The Unmasking of a Lady
Drawing Room Lady… It’s common knowledge that Lady Arabella Knightley spent her early years in London’s gutters. But what the Ton doesn’t know is that while she dances prettily by day, by night she helps the poor – stealing jewels from those who court her for her money but disdain her for her past… Ballroom Thief!Bored by polite society, Adam St Just determines to expose the thief. Upon discovering it’s Arabella, he should be appalled. Instead, captivated by her beauty, his proposal is simple: He’ll unbutton Lady Arabella…or unmask her!
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Arabella’s thoughts were in turmoil. Adam St Just was the last man—absolutely the last—she’d ever thought would offer for her.
She twisted the towel in her hands. What do I do?
His offer was astonishingly flattering. One of the great prizes on the Marriage Mart, a man who’d had caps past counting set at him…And he chooses me? Why?
He’d said that he admired her, that he respected her, that he had affection for her. She knew what he meant by that last word: affection. St Just didn’t leer at her like Lord Dalrymple did, but she recognised the warmth in his eyes. He wanted her, as a man wants a woman.
Arabella shuddered.
Her instinctive response to St Just’s offer had been no—it still was. Because if she married him she’d have to share his bed.
About the Author
EMILY MAY grew up in a house full of books—her mother worked as a proof-reader and librarian, and her father is a well-known New Zealand novelist. Emily has studied a wide number of subjects, including Geology and Geophysics, Canine Behaviour and Ancient Greek. Her varied career includes stints as a field assistant in Antarctica and a waitress on the Isle of Skye. Most recently she has worked in the wine industry in Marlborough, New Zealand.
Emily loves to travel, and has lived in Sweden, backpacked in Europe, and travelled overland in the Middle East, China and North Africa. She enjoys climbing hills, yoga workouts, watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and reading. She is especially fond of Georgette Heyer’s Regency and Georgian novels.
Emily writes Regency romances as Emily May, and dark, romantic fantasy novels as Emily Gee (www.emilygee.com).
A previous novel by this author:
THE EARL’S DILEMMA
This book is for Margareta and Maurice, for their very generous hospitality.
I can’t thank you enough!
Acknowledgements
This book started its life while I was travelling in Canada. I’d like to thank the various public libraries in and around Victoria on Vancouver Island (in particular the Esquimalt branch) where I figured out the plot. And thanks to the public library in Prince Rupert (a town where the bald eagles are as plentiful as sparrows), where the second chapter was written. But the biggest thanks go to the owners of the backpackers’ hostel on Denman Island, on whose veranda the first chapter was written. I wish I could have written the whole book there!
Chapter One
The thief stood in front of Lady Bicknell’s dressing table and looked with disapproval at the objects strewn across it: glass vials of perfume, discarded handkerchiefs, a clutter of pots and jars of cosmetics—rouge, maquillage—many gaping open, their contents drying, two silver-backed hairbrushes with strands of hair caught among the bristles, a messy pile of earrings, the faceted jewels glinting dully in the candlelight.
The thief stirred the earrings with a fingertip. Gaudy. Tasteless. In need of cleaning.
The dressing table, the mess, offended the thief’s tidy soul. She pursed her lips and examined the earrings again, more slowly. The diamonds were paste, the sapphires nothing more than coloured glass, the rubies…She picked up a ruby earring and looked at it closely. Real, but such a garish, vulgar setting. The thief grimaced and put the earring back, more neatly than its owner had done. There was nothing on the dressing table that interested her.
She turned to the mahogany dresser. It stood in the corner, crouching on bowed legs like a large toad. Three wide drawers and at the top, three small ones, side by side, beneath a frowning mirror. The thief quietly opened the drawers and let her fingers sift through the contents, stirring the woman’s scent from the garments: perspiration, perfume.
The topmost drawer on the left, filled with a tangle of silk stockings and garters, wasn’t as deep as the others.
For a moment the thief stood motionless, listening for footsteps in the corridor, listening to the breeze stir the curtains at the open window, then she pulled the drawer out and laid it on the floor.
Behind the drawer of stockings was another drawer, small and discreet, and inside that…
The thief grinned as she lifted out the bracelet. Pearls gleamed in the candlelight, exquisite, expensive.
The drawer contained—besides the bracelet—a matching pair of pearl earrings and four letters. The thief took the earrings and replaced the letters. She was easing the drawer back into its slot when a name caught her eye. St Just.
St Just. The name brought with it memory of a handsome face and grey eyes, memory of humiliation—and a surge of hatred.
She hesitated for a second, and then reached for the letters.
The first one was brief and to the point. Here, as requested, is my pearl bracelet. In exchange, I must ask for the return of my letter. It was signed Grace St Just.
The thief frowned and unfolded the second letter. It was written in the same girlish hand as the first. The date made her pause—November 6th, 1817. The day Princess Charlotte had died, although the letter writer wouldn’t have known that at the time.
