as she moved farther into the ballroom and began a slow promenade about its perimeter. It was not an easy thing to do. The room was crowded. Yesterday’s five ladies had been proved quite correct in their prediction that large numbers would come, even if only out of the spiteful hope that the marriage whose nuptials they had all attended three years ago was visibly crumbling.
    Cassandra had felt an instinctive liking for the earl and countess. Perhaps it was because she could identify with their notoriety and sympathize with the pain it must have caused them—and probably still did.
    Being alone was not a comfortable feeling. Every other lady appeared to have an escort or a companion or chaperone. Every gentleman seemed to be part of a group.
    But it was not just her lone state that was causing her discomfort. It was the atmosphere in the ballroom. As a chill feeling of dread crawled up her spine, she knew that her name had indeed been heard by more people than just the Earl and Countess of Sheringford and the Marquess of Claverbrook.
    And those who had not heard were now hearing it as fast as whispers could circle the ballroom. As fast as wildfire could spread in a gale, in other words.
    She stopped walking, unfurled her fan, and plied it slowly in front of her face as she looked about her, her chin high, her lips curved into a slight smile.
    No one was looking directly at her. And yet everyone was seeing her. It was a curious contradiction in terms, but it was perfectly true. No one had stepped out of her path as she walked, and no one stepped back from her now that she was standing still, but she felt isolated in a pool of emptiness, as though she were wearing an invisible aura that was two feet thick.
    Except that she also felt naked.
    But all this was no more than she had expected. She had decided not to use a false name, or even her maiden name. And she had come with an uncovered face tonight. There was no black veil to hide behind. It was inevitable that someone would recognize her.
    She did not believe she would be tossed out even so.
    Indeed, all this recognition might well work to her advantage. If the ton had come here tonight in large numbers to see a man who had once eloped with a married lady, how much more might they be fascinated by the sight of an axe murderer? Rumor and gossip loved that description of her, she understood, far more than it would have loved anything more approximating to the truth.
    She looked deliberately about her, secure in the knowledge that no one was going to meet her eyes and catch her staring. She did not recognize anyone. She concentrated upon the gentlemen, realizing as she did so the difficulty of the task she had set herself. There were young and old and everything in between, and all were immaculately dressed. But there was no way of knowing which among them were married and which single, which were wealthy and which poor, which had strong moral scruples and which weredebauched—and which were somewhere between those two extremes. She had no time to find out what she needed to know before making her choice and her move.
    And then her eyes alit upon a familiar face—three of them, actually. There was yesterday’s devil, looking just as satanic tonight in black evening clothes. The lady who had been on horseback yesterday was standing beside him, her hand on his sleeve, and she was talking and laughing. The gentleman Cassandra had thought of as mockingly handsome looked on, an amused