My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(6)

You hastily go to change into the dress, made of a rich forest-green fabric. Clearly designed as simple everyday wear for the ladies of the Rose & the Smoke, it is still finer and more revealing than anything else you have previously owned. You awkwardly cross your arms over your chest, but it only seems to add to the effect.

Something, or someone, is adding to the heat of your embarrassment. You look up to catch Mac, entranced, taking in the newly revealed curves of your body. He snaps his gaze away as soon as you look, but as you load the orphans into the wagon, you are gratified to see that Mac is unable to keep his eyes from you. Your satisfaction is of course foolish—you are here to work, not expose your bosoms to handsome Scotsmen. You continue your work as primly as possible and try to concentrate.

As you do, a dark blur tugs at the edge of your vision. You turn to make out just what it is, but the figure suddenly melts into the depths of the murky shadows of the street like a soul of the damned sent to wander this earth, never finding salvation.

You dismiss it as nothing.





Get ye to the Great North Road! And Scotland! Turn to this page.





The ballroom is a vast channel of well-bred, well-dressed gallimaufry, and Lady Evangeline sails through it with the earned ease of a veteran sailor.

“To me, you are a friend,” Lady Evangeline says. “That is why we are drinking the good brandy.”

Once you reach the other end of the ballroom, far from the prying eyes of the ton and yet farther from the still-doubled-over Cad, Lady Evangeline reveals a small flask she has secreted in her reticule. She swigs deeply and hands it to you.

“Drink,” she insists. You know how to follow orders and do so gladly. After taking a sip, you open your mouth to form a question. She passes an elegant finger over her lips to hush you before you can. “Please,” she says. “While I would rather you not be so intimately acquainted with the skeletons knocking about my family’s closet, it appears they will stop at nothing to perform a danse macabre for you this very evening.”

“A danse macabre done with two left feet, no less,” you say. You both laugh conspiratorially, then right yourselves.

“Truly,” Lady Evangeline continues. “But I must say, I have never enjoyed Cad’s antics. I have always dismissed him as a vibrant man on the fringes of proper society with misdirected energies, but his performance tonight has me…concerned.” Her lovely brow knits with worry.

“You, too, think there is something questionable with his claim?” you press.

“I do,” she answers slowly. “But I am vexed.”

“As am I,” you agree. “Benedict is a vexation to me, but I see no reason he should be thrown out on the street due to the claims of a particularly theatrical half brother. Do you believe there is merit to what Cad says?”

Lady Evangeline is silent for several moments. Finally she says, “Cad and Benedict’s father never spoke much on the subject of his affaire—or should I say marriage—with Mrs. Caddington, and all I knew for a long time was that there must be a scent of unpleasantness hanging around it. Like perfume gone stale.”

“How so?” you ask, eyes widening.

“Well, Rafe is the eldest. We don’t know why, but the late baronet threw Mrs. Caddington aside for a while and married Benedict’s mother. A most respectable woman. But then…”

“But then what?” you ask, impatient.

“But then a few years after that, he returned to the intoxicating arms of Mrs. Caddington. He could resist her for only so long. Little Henrietta is the result of that.”

“But why did he leave her in the first place if they were married? Was there some secret scandal…something in her past that made him lose his affection for a time, perhaps?” Your mind reels.

“Nothing like that, I don’t think,” Lady Evangeline answers. “She was already well-known as an actress when they began their liaison, but other than her profession she was by all accounts simply a respectable widow. Her first husband died long ago, after a trip to the Continent.”

“Do you suspect foul play? Not to malign Mrs. Caddington, rest her soul, but could she have had her first husband…taken care of in order to grant her a life’s pleasure with the second?” Your mind is so thoroughly in thrall with intrigue that you do not realize the candor of your own tongue until it is too late. “Oh, Lady Evangeline, I—”

Lady Evangeline looks at you with wonder and appreciation. “No. No apologies, dear. It is a thrill to watch a mind as clever as yours set itself to work. Still, I think it works in error. Mrs. Caddington was not known to be a malicious woman. She was clever and fine as well as loyal and dear. Still, she went to the Continent married and returned a widow.”

Befuddled, you stare at the pattern of the brocade curtains decorating this end of the ballroom. The weave plays tricks on your eyes, and you think you see shapes that could not truly exist. Answers where there are only questions.

“It must have been a trial, bringing the body back home for the funeral,” you say with empathy.

Lady Evangeline looks at you curiously. “She did not bring back a body. It was too much trouble, so he was buried there. On the Continent.”

“A shame,” you say, but a flutter of intrigue dances in your heart. “Do you know where?”