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Her friends exchanged knowing smiles, and she stared curiously at them.

“Did you all by chance have something to do with this?”

However, she did not get a response because the Duke responded to the matron then.

“I apologize, My Lady, but I am interested in another,” she heard him say.

She spun around,fast.

He was also looking at her, and on his face was a rather cruel smile.

That monster! He still has his mind set on Stella even after I passed his test.

“Is that so?” the matron asked, a hint of disappointment in her tone.

“Indeed,” Edwin replied. “I’m interested in Miss Ava Jennings, daughter of the Viscount Notley.”

Ava’s heart skipped a beat, before leaping to her throat. Her friends gasped beside her.

The matron did not seem to take the news too kindly, for she glared at Ava before dragging her daughter away.

Edwin approached her, a smirk on his face, and her friends scrambled away, leaving her with him. He stopped only a foot away from her and then leaned in.

“Expect my visit soon,” he whispered, before walking out of the ballroom.

Ava was rooted to the spot, all alone in the middle of the ballroom, her world spinning out of control.

She had been so willing to offer herself in exchange for her sister. However, now that Edwin had finally agreed, it suddenly became too real.

Marriage had never held an appeal for her as it had for other girls; hence why it was so easy for her to sequester herself in Notley Manor and take care of her sisters.

But now, everything was about to change.

“Miss,” a voice said from beside her.

She turned to find a man that everyone in the ton knew all too well.

“Lord Wilbury?” She was taken aback.

The man had no reason to approach her. After all, she had only made his acquaintance at a ball and had not spoken with him ever since.

“I must warn you, Miss Jennings,” he continued.

“Warn me?”

“Indeed. About the man you were dancing with.”

“Oh, Edwin?”

Now, Ava was beginning to understand. She was aware that Edwin had cost Lord Wilbury quite a fortune after taking a business deal from him.

“It is indeed interesting that you are now on a first-name basis with him,” Lord Wilbury noted.

“Ah, we… we’ve?—”

“It does not matter,” he cut in. “I only wish to warn you about him. He is a cold and heartless man, and it would be in your interest to put an end to any association you might have with him. You must have heard about what he did to my business. Gillingham is a dangerous man, indeed.”

“I know that you and His Grace were competitors,” she started.