Katherine Langford is in London ready to make her debut to society when she discovers that the home next door is being rented by the "Murderous Marquess" Hayden Rowling. Always impulsive, Katy decides to sneak over and take a peek at the notorious M...
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His cruel, yet handsome, visage began to haunt my dreams, as well as my waking hours...
Sophia looked utterly aghast. "My Lady, whatever are you doing? Surely you don't know this creature?"
"I most certainly do." Still reeling with shock, Katy wrapped a protective arm around the sobbing girl and glared at the nurse. "This creature is my dearest friend in all the world—Miss Karina Dimwinkle. Her father is a magistrate in Kent."
"A magistrate?" As Sophia went stumbling backwards, Cook shoved a chair beneath her.
The old woman sank heavily into it. Judging from the bruises on Karina's arms, some faded and some fresh, it wasn't the first time she'd been pinched for one infraction or another. And judging from Sophia's glazed eyes, she was already entertaining visions of herself imprisoned in the stocks of some idyllic English village.
Although Mrs. Cavendish clucked disapprovingly, her eyes glinted with triumph. "You should have listened to me. I warned you that nothing but trouble would come from hiring the silly—" As Katy turned her glare on the housekeeper, Mrs. Cavendish smiled through clenched teeth. "—the dear girl."
Two more chairs were quickly provided for Katy and Karina. Katy gently guided her friend into one of them and sat down across from her.
She chafed Karina's trembling hands between her own. "I thought you'd gone home to Kent. How on earth did you come to be here?"
"I'd be very interested in hearing the answer to that question myself," Hayden said, fishing a handkerchief out of his waistcoat pocket and handing it to Karina. He leaned against the stone hearth, looking even more infuriatingly masculine than usual in this feminine domain.
"I ran away," Karina blurted out between breathless hiccups. "I let the duke and duchess believe I was returning to my family, but I just couldn't bring myself to go back there. I knew how disappointed my parents would be to find me back on their doorstep. They were so hoping I'd find a husband in London to take me off their hands!"
"But how did you get all the way to Cornwall without even a servant to look after you?" Katy asked.
"Your sister put me on the coach to Kent, but I crawled out the other door and traded my best brooch for a ticket on a mail coach traveling to Cornwall." Karina honked loudly into Hayden's handkerchief. "I knew no one would miss me."
"You poor dear." Katy brushed a limp lock of hair from Karina's eyes. "What happened to your spectacles?"
"I took them off on the coach to polish them and this rather large gentleman climbed in and sat right on top of them. Instead of apologizing for crushing them, he yelled at me for being stupid and careless." Fresh tears flooded Karina's eyes.
Katy squeezed her friend's hands before she could start wailing again. "Why didn't you come to me right away? Why did you feel you had to masquerade as a maid?"
