She nodded.

“Good,” he said, and swung her around the floor. “I plan on keeping all your new acquaintances away.”

“Why?” she complained. “Harry—”

“Because I have found the perfect husband for you already.” He smiled.

Her brows flew up. “Have you? Who?”

Couldn’t she see? Couldn’t she see it in his eyes? “Molly,” he groaned. “We must go out in the garden, as soon as this waltz is over.”

And without even realizing it, he slowed until they came to a perfect standstill in the middle of the floor.

“Harry?” Molly’s brown eyes registered confusion.

But just then there was a clamor from the stair landing—loud words exchanged, and the sharp, guttural sound of someone being punched in the middle and gasping for breath.

The musicians stopped playing.

“Oh, heavens,” Molly whispered.

Harry looked up. A footman lay crumpled in a heap. Two other footmen gripped a wild-haired man by either arm. Yet even though the man was trapped, and struggling, he had a triumphant gleam in his eye.

It was Sir Richard. And hovering near him, her beseeching eyes focused on Harry alone, was the lovely—yet insipid—Fiona.

Chapter 45

When Molly saw Sir Richard accompanied by Harry’s old mistress, her heart beat so fast, she was afraid she might faint.

“I have an announcement to make,” yelled Sir Richard from the balcony at the top of the staircase into the silent ballroom. “And it’s of vital importance for the Duke of Mallan and all this company to hear it, if they value honor!”

Molly locked gazes with Harry.

Their charade was over.

She fought to maintain decorum as the footmen struggled to contain Sir Richard.

“Your Grace! I implore you to hear me out!” Sir Richard cried.

The footmen managed to drag him almost to a doorway, but he kicked and struggled all the way. Fiona appeared unmoved by his distress and not at all surprised by it, either.

“Release him!” commanded the duke from the ballroom floor.

The footmen were slow to do so. But they finally dropped Sir Richard’s arms, and he stood, his chest heaving.

“What have you to say?” the duke called up to him from the ballroom floor.

But before Sir Richard could answer, a rather ridiculous thing happened. Molly’s father appeared at the entrance to the ballroom, nimbly sidestepping the gasping Sir Richard and the two footmen.

“What the devil is going on here?” Lord Sutton asked over his spectacles to no one in particular.

Oh, Papa.

Molly so wished he weren’t here to witness his daughter’s downfall.

He was followed into the ballroom by a man with golden hair and the face of an angel.

Cedric.

Molly gasped. What was he doing here? Unless her father had concocted some sort of plan after all, a last-minute effort to get Cedric and Molly married before she had a Season in London.

Or perhaps Cedric himself had had second thoughts about abandoning her.

Harry moved a step forward, his hands clenched into fists. “Alliston…the bastard.”

Molly laid a hand on Harry’s arm. “No,” she insisted.

He mustn’t waste his time on Cedric. Because, after all, what did his perfidy matter now anyway? She had no future. And Harry’s was sealed. He would be marrying Anne Riordan once Sir Richard revealed the lie they’d perpetrated at the Most Delectable Companion contest.

She kept her hand on Harry’s arm and saw him uncurl his fist. But he looked as if he could murder a whole slew of giants if he wanted to.

She stood quietly, refusing to think about her father and his desire that she marry Cedric. Both of them stood next to Sir Richard. Her father ogled him as if he were a strange sea creature. And Cedric, the fool, was looking at Fiona with poorly masked horror, which only proved to Molly that he was once more angling for her hand.

She felt only indifference and a vague pity for the man. And a weary acknowledgment of her father’s refusal to hear what she wanted or didn’t want in a husband.

Their indifference to her desires seemed less important than what was happening now, in this ballroom, the same ballroom where she’d stood at age thirteen concocting dreams that never came to pass.

Now she was like a criminal at the guillotine, hands tied, eyes bound, waiting for a final, miserable fate to befall her.

And it wasn’t long in coming.

Sir Richard pointed a trembling finger at Harry. “Your son, Your Grace, was conscripted into Prinny’s Impossible Bachelor wager.”

“Yes, we all know of the wager, Bell.” The duke sounded weary. It wasn’t his first ball to be ruined by a shocking display. “Do get on with it.”

The crowd was perfectly still. Molly could hear her blood pounding in her ears.

Sir Richard lofted a brow. “As you know, I am also one of this year’s five Impossible Bachelors.” He was obviously quite impressed with himself. “Each of us was to bring a mistress—”

“Roger!” That was Harry’s mother remonstrating with the duke.

Molly saw the duke put his hand over hers. “We are all adults here, Jane. But any lady who cares not to hear may leave the room at once.”

There was a stirring and a shifting of the crowd, but not a single female left the room. Not even the vicar’s wife.

The focus of attention returned to Sir Richard.

He strutted to his left, then turned and strutted to his right, stopped, and cleared his throat. “To see the wager through,” he said in that pompous voice of his, “we were each required to bring a mistress to a week’s house party. To be held at one of your hunting properties, Your Grace. My understanding is that we used your favorite hunting box.”

There was a huge rumble of protest in the room. The noise went on and on, and Molly looked at Harry. “Wasn’t the hunting box yours?” she whispered.

Harry shook his head. “I’ve much to explain about me and my father,” he whispered. “But it’s all past now. I was planning on talking to him tonight. And to you, too, Molly.”

He sounded fierce. Desperate. Yet there was also something warm and true and so…loving in his eyes. Could he—did he—have feelings for her?

He squeezed her hand. “I want to tell you everything. I—I was trying to get the words out during our waltz. I want to be with you.” He took a sharp breath. “More than anything else in the world.”

Molly nodded, her heart in her throat. “I want to be with you, too, Harry.”

The loud, condemning voices around them continued, but for at least a few seconds, nothing came between Molly and a huge surge of happiness and love welling inside her.

But the duke’s voice, commanding everyone to silence, drew her out of her reverie. Harry, too.

When order reigned once again, Sir Richard continued his speech. “According to the rules of the wager,” he said, “the women at the house party were to compete for the title of Most Delectable Companion. And the bachelor whose mistress won the title at the end of the week would be guaranteed another year of freedom from the marital noose. The rest would have to draw straws to see who would be required to get legshackled.” Sir Richard stared at Harry. “Your younger son, Your Grace, won the wager and was exempt from the drawing.”

“Yes,” the duke drawled. “We know. As does every disappointed virgin and matchmaking mama in town.”

There was a ripple of laughter.

Molly kept her hand on Harry’s arm. His mouth was a thin, threatening line. And his eyes—hard and cold—were locked on Sir Richard’s.

“But it has come to light, Your Grace,” said Sir Richard, “that your son violated the rules of the contest. And he should thereby forfeit his win.”

There was another huge rumble from the crowd.

“How so?” asked the duke equably.

My goodness, the man was cool under pressure, thought Molly. And she began to admire him.

Sir Richard scratched his chin. “Your son’s mistress abandoned him at an inn the day the contest was to begin. In fact, she is here, to prove my story.” He looked at Fiona.

“I am that woman,” she said in a soft, breathy voice. “I did, indeed, leave Harry. There are many witnesses at the inn to support my claim. He wouldn’t let me bring my lapdog to the house party! And he didn’t even care when I cried.” She batted her lashes and put her fists on her curvaceous hips.

The crowd went mad.

“Silence!” the duke’s voice rang out once more.

There was one last gasp from somewhere to Molly’s left, and then utter quiet once again.

“Do go on, Sir Richard,” the duke said.

Sir Richard drew a breath. “Your son didn’t know what to do, Your Grace. If a bachelor arrives at the site of the wager without a mistress, he forfeits the wager and must propose to a young lady almost immediately.”

The men in the ballroom looked warily at each other. What a nightmare! their glances said. And the women in the room seemed to roll a collective eye.

“As I was saying,” Sir Richard asserted, “your son would forfeit the wager unless he brought a mistress with him. So in place of a real mistress in the competition, he put a false mistress.”

There were more gasps. Even a shriek.

“What in the world is a false mistress?” someone near Molly called out to the company.

“A false mistress,” Sir Richard explained, “is a mistress in name only.”

“How do you know she was a mistress in name only?” another anonymous nosy-body cried.