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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My only hope was to outwit him at his own diabolical game...
Sir Tristan Townsend swept Madelaine up into his arms, giving her cheek a noisy kiss. "Why, there's my girl! It's been so long I didn't know if you'd even remember your old uncle Tristan. Just look at you!" He deposited her back on her feet and chucked her under the chin. "When I saw you last, you were barely out of napkins and now here you are a beautiful young lady! So tell me, how many proposals have you collected from lovestruck young swains?"
While Madelaine ducked her head, blushing profusely, Katy stole a look at Hayden. He was watching the tender exchange, his face utterly devoid of expression.
Handing his walking stick to the footman, the dashing knight offered one arm to Madelaine and the other to Miss Terwilliger. As the trio strolled toward them, their progress slowed by Miss Terwilliger's cane, Katy struggled to tuck her tumbled curls back into their pearl combs. There was nothing she could do about her attire. She'd worn her oldest dress to ride the hobbyhorse, a faded brown muslin more befitting a scullery maid than a marchioness.
Karina was vainly trying to hide herself behind Katy. "Do you think my parents sent her? Has she come to fetch me home?"
"Just who in the devil is she?" Hayden asked.
"She was one of our teachers at Mrs. Lyttelton's," Katy hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "But for the past few years, she's been hiring herself out as a private governess."
"Oh!" he replied dryly. "That Terrible Terwilliger."
Stepping forward, Katy clasped one of the old woman's black-gloved claws between her hands, smiling through clenched teeth. "Why, Miss Terwilliger, what an astonishing surprise! Whatever brings you to our little corner of the world?"
The woman scowled at Katy over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles, the mole on her chin sporting even more hairs than Katy remembered. "Don't be impertinent, chit. You sent for me."
"I did?" Katy squeaked.
"You did?" Hayden echoed, slanting Katy a dark look.
"Of course you did. I might have had to read between the lines of your letter, but you made it abundantly clear that there was a child here in desperate need of my guidance." Miss Terwilliger cast Madelaine a withering look, taking in the girl's windblown hair and the bonnet hanging halfway down her back. "And I can see I arrived not a moment too soon."
Madelaine sidled out of sight, joining Karina behind Katy.
Miss Terwilliger drew Tristan forward, fluttering her sparse lashes in a way that might have been construed as coquettish in a woman a hundred years her junior. "I would have been delayed even longer had this charming gentleman here not agreed to escort me."
