Page 36 of How to Start a Scandal

‘It’s all I have been thinking of.’

‘Truly?’

His eyes always were a perfect mirror of his soul, sharp with his emotions. Right now, his gaze reflected painful regret. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘And spare me no details.’

‘You did not come to the ball.’ She shrugged as though it was a small matter to be easily pushed aside.

He took her elbow and gently led her to the shade of the elm tree, where no one would see them from any floor in either home. ‘I want to know what happened that night.’ His brows pinched together with sincerity. ‘Please, Vi.’

Vi.

He hadn’t called her that in years. First he’d used it when they were children, then when he got older, he used it as a form of flirtation, as though teasing her with her own name. And how it had made her heart flutter.

The same as it did now.

Her heart raced with such ferocity, it hardly left her lungs with the capacity to draw breath. Was she truly considering doing this?

Of course, not all the details could be shared. Not Lord Fordson. And especially not what had transpired with him.

No one would ever know that.

‘You didn’t come to the ball,’ she said again, this time in an opening to the painful tale. She swallowed. ‘I had expected you, it’s true. You always had a way of talking to me that no one else did. It made me feel special. You made me feel special. And when you asked if you could have the first dance at my debut, I hoped—’ She stopped short. She was saying far too much.

‘You are special.’ He watched her with a look of intense concentration. ‘You always have been. Tell me, what did you hope?’

She shook her head, refusing to say what she’d meant to. How she’d imagined he might consider her for marriage. The idea was laughable now, but then it had been entirely plausible in her mind. Far too plausible. And foolish.

That was what she’d been—a foolish girl with a fragile heart, too eager to settle it into someone’s palm.

A man like Seth, as the object of her affection, was guaranteed to bring her pain. One moment, he would rain compliments down upon her, the next he was out carousing with Kentworth.

She had been innocent then, but not ignorant. She’d heard the rumours of where they went. Of the women of ill repute. Better perhaps that he had broken her heart then in one swift blow rather than chipping off small shards and pieces over the course of a lifetime.

‘You came to the house before the ball and told me that you would not be in attendance.’

‘I was thoroughly intoxicated,’ Seth said flatly.

‘Yes.’ Humiliation burned through her, as fresh and hot as it had been that fateful day. ‘You came into the town house—I have no idea how you entered as none of the servants had admitted you. But you stopped when you saw me and you stared at me for some time. I could see you taking me in, my hair, my gown.’ She bit her lip, hating the emotion tightening in her throat. ‘You clearly didn’t like what you saw, because it was then you announced you would not be attending my ball, or dancing with me.’

Her eyes stung with tears, but she swallowed them down. She’d spent far too long weeping over the mortifying incident.

‘Did I say anything else?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘But you didn’t have to. I knew exactly why you didn’t want to come to my ball.’

‘Because I was stupidly drinking myself into oblivion before joining the military and drowning myself in my own selfish loathing?’

She blinked. ‘No, because of my gown.’

‘Your gown?’ He squinted his eyes in confusion. ‘Why is it women always think it’s the bloody gown?’

‘Because it was hideous.’ A sob rose in her throat at the admission.

‘Why the deuce would you select a hideous gown for your debut?’

Ah, and there was the rub of it. Her shame. Not as bad as Lord Fordson, of course, but mortifying none the less.

‘It wasn’t the gown I had chosen,’ she admitted. ‘That one was far lovelier with silver tissue glittering over the skirt and sleeves with small silver beading stitched into the bodice. It was lovely.’