LITMIR.BIZ

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      Because she liked everything about them. She liked the tall ones, the short ones, the broad ones, the slender ones. She liked them in powdered wigs and with their hair in natural queues. She liked them on horseback and in carriages and strolling about the massive gardens at Norwood Park, where she happened to reside with her father and two brothers. She liked the way they looked at her and smiled at her, and how they laughed with their heads tilted back at all the amusing things she said. Which, apparently, she did with some frequency, as one or five of them seemed always to laugh and say, “How clever you are, Miss Armstrong!”

      Margot liked young gentlemen so much that, on the occasion of Lynetta’s sixteenth birthday, she convinced her father to allow her to host a ball in her dear friend’s honor at Norwood Park.

      “Lynetta Beauly?” her father had asked with a sigh of tedium, his gaze on a letter bearing news from London. “She is not yet out.”

      “But she will be presented this Season,” Margot had hopefully reminded him.

      “Why do her parents not provide her with a gathering?” her father had asked as he stuck the point of an ink quill beneath his wig to scratch an itch.

      “Pappa, you know they haven’t the means.”

      “You haven’t the means, either, Margot. I am the only person at Norwood Park who has the means to provide this young woman, for whom I have no particular regard, with a ball.” He’d shaken his head at the absurdity of it. “Why are you so keen for it?”

      Margot had, apparently, blushed. Lynetta said that was one of her true faults—it was impossible to hide what Margot was thinking because her fair skin changed from cream to pink to red with only the slightest provocation.

      “I see,” her father had said sagely, and had leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his belly. “Some young gentleman has caught your eye. Is that it?”

      Well...she would not belabor the point, but all of them had caught her eye. She’d fussed with a curl at her collarbone. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” she’d muttered as she’d studied the pattern of brocade on a chair in her father’s study. “No one in particular, really.”

      Her father had smirked. “Very well. Amuse yourself. Give this ball,” he’d said, and had waved her away.

      * * *

      A FEW WEEKS LATER, everyone within a fifty-mile radius of Norwood Park descended on the area, as it was well known in northern England that a Norwood Park ball was unparalleled in luxury and company with the exception of London’s Mayfair district.

      Beneath five gilded wood and crystal chandeliers blazing with the light of dozens of beeswax candles, young ladies dressed in a dizzying array of colors spun around the ballroom floor to the lively tunes provided by the six musicians brought up from London. Their hair, masterpieces of wire and netting, was piled high and artfully in gravity-defying styles. Their dance partners, all handsome young men of privilege, were dressed in brocades and silks, their coats and waistcoats intricately embroidered. Their wigs were freshly powdered, and their shoes shined to such a sheen that they reflected the candlelight from above.

      They drank embargoed French champagne, dined on caviar and slipped in behind potted ferns to steal a kiss.

      Margot had donned a gown made especially for the occasion—a pale green silk mantua that Lynetta said complemented her green eyes and auburn hair. To her tower of hair, she’d added little songbirds carefully crafted from paper. She wore her late mother’s glittering diamond-and-pearl necklace at her throat.

      Margot had commissioned a cake in honor of Lynetta’s birthday, a three-foot-tall edible structure that resembled Norwood Park, placed in the middle of the dining room to be admired by all. The iced parapets were topped with dancing marzipan figures. In one corner were the tiny figures of two girls, one with auburn hair, one with blond hair, that were meant to be Margot and Lynetta.

      There were so many people in attendance that there was scarcely room for everyone to dance at once. Margot in particular had done very little dancing that night. Nevertheless, she’d kept her eye on Mr. William Fitzgerald in hopes that she might change her luck.

      Oh, but Mr. Fitzgerald was quite dashing in his silver brocade and curled wig. Margot had admired him from afar for a full fortnight now and had rather thought, given his attentions to her, that the interest was mutual. But tonight, he’d stood up with every unmarried woman except her.

      “You mustn’t take it to heart,” Lynetta had advised, her face still flushed from the exertion of having danced three sets. “It’s clearly one of two reasons—either he is saving the best dance of the night for you, or he can’t bear to ask because you’re such a terrible dancer.”

      Margot gave her friend a withering look. “Thank you, Lynetta, for I cannot be reminded often enough of my wretched dancing.” According to Lynetta, that was Margot’s second most obvious fault—she had no natural tendency toward rhythm.

      “Well?” Lynetta said with a shrug. “I mean only to offer an explanation for why he’s not shown you any true regard this evening.”

      “Please, darling, you mustn’t exert yourself to help me understand his utter lack of interest in me.”

      “Better it’s because of your dancing than something perhaps even worse,” Lynetta cheerfully pointed out.

      “And what might that be?” Margot demanded, slightly affronted.

      “I mean only that I’d rather be faulted for my dancing than for my inability to make engaging conversation,” Lynetta said sweetly. “You have always made engaging conversation.”

      Margot was set to discuss that, but at that very moment, a wave of awareness rippled through the crowd. Both Margot and Lynetta glanced around them. Margot saw nothing obvious. “What is it?”

      “I can’t see a thing,” Lynetta said as she and Margot craned their necks in the direction of the door.

      “Someone’s come,” said a gentleman nearby. “Someone unexpected, from what I gather.”

      Margot and Lynetta gasped at precisely the same moment, their eyes widening as they gaped at one another. There was only one person of import who was not in attendance tonight—the highly desirable Montclare, who had sent his deepest regrets that he could not attend, as he had been called away to London. Lord Montclare had all the requisite attributes that made him a desirable match: he had a fortune of ten thousand pounds a year; he would one day assume the title of Viscount Waverly; he had thick-lashed doe eyes and a winsome smile; and he was utterly without conceit. Rumor had it that Montclare had set his sights on a London heiress...but that did not keep Margot and Lynetta from hoping.

      The girls, quite in tune with one another’s thinking, fled the ballroom for the balcony above the foyer to have a look at the unexpected guest, arriving so hastily that their gloves slid on the polished stone railing as they leaned over it.

      It was not Montclare. “Oh, bother,” Lynetta muttered.

      It was not even one of the many men who often came up to Norwood Park from London to conduct business with Margot’s father and brothers. Frankly, the men who had walked through the front doors and onto the marble tile of the foyer were unlike any men Margot had ever seen.

      “Goodness,” Lynetta murmured beside her.

      Goodness, indeed. There were five altogether, all of them tall and broad-shouldered and quite muscular, their natural hair tied in long queues. Except for the man in front of them all—his dark hair was a wild tangle of curls around his head, as if he hadn’t bothered at all to dress it. Their coats, splattered with mud, were long and split up the back for riding. Their breeches and waistcoats were not silk or brocade, but rough wool. They wore boots that were scuffed and worn at the heels.

      “Who are they?” Lynetta whispered. “Are they Gypsies?”

      “Highwaymen,” Margot murmured, and Lynetta giggled a bit

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