The Bride Price

Chapter One

Lord Edmund Winthrop, Viscount Marbley.

Emily Collicott whispered the name under her breath, her own voice added to the susurration of sound that rippled from one end of the ballroom to the other. From where she stood, she could not see him. There were too many other heads in the way, heads bedecked in various arrangements of ribbons and pearls and feathers. The feathers were the most dreadful of them all, flopping and tickling and occasionally smacking her across the face when she failed to keep a wary eye.

Miss Fauntley had called on them this morning for the sole purpose of relating the news that Marbley had returned to town, after a nearly year-long sojourn in Paris. But he was back in London, the obnoxious Miss Fauntley had tittered between bites of marzipan and candied fruit. He was back, and his reappearance had succeeded in setting every drawing room abuzz.

To tell the truth, Emily had found herself a bit underwhelmed by the news. This was her first season in London, and what was this Lord Edmund fellow to her but a tedious portion of gossip bandied about like a borrowed novel? But she was soon swept along by the bubbling, frothing tide of London society, and now that Lord Edmund Winthrop, Viscount Marbley had arrived in Lady Halloran's ballroom, she craned her neck as much as every other young woman in order to gain a glimpse of his reputed beauty.

He was tall, the women around her had whispered. He was broad-shouldered, another group had said. His hair was black as ebony, his eyes like amber pools, his nose a perfectly formed proboscis that would have sent the Romans into fits of envy. His smile was reputed to have caused no less than eight—eight!—young ladies to faint, leaving them as unresponsive heaps of silk and lace in his wake. He was witty. He was graceful. He was all that was kindness and benevolence.

And he was here, Emily thought. Not more than half a ballroom's length away from her.

She stood on the balls of her feet, her balance wavering as she was pushed and shoved from all sides—the result of several dozen women surging forward as the news of Marbley's arrival spread through their ranks. Emily struggled to catch her breath before another bundle of feathers walloped her in the face and she was suddenly extricated from the press of bodies.

"Did you see him?" Josephine's lilting voice tumbled out in a rush.

Emily looked down and only then noticed the other young woman's hand on her arm, the same hand that had rescued her from the crush that was still shifting and moving in time with Marbley's circuitous path along the outskirts of the room.

"Thank you," Emily breathed. "And no, I did not." She looked up at her friend with an expectant air.

"Oh, I've seen him before," Josephine crowed, and opened her fan with a practiced snap. "I even danced with him, once. It was my first season, and I was silly enough to believe that a scant few minutes of attention from the likes of him would be enough to secure my prospects."

Emily blinked rapidly and lowered her gaze to the floor. It was an easy matter to forget that Miss Barrowe was seven years her senior and currently celebrating her ninth season in town, a season that the redoubtable Miss Josephine Barrowe claimed would be her last.

"You'll do better than I," Josephine said, her mouth crooked in a smile while her eyes gleamed. "You've a look about you that sets you apart. They can say what they like about this complexion being in fashion or that particular shade of hair, but toss out all the fripperies and men want nothing more than a pretty, healthy girl who can smile at a party and produce a viable heir or two."

Emily tugged nervously at her gloves as the crowd continued to buzz with excitement around her. "You're forgetting a fortune. A few thousand pounds tacked onto that smile and most men could forgive a woman having a wooden leg and a moustache."