A Scandalous Deception Read Online Free

Something.
    Her friend, Lady Arabella Winslett, however,
did seem as though she was bothered by something. The dark
haired beauty continually bit her lip as she, herself, scanned
Rotten Row as though looking for the devil himself. They couldn’t
possibly be looking for the same man, could they? What a foolish
thought.
    Lissy shook off her anxiety about Mr. Heaton
and smiled at her friend, bumping Bella’s shoulder with her own.
“You seem a bit on edge. Is everything all right?”
    Bella glanced over her shoulder as though to
make certain neither of their maids, walking a few feet behind,
could overhear their conversation. Then she threaded her arm
through Lissy’s and drew her closer as they walked.
    “I need a husband!” Bella hissed urgently in
her ear.
    A husband! Lissy managed not to snort, but
just barely. The last thing any intelligent girl needed was a
husband. Until now, she’d always considered Bella an intelligent
girl. “Why would you possibly want one of those horrid
creatures?”
    “Did you hear Lucinda Potts ran off to Gretna
Green with Lord Brookfield?”
    Who hadn’t heard it? Considering Brookfield’s
blackened reputation, Lissy wasn’t certain if the new Lady
Brookfield would have been better off ruined than married to a man
like him. Not that the girl in question had sought out Lissy’s
advice on the matter. “I certainly hope you’re not considering
something equally rash.” For heaven’s sake, who was Bella enamored
with? Who did she want to elope with? For the life of her, Lissy
couldn’t come up with a name or a face. No one her friend had
mentioned recently, in any event.
    “I don’t know that an anvil wedding is
necessary,” Bella added quietly. “A perfectly respectable wedding
at St. George’s will suffice. But I need a husband, or in
the very least, a fiancé. And I need him quickly.”
    A memory of her own naïve exuberance at
marrying a dashing American captain flashed in Lissy’s mind, and
her stomach turned. Naïve exuberance, indeed. She’d been a blasted
fool. Lissy noticed a bench just a few feet away and stopped
walking along the path. Then she glanced back over her shoulder at
Annie and Bella’s maid. “We’re just going to sit a while.”
    She didn’t wait for either servant to reply
before pulling her friend toward the bench.
    “Sitting isn’t going to change my mind,”
Bella whispered only loud enough for Lissy to hear.
    She shushed her friend and continued toward
her destination. “Rushing into a marriage is the worst possible
thing you could do, Bella. You can take that from me.” She dropped
onto the bench and tugged the brunette down beside her. “It’s one
thing to turn your life over to a man you love and trust, and quite
another to do so with a man you barely know.”
    “I don’t have a choice with the timing.”
Bella turned her gaze on Lissy, piercing her with her silvery grey
eyes. “Besides, it’ll be better with someone I choose rather
than the awful man Grandpapa has in mind for me.”
    The Duke of Chatham was behind this insanity?
Playing matchmaker hardly seemed like something the domineering
duke would waste his valuable time doing. “Your grandfather?”
    Bella nodded, her dark curls bobbing up and
down, her brow etched with fear. “My cousin. Johann von Guttstadt,
Count of Hellsburg.” Then she shivered. “What a perfectly apt name
that is, by the way. He is most definitely a horrid creature, as
you say. And not one I want to spend the rest of my life with. So I
have to find a husband quickly, before Hellsburg arrives in
Town.”
    Rarely had Bella looked so serious and the
fear she saw reflected in her friend’s eyes was enough to alight
Lissy’s protective streak. “What about your father?” Certainly Lord
Aylesford wouldn’t marry his daughter off to someone she despised,
though Lissy’s father had done that very thing years ago, with
Georgie, hadn’t he? She quickly pushed that thought away. Lord
Aylesford wasn’t