Page 7 of The Wallflower’s Great Escape (The Wallflowers’ Revolt #1)

A sennight later, The Cranberrys’ Ball

G eorgie stood with her back to the gilded wall of yet another suffocating London ballroom, holding her half-empty glass of lemonade in front of her chest like a weapon.

Around her, the air was thick with chatter and perfume, and couples whirled across the floor under the glittering chandeliers.

And even though she had always been a decided wallflower, she had never felt more invisible.

Which was just as well. After all, young ladies whose fathers had gambled away their dowries were rarely asked to dance.

No, they were auctioned off to old men instead.

Of course her parents had been angry with her for leaving the Willoughbys’ ball last week. Mother and Father were always angry when she disappeared from ballrooms. Mother had given Georgie the same long-winded lecture she always did. Something about duty and obligation and, most importantly, money.

Georgie pretended to listen like she always did. She’d nodded and blinked and said all the things Mother wanted to hear before finally being left alone in blissful solitude.

But tonight, if Lord Henderville arrived, she had every intention of escaping again. She would not allow that old man to paw at her.

She’d slip away from Mother and Father just like she always did.

Honestly, they made it far too easy. All she had to do was tell them she had an urgency to use the convenience and then she simply failed to return.

Mother and Father were far too busy talking nonstop to anyone who would listen to them to notice she hadn’t returned in a timely fashion. It had been Henry’s job to watch her.

Her fingers tightened on her glass as she scanned the ballroom. Tonight she was looking for her new friends, Beatrix and Poppy.

They’d managed to meet, the three of them. They’d each taken a maid and told their mothers they were going shopping, when they’d really gathered at the circulating library for the inaugural meeting of the Society For Resourceful Young Ladies Who’ve Had Quite Enough.

Bea, as prime minister, decided that their first order of business should be to rename their Society. She felt strongly the new title should be both shorter and more powerful.

They’d spent a better part of an hour discussing a variety of names before Bea had snapped her fingers and said, “I’ve got it! The Wallflowers’ Revolution.”

“Ooh, that’s quite good,” Georgie had offered. “What about ‘The Wallflowers’ Revolt ’?”

“Even better!” Bea agreed.

Poppy’s bright blue eyes had gone wide as she shook her head. “There is only one problem with that name,” she’d insisted.

“Which is?” Georgie asked, truly perplexed.

“Bea here is hardly a wallflower,” Poppy continued. “She’s the diamond of every Season.”

“Ooh, you’re quite right,” Georgie replied, biting her lip and frowning.

“Perhaps,” Bea interjected, “but I aspire to be a wallflower and that is what matters, if you ask me. I’ve told my father that as long as he insists upon me marrying Nicholas Archer, I intend to remain a spinster.”

“And he listens to you?” Georgie asked, bewildered. “I wish my father would listen to my wishes,” Georgie said with a sigh.

“He doesn’t have much of a choice,” Bea replied with a sly grin.

“Why?” Poppy wanted to know, leaning forward to listen.

Georgie was on tenterhooks as well.

“Because I told him if he forces me to marry, I shall cause the biggest scandal London’s ever seen. I’d run away if I had to.”

“Really,” came Georgie’s breathless reply. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s foot in her chest. She had never met another young lady who had the same outrageous plan.

For the first time in her life, she felt as if she truly had someone she could talk to. Someone—two someones!—she could share her deepest secrets with.

And share them she did. For another hour, the three of them spoke in hushed whispers about Georgie’s plan to escape from her wedding to the Marquess of Henderville.

“Why, we shall help you, that’s all there is to it,” Bea had declared with a fiercely determined look in her eye. “In fact, it shall be the first order of business for The Wallflowers’ Revolt.”

“You would do that?” Georgie asked, her heart clenching with gratitude.

“Of course we would,” Poppy assured her. “After all, I’m not afraid of a little scandal. My mother is scandal personified.”

“And I know how to avoid it,” Bea added with a wink.

They’d left then, setting their next meeting for the following week at Bea’s town house. “Honestly it will be such a lark to have the meetings directly under Father’s nose,” she’d assured them.

Georgie hadn’t seen her friends since Tuesday. Now it was Friday, and she continued to scan the Cranberrys’ crowded ballroom for them.

Fortunately, she quickly found them.

Bea stood several paces away, next to her glamorous mother, the Duchess of Winston.

Georgie had already come to recognize Bea’s imperious poise and biting wit.

Both were on full display this evening as she seemed quite in her element jesting with a group of London’s finest. Though, she noted with a bit of amusement, Nicholas Archer was not among them.

There, just beyond Bea’s group, standing with the other unwanted young ladies along the wall, was Poppy, her red curls pinned too tightly and her blue eyes darting nervously, as though she expected her mother to come swinging from the chandelier at any moment.

Georgie felt a faint smile tug at her lips. It had only been two hours together this week, along with the time they’d spent tucked away in the Willoughbys’ retiring room last Friday, but already she felt as though she knew her two new friends better than anyone in her life.

The Wallflowers’ Revolt .

A society of their own. A quiet rebellion.

And the first rebellion would begin with her.

Georgie had told them the truth. She fully intended to run away on her wedding day. She’d held her breath after admitting it, half-expecting Bea and Poppy to gape in horror.

But they hadn’t.

Instead, Bea had arched a brow and coolly asked how she could help, while Poppy clasped her hands and vowed she’d keep the secret even if they tried to torture it out of her.

Georgie wasn’t at all certain who “they” were, but that was when she had known. She might not have her parents or brother on her side, but she had Bea and Poppy.

And that would be enough.

Still, standing here now, pressed into the shadows of the room while Society danced on without her, she felt the old familiar chill creep back in.

Her gaze wandered again, this time catching, for the third time that evening, on Lord Pembroke.

He stood across the room, tall and watchful, his green eyes fixed squarely on her like glittering emeralds.

Her lips thinned. Of course he was watching her.

She had suspected as much the moment she’d seen him loitering near the refreshments earlier, pretending to inspect a tray of oysters while his gaze tracked her every movement.

Her idiotic brother must have sent him again.

No doubt Henry would have been here himself if he weren’t nursing that broken leg. After all, Henry had a vested interest in seeing her married off to Henderville.

The old goat’s money would restore the family’s coffers, if her mother and brother managed to hide the funds from her father long enough to keep him from gambling them away again.

She knew as much because she’d overheard them once, whispering about it outside the breakfast room, unaware she was standing just beyond the door.

She’d learned two things that morning.

One: she didn’t have an ally in her brother.

Two: she certainly didn’t have an ally in her mother.

They both wanted Henderville’s money just as badly as her father did…only they wanted to keep it for themselves.

Which meant she had no one to rely on but herself.

Herself and, surprisingly, Bea and Poppy now.

Georgie’s fingers loosened slightly on her glass, and she allowed herself the smallest of smiles.

When the scandal came—and it would come—it would ruin her family. But it would be no more than they deserved.

She was still savoring that thought when the Cranberrys’ butler’s voice rang out above the music. “The Marquess of Henderville.”

Georgie’s blood went cold. Her shoulders stiffened.

Can I have no reprieve from that awful man?

She didn’t wait to see where he was, or what revolting wig or waistcoat he’d chosen tonight.

Instead, she gave a decisive nod to her two new friends, who had quickly made eye contact, murmured something about the heat to the young ladies she was standing next to, and slipped away before anyone could reply.

Her pulse drummed in her ears as she slipped into the shadows of the hall, skirts whispering over the marble floor.

Anywhere but here. Anywhere but near him .

And this time…she wasn’t about to let Pembroke slow her down.