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The Gift

Excerpt

Chapter One

Lady Elizabeth’s aunt always turned up with at least one gift for her favorite niece. This latest offering was the most surprising and generous ever—a coming out ball and the name of a potential husband.

Lizzie’s mother did not approve. She blistered the ears of Lizzie’s father, the Duke of Knightsmoore, behind the door of his study, insisting he put a stop to Auntie Blythe’s interference. 

Auntie Blythe had outlived two husbands and birthed a son to each, securing two fortunes in the process. It made her, as she described herself, that most fearsome of creatures to men—an obscenely rich woman in possession of beauty, intelligence, and influence. 

She wanted the same for Lizzie. 

“The Marquess of San Teodoro is a perfect match for her,” Auntie Blythe declared, as if it were that easy to snare a proposal from the richest, most notorious rake to set foot in London in decades. 

Victor the Virile, as he’d been dubbed behind society fans, was twenty-four. He’d brought his inherited fortune to England, where he could invest in trade ships that weren’t taken by pirates as quickly as they appeared on the horizon. His holdings included land in the Kingdom of Sardinia, America, and India. He was nephew to the Prince of Carignano, a close friend of the Prince Regent’s. 

Lizzie may be the daughter of a duke, but a marquess of his connections and wealth was out of her league. And, as her mother screeched at her father, he was wildly inappropriate. He was foreign. 

Victor was also reputed to have serviced a scandalous number of women since his arrival, not that her mother said that part out loud. Lizzie had heard it from friends. She had pretended to be scandalized, as any virgin should be, but she’d glimpsed Victor from afar once. His dark, arrogant looks had caused a tingle between her thighs. 

Her infatuation was futile, though. She was doomed to accept the suitor her mother had picked out for her. 

Lizzie loved her mother, but she was hideously practical. Auntie Blythe, on the other hand, was worldly and witty and yes, given to drowning Lizzie in presents and treats and tête-à-têtes that were very enlightening.

“Let me tell you what happened on my fifteenth birthday,” Auntie Blythe had said three years ago as she and Lizzie celebrated Lizzie’s special day with brewed chocolate adorned with whipped cream and orange blossoms. “A man was staying in our home—I won’t tell you his name, but he had very close ties to the court in Vienna. He seduced me. Now, you might wonder what is involved in such a thing. I will tell you.”

Lizzie had learned, as Auntie Blythe had called it, the “ins and outs” of marital relations. She spared no details on how a man’s body fit with a woman’s and how his caresses might stray in exciting and shocking ways. She had explained that a woman should find pleasure in it, but that a powerful man with charm and experience could use the intriguing, mysterious pleasures of her response to coerce her into believing herself in love. Before she knew it, she was ruined.

Lizzie’s mother had nearly suffered apoplexy when she realized what Auntie Blythe had revealed. 

“I don’t want Lizzie taken advantage of the way I was,” Auntie Blythe said without remorse. 

There had been a huge row. Auntie Blythe had left for the continent, only returning recently.

Lizzie had been punished, too. Her friends had begun coming out, but her mother had made every excuse to keep Lizzie from balls and parties and fun. She wouldn’t have her turn out like Auntie Blythe. 

It would have been a dreary punishment indeed if Lizzie had not taken Auntie Blythe’s advice. “Take matters into your own hands. Understand the power of your own pleasure so no man can use it against you.”

Lizzie didn’t have words for the rush of urgent joy that overcame her when she touched herself late at night, alone in her bed. How could anyone describe it? It was no wonder her aunt had been overthrown when that older man made her feel such things. 

Two things brought Auntie Blythe back to London. Ostensibly, she returned to attend the Prince of Wales’s fete at Carlton House, celebrating his assumption of the Regency. 

Lizzie believed, however, it had been her mention of “David” in her letters. At thirty-two, he had inherited a healthy earldom and a seat in the House of Lords. Lizzie’s father was mentoring him. Lizzie’s mother threw him at Lizzie every chance she found.

Auntie Blythe wasted no time in offering to host her niece’s coming out ball, setting a date after Easter, effectively blocking Lizzie’s mother from marrying Lizzie off before she’d had a proper season to “See for herself what’s out there.”

Her mother was incensed. “This is how she behaves,” she had railed behind the door to Lizzie’s father. “And you let her!”

Lizzie had tuned out the shouting. She was ecstatic to have a ball. She had kissed David and let him squeeze her breast, but she felt cheated at having no other experience, especially when the mere thought of Victor excited her far more than the real-life attentions of dull David. 

Her ball became the event of the season, mostly because Lizzie’s mother ruthlessly vetted the guest list, making it very exclusive. Victor the Virile would not be invited. She had stroked a line through his name three times to be sure. 

Lizzie was annoyed by that, but her aunt proposed at the last minute it be a masked ball. The party became more anticipated than ever. 

* * *

The day arrived and Lizzie was a bundle of giddiness, but she had no one with whom to share her feelings. Her friends were in their own homes, preparing for the evening. Her mother was lying down with a headache. Lizzie’s three older brothers were the furthest thing from interested. Only Auntie Blythe would find all of this as diverting as Lizzie, and Lizzie wouldn’t see her until tonight.

With a sigh, she dismissed her maid and indulged herself with opening all the gifts and parcels and packages that had arrived for her. There were new petticoats and hose and the satin dancing slippers that her aunt had ordered from London shops and forwarded on to her. Friends had sent her hair ribbons and eau de toilette, sheet music and embroidered handkerchiefs.

Lizzie spent ages opening and admiring all of it, feeling spoiled and special and wondering if this was how her wedding day would feel. She was about to ring her maid to put everything away when she shifted a hatbox and discovered with delight that it held one final gift. It was a pretty ebony box with gold initials from a jeweler she hadn’t heard of. 

Inside, she found two gold charms about the size and shape of robin’s eggs. They each had a slit in the narrow end for the accompanying ribbon to tie into. As she handled them, she realized each held a weight of some kind, one that moved freely to cause a fine vibration in the golden shell. 

The ribbon was a lovely, soft silk in pale blue, and there was a full ream of it. Why so much? Was it a necklace? A chatelaine? And who was it from?

Ah. A note. 

Drat. Latin. 

Well, thanks to Auntie Blythe, she had been educated in Latin along with Italian, French, and German. Still, it took her a few minutes to work out that the note advised her to Measure two loops of ribbon around the woman’s waist. That length should secure the eggs and provide enough slack to introduce them into her passage.

Into her—? That couldn’t mean—?

Lizzie nearly crumpled the note in her guilty haste to hide from the explicit thought that leaped into her mind, because it couldn’t be true!

She searched the box but couldn’t find anything to identify who might have sent it. 

Were these eggs really meant to be introduced into her passage? She read and reread, growing less scandalized and more intrigued. The more she thought about trying it, the more a tantalizing dampness settled in her passage.

Swallowing, she went so far as to cut the recommended length of ribbon. She tied off the eggs with a firm knot. Where would they go if they came loose from the ribbon? She doubled each knot then tied it around her waist overtop her dress. She let the eggs dangle against her skirt as she considered whether to do as the note suggested. 

Was this a rite of passage—ha ha—that no one had warned her about? Had her friends done it and not said a word? Lizzie didn’t talk about anything deeply personal with her friends, only with Auntie Blythe, whom she trusted to always be honest and forthright. 

Why hadn’t she warned her of this?

Well, considering the eruption after Auntie Blythe had enlightened her on marital relations, Lizzie had her answer. 

She put the eggs back into their box and tucked it away, then called her maid to tidy up while she took tea in the drawing room, pondering what to do.

As she sat there, she realized her mother wasn’t lying down. She was berating her father. Again. 

“David is a good match,” her mother insisted. “He’s English. You agreed when I suggested him. Yet you’ll allow her to parade other men before her. What if she changes Lizzie’s mind?” 

“She wants to give our girl a night of dancing,” her father said in a beleaguered rumble. “You’re overreacting. Nothing will happen.” 

“You always take her side against me!” A door slammed and a potent silence reigned. 

Lizzie let out a despondent sigh, fearing her father was right. Nothing would happen. She would be boxed into a life with David, arguing with him about her own daughter’s prospects, and never know the independence and empowerment Auntie Blythe enjoyed. 

Unless she took matters into her own hands.