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Constance Whitmore, the daughter of Countess Buckthorn, had come to share her lovely, harmonious talent with Truly’s guests.

Lady Constance was on the verge of making her come out.

Already quite beautiful and quite popular.

Truly found her to be kind and perhaps a good ally in the future.

Friends in high places were paramount for making the right financial connections, which included securing a beneficial marriage.

Lord knew Truly needed all the help she could get.

“I know you’re right, Mrs. Spencer. Mama used to say that women had few choices and that using everything within their power was a fair strategy for getting ahead. I’m simply trying to get ahead.”

This was her first year in society. It was also her first year without her mother and her nineteenth year without a father.

Until six months ago, she didn’t know if the man was alive or dead.

But her mother had seen fit to leave her a few breadcrumbs as to who the man was.

A duke, of all things, gone now for many years.

His only legitimate son now held the title of the Duke of Justamere.

That information alone had put her in fashion with Miss Genevieve Rutledge and her group of followers.

At nineteen years old, Truly didn’t know how to be anything else but a hopeful echo and follower of the ton.

Her mother had been a mistress to the illustrious Duke of Justamere, bearing him one daughter, Truly, whom he’d never known and probably never met.

Not that she could recall unless he was there at her birth.

One thing she could say for the man was that he had taken care of her mother and her in turn.

Now, however, she was left to make her own path.

The house was hers, but the income would stop soon enough.

Her small inheritance would keep her well for another year or two, at which time she would need a husband if she were to avoid other less palatable positions.

Courtesan was not on her wish list or agenda, ever.

It had crossed her mind to request an audience with her infamous half-brother, the Duke of Justamere, Caden Landon-Scott, but there was every possibility he didn’t know she existed.

Unless, of course, he managed his own books.

Most of the titled men she’d encountered were allergic to work.

As for Truly, she was allergic to only one thing.

Tobacco smoke. It kept her from the game rooms and thus out of trouble.

It also kept her from getting close enough to flirt with the right men.

“If yer attendin’ the Barstow ball tonight, ya best get movin’.” The housekeeper straightened, holding a tray of perfectly clean dishes.

Truly didn’t feel much like attending. Crowds were lonely places to be invisible.

Even her five-foot-nine-inch height was not proof against those who chose to look through her.

That might change when more people discovered her true identity.

The information would either hurt her or help her. She couldn’t be sure.

The dressmaker assured her she would be at the height of fashion for a first year, and if the height meant that she blended into the scenery of every shade of buttercream imaginable, then she was an iconic fashion plate.

Her dress was demurely pretty, with a six-inch ruffle at the bottom of her long satin skirt.

It shone in the right light and hugged her bosom perfectly without being too daring. It also looked completely uninspired.

She had been caught between a rock and a stone forever, battling a need to be noticed with the need to be properly behaved and witlessly flat.

She hoped that her sinfully dark hair would be the right contrast with the fatigue of cream silk.

That’s where her friends came in. They were kind enough to address her dilemma with honesty and with a willingness to help.

She was relying on it. With no chaperone or companion, she needed the buffer and the legitimacy, for lack of a better description.

At the Barstow’s ball, Miss Rutledge spotted Truly when the butler announced her name at the top of the stairs.

The packed room rang with the rolling noise of two hundred people conversing, which made the booming names almost impossible to hear unless one was listening for them.

Genevieve Rutledge had been keeping an ear open for her.

That gave Truly some hope. Under the sparkling chandeliers, reflected in the polished marble floor cut in the design of a sunburst, the first waltz of the evening gathered.

She hadn’t been there early enough to get her dance card filled because the day’s events had drained every good mood from her and then some.

If Genevieve had been kept from her party by circumstance, at least she was waving her over at the ball.

Her life was becoming a series of failed attempts and disappointments.

She suspected this little band of friends was using her for her link to a dukedom because the connection alone meant Truly received more invitations to highly sought-after events than her friends could hope for.

As a result, Truly secured invitations for them to some of the loftier affairs which she attended for their sake.

In truth, they rather needed each other: Truly for her name and Genevieve for the connections to the year’s most sought-after gaggle of ninnyhammers.

Today, after her humiliation with Lady Constance Whitmore and her mother, Truly begrudged showing up at the ball where she knew her friends would attend.

Why had they not supported her when she gladly lent them whatever help she could manage?

Her mother might have been a mistress—and a well taken care of one—but Truly had been taught more about kindness and humanity from her mother than these ladies had obtained from the best schools for etiquette.

It was a paradox that she should need them to help her gain an audience when it was she who garnered the most invitations. The social elite were a mystery and as unpredictable as a rake.