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“ H ave you heard? The Duke of Redmayne is here.”

Arabella Wetherby adjusted the sleeve of her gown. “I’m not surprised to hear it,” she said to her sister. “It seems all of London is at Stormwell tonight.”

Caroline giggled. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? I know Prudence will be jealous that she wasn’t able to attend.”

“Well, Prudence is still too young,” Arabella observed absently. “Only five-and-ten.”

“But there are some here who don’t look any older,” Caroline argued. “I think Father should have sent her with us. After all, who knows when we’ll next receive an invitation to a ball?”

That was true, Arabella reflected. Her father, the Baron of Highgate, had established an unfavorable impression among the members of the ton.

In part that was due to circumstances beyond his control—the debt he had inherited when a distant cousin had left the barony in his care, a debt he was still unable to repay.

But there was also the way he had behaved himself in the seven years since their move to Highgate.

The philandering, the drinking, the neglect of his family… nobody thought very highly of him.

And, most unfortunately, that low opinion had trickled down to his family.

It didn’t help that none of his three daughters were ever able to make themselves presentable.

Arabella was not the sort to get caught up in appearances, but even she couldn’t help noticing that she and Caroline were the only two young ladies in attendance who were not outfitted in this year’s fashions.

Instead, Caroline wore one of Arabella’s gowns from last season.

She had grown taller than Arabella over the course of the past year, and the hem hung too short on her.

While Arabella had done her best to make her sister presentable by attaching a bit of lace to the bottom of the gown, she could see from where she stood that her sewing was uneven.

She hadn’t been able to hire a seamstress to do the job for her.

And then there was the matter of her own gown.

It was beginning to fall apart from wear, and she knew it made her look tatty and unrefined.

When it had been new—well, it had never been new.

It had belonged to her mother before it had been hers.

But two years ago, it had at least been new to Arabella.

In those days, she had worn it with pride, despite the fact that it had been out of fashion, and if anyone had asked, she had told them it was her mother’s.

Now, though, she felt she looked worse than the maids who carried glasses of wine to the lords and ladies attending the party. They were in simple frocks, but at least they looked clean and presentable.

“Listen,” Caroline said, recapturing Arabella’s attention. “The Duke of Redmayne is here. I saw him myself!”

“Did you? What was he like?”

“Oh, I didn’t speak to him.” Caroline waved a hand as if the very idea was preposterous. It probably was. Though she was a bit of a chatterbox with her family, Caroline was painfully shy with strangers. “He’s handsome, though. Dark, curly hair, and his eyes look like the sky on a cloudless day.”

“Gazing into his eyes, were you?”

“Don’t judge me. You would have done the very same thing if you’d seen him!”

“Have you set your sights on him?”

“Arabella, you know that I can’t marry until you do so first.”

“Of course, you can,” Arabella countered. “I may be older, but you mark my words, I shall be the last of us to take a husband. I need to see to it that you and Prudence are provided for before I can leave home myself.”

“Well, I’m not interested in him ,” Caroline said.

“You just said he was handsome. And he’s a duke, so I know he’d be able to provide for you.”

“Everyone says he’s a rogue and a rake,” Caroline told her. “He’d make a terrible husband. I could never fall in love with such a man.”

“Caroline, you know love isn’t everything.”

“It is for me. I want a love match, like in stories.”

Arabella sighed. Her sister’s romantic notions were going to be their downfall. Caroline didn’t seem to have accepted the reality of their situation.

She touched the sleeve of her gown again. The stitches were starting to come loose. “I need to find a place to go and repair this,” she said.

“Oh, Arabella, surely you didn’t bring a needle and thread to the ball with you.”

“I did, and consider yourself fortunate I did so because if I hadn’t, we would have had to go home right now, and there would be no chance of either one of us finding a match—love or otherwise.”

Her sister sighed. “You’re not going to allow me to try to find love, are you? You’re going to marry me off to whoever will have me.”

“Caroline, we aren’t exactly spoiled with choices. Has anyone asked you for a dance all evening? Has anyone so much as looked your way?”

“They haven’t,” Caroline was forced to admit.

“And they won’t. There’s little to be gained in a match with our family. You ought to be grateful for anything you manage to get. Do you want to spend the remainder of your life in Father’s house? Do you want to become a spinster, with no prospects at all?”

Caroline squared her jaw. “Better to be a spinster than to be forced into a loveless marriage,” she argued. “I can promise you, if I find someone I feel a connection with, I will marry him, even if he is poor. I will run away to Gretna Green if you try to force my hand!”

Arabella sighed, grateful that her sister had not, as of yet, found such a man. “I have to go try to fix my gown,” she said. “Do try to find someone to dance with, won’t you? So that the whole evening won’t be a loss?”

She couldn’t count on her sister to accede to her request, and she didn’t want to argue any further, so she hurried away before Caroline could say anything more.

She left the ballroom and made her way along a narrow hallway that led to a pair of double doors.

Pushing them open, she found that she was in the library of Stormwell Manor, a place Caroline surely would have loved.

Arabella took a moment to admire it. She didn’t read as much as her bookish sister did, but she certainly wasn’t averse to delving into a story every now and then.

But there was no time for that now. She fished the needle and thread she had brought along out of her pocket.

Examining the sleeve, she saw that she would need to remove her arm from the garment if she was to mend it, but she could probably do so without taking the dress off altogether.

With a sigh, she loosened her stays. She would need to be quick about this.

“What are you doing?” an amused voice asked.

Arabella gasped and clutched at her gown though it was nowhere near loose enough to fall from her body. She whirled around.

She wasn’t alone after all.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped forth from the shadows. He had dark, curly hair, pale blue eyes, and a book clutched in one hand.

Eyes like the sky on a cloudless day… no. Surely not. There must be dozens of blue-eyed men here. This couldn’t be the Duke of Redmayne.

He took another step forward. “Are you trying to create a scandal?”

He didn’t sound offended. His voice was light, amused, and as she watched, she saw a smirk play at the edges of his lips.

Arabella stepped backward in response. “Why would I want to create a scandal?”

“I don’t know.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Why would a well-bred young lady enter a room alone with a gentleman and begin loosening her stays, unless she was looking for trouble?”

“I’m not looking for trouble,” Arabella said hotly. “And I didn’t know that you were in here. You were lurking in the shadows.”

“I was hardly lurking . I was reading a book—which is what one normally does in a library, I might add. Don’t worry, madam—you’d hardly be the first to try to entrap a duke with such behavior. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

“I’m not trying to entrap you!” she exclaimed, frustrated. “You are the Duke of Redmayne, aren’t you? I might have known.”

Doubt crept across his features. “Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t know who I am?”

She threw up her hands. “How could I have known? We’ve never been introduced.”

“I assumed someone had pointed me out, and that was why you followed me in here.”

“I didn’t follow you in here. I told you, I had no idea you were in here.”

“And you’re taking off your clothes because…?”

“I’m not taking them off . I was taking my arm out of my sleeve so that I could mend the stitching in my gown.” She lifted the sleeve to show him.

As she did so, her loosened gown slipped, and she was forced to grab at it with both hands to keep it on. Heat rushed to her face.

The Duke frowned and reached out. “Let me help you with that,” he suggested.

She evaded him. “You may be used to ladies removing their garments for you, Your Grace, but I assure, you, I had no intention of doing so, and I have no intention of letting you get your hands on me now.”

“Truly, I’m only trying to help,” he said.

“If you really didn’t know it was me in here, then I believe what you say about not trying to cause a scandal.

Let me help you with the fastenings of your gown, and if you’d like, I can stitch up that sleeve for you as well.

You can’t possibly hope to reach it yourself, even if you do take your arm out of it. ”

“You? Stitch up my sleeve?” she asked in disbelief. “You can’t possibly know how to do that.”

“Oh, how difficult could it possibly be?” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m sure I can manage. It’s not as if that gown is exactly perfectly made anyway. I don’t think I’ll make it any worse than it already is, will I?”

“You don’t need to be rude about it. This is the finest thing I own.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“We aren’t all wealthy, you know.”

“I do know. I also see how much attention you’ve put into this gown.” His eyes wandered over her exposed shoulder, and suddenly she felt fully naked. This was dreadful.

“All I’m saying,” the Duke continued, “is that you could have made this gown look better if you had wanted to. You didn’t want to. You must have had your mind on something else, and I wonder what that might have been.”

She scowled at the insult, but her gown slipped again, and she wrapped her arms around herself in desperation. “ Fine ,” she agreed, stepping closer to him and turning her back so that he would be able to reach her laces.

She could feel his hands working. The closeness, forbidden as it was, made her heart beat faster—he was handsome.

And he was rakish, too, just as her sister had said—the way he had accused her of trying to take her clothes off to cause a scandal!

Had he been teasing her, knowing she hadn’t been doing such a thing?

Or was it possible that he had truly believed it of her?

Could he have thought she was that sort of person?

Maybe that was the kind of lady he was accustomed to dealing with. Maybe he had thought she was just another in a long line of hopefuls vying for his attention.

Well, she would never be that. Even if she had wanted his attention, she would never get it. He was a duke, and she was a girl with a torn gown. They were not the same and never would be.

His hand brushed the side of her neck as he reached for her sleeve to examine it, and for a moment, his touch sent heat flooding through her.

And then the library door opened.

They stood frozen, locked in what Arabella suddenly realized must look like a very intimate moment, face-to-face with three of the well-dressed ladies of the ton. Her heart sank to the soles of her shoes.

Arabella had not come here looking for scandal, but it looked as though scandal had found her just the same.