Page 1 of A Lord in Want of a Wife (Daring Debutantes #2)

L ucy loved Almack’s.

She shouldn’t. It was the site of her greatest humiliation thanks to the deceitful Cedric, Lord Domac.

Two years ago she’d trusted him with her biggest secret—that her father wasn’t the biological father of either her or her sister—and he’d revealed it in front of the entire ton .

She’d been so angry that she’d slapped him across the face and damned him in front of everyone.

She’d spent a long time afterwards cursing his name. Now the memory just made her sad.

Either way, she ought to hate being here, but she didn’t.

She loved Almack’s. She loved the desperate, defiant hope that all but dripped from the walls.

Girls came here praying to meet their future husbands, respectable men of the ton .

Women ruled here in defiance of a world dominated by men.

And debutantes like her gathered to be seen and to be heard by each other.

After all, in a generation, it would be they who ruled this place, and they had to decide on what they wanted. At least that was what they told each other. In reality, every girl here just wanted to meet the man of her dreams.

Lucy was no exception. Tonight, she and her friend Phoebe giggled quietly together with a few of their friends. Phoebe’s mother stood with the other chaperones, and everything proceeded as a normal Thursday night at Almack’s.

Lucy danced. She drank tepid lemonade. And she found fault with every man who approached her.

They were good men, for the most part. Anyone who danced with Lucy was a good man merely from the fact that he was willing to be seen with a half Caucasian, half Chinese bastard with a massive dowry to make her acceptable.

It helped that her equally mixed-race sister, Grace, was now the Duchess of Byrning.

And though the gentlemen were invariably polite, she found that their attention was focused on the size of her dowry, not herself.

Phoebe had a similar problem. She was fully Caucasian, but she was a banker’s daughter.

She was considered a cit, and that made her only marginally acceptable to the titled elite.

‘Good God,’ Phoebe moaned. ‘I never thought that Almack’s would become dull.

It’s the same people every time, and none of them want to hear a thing I say.

’ Phoebe had lately discovered an interest in science.

Medicine, to be exact, and she was spending a great deal of time in study.

And what Phoebe studied, she talked about incessantly.

Her friend saw Lucy’s arch look and sighed dramatically.

‘I know I go on and on,’ she said, punctuating the words by drawing circles in the air with her fan. ‘They could at least pretend to listen. It’s about their health!’

Lucy didn’t answer. She didn’t speak much in public. At first it was because she didn’t feel comfortable enough—or safe enough—to venture her opinions out loud. Now it was because those who mattered already knew what she thought.

‘Fine,’ the girl huffed. ‘I’ll try to be interested in them .’

Lucy chuckled while Phoebe looked about the room. The musicians were taking a break and so everyone milled about sipping lemonade and gossiping. Except there was no good gossip to be had this evening. ‘Tell me about the musical evening at Lady Bowles’s home,’ Phoebe suggested. ‘Was it exciting?’

A musical evening exciting? Was the heat getting to her friend?

‘As dull as that?’ Phoebe asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was fine. I’m just not used to your music.

’ She’d been raised on the Chinese music of a Buddhist temple in Canton.

But she’d gone to the event anyway for the same reason she was here.

She hoped that someone would at last tempt her heart out of its shell.

Someone, somewhere would intrigue her enough to make her feel him even from across the room.

‘You can’t keep pining for Lord Domac,’ her friend chided in a low whisper.

‘I’m not pining!’ Lucy said. ‘Until you brought him up, I’d completely forgotten that annoying man who can’t keep a secret.’

‘Hmmm,’ her friend said.

Lucy shook her head. ‘I’m ready to fall in love,’ she said, meaning every word. ‘I want my heart to flutter again, my blood to pound and my every thought to be consumed with feeling.’

‘At least you had that once,’ Phoebe said.

She had, and it had nearly broken her. ‘He didn’t deserve me,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve ceased thinking about him.’

Thankfully, the musicians started up again, saving her from further conversation.

Better yet, Phoebe took the hint and changed the topic.

‘Do you want to come over tomorrow afternoon? I could tell you about the newest experiments in electricity. They’re fascinating! I’m not sure if I truly believe them.’

‘I would love to,’ Lucy said.

Her friend frowned at her. ‘You’re not just saying that, are you? I know I can be a bore—’

Lucy gripped her friend’s hand. ‘I don’t lie to you,’ she said. ‘Ever.’

Phoebe brightened. ‘Well, that’s it then. Come over whenever you like so long as it’s after one. A girl needs her beauty sleep.’

‘You don’t. You’re stunning.’ And Phoebe was. She had blond ringlet hair, bright blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. She embodied English beauty as if she were painted on canvas by a royal artist.

Lucy, on the other hand, had straight black hair, dark brown eyes, and slightly flattened features.

Her skin didn’t blotch, thank Heaven, but that was her only nod to classic English beauty.

Fortunately, such things weren’t required when one was an heiress.

And so she pulled her unblotchy face into a smile as her next partner arrived.

She greeted him warmly. Perhaps he would finally coax her heart out from behind its wall. And as soon as Phoebe’s partner arrived, the four of them took their places for the dance.

They were only halfway through the reel when the commotion began.

Lucy had been calculating the prices of various gowns—at least the raw materials—as a way to keep herself entertained.

Her partner was not a scintillating conversationalist. She’d been thinking about the price of carved ivory buttons when something strange caught her attention, but she didn’t know what.

A moment later, she noticed the murmurs.

The music had come to a stop, and she was curtsying to her partner only to realise that he wasn’t looking at her. His attention—as well as most everyone else’s—was aimed over her shoulder to some place behind her.

She turned, feeling a step behind everyone else, only to blink repeatedly as she tried to fix her vision.

Something must be wrong with her sight. Because there, standing on the edge of the dance floor as if awaiting her hand, was none other than the perfidious, missing-and-feared-dead, Cedric, Lord Domac.

He was dressed in finery that was ill-fitting thanks to new muscles that pulled the fabric tight in places and hung slack where he had no fat. Indeed, his bones were prominent in hard juts that gave him a chiseled look. Compared to the soft fops in the room, he stood out like a Greek god.

But he didn’t seem healthy. The man she remembered had always been animated. Now he appeared statue still as if holding himself together by sheer force of will.

She searched his eyes, looking for his telltale twinkle. She’d always loved his eyes, but tonight they seemed bright with fever rather than joy. Everything in her urged her to go to him. Something was clearly very wrong. But she could not force her feet to do so.

‘Miss Richards,’ he intoned without moving closer. ‘May I have the honour of this dance?’

And her damned heart began to flutter.