Read Online Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night by Kate Noble - Free Book Online

yet picked up material and tea and returned fish, she had instead spent the morning kissing a man who had betrayed her!
    â€œDo you intend to inquire at any of those boarding houses this afternoon?” she asked.
    â€œAs many as I can,” he said. Then his eyebrow went up. “You mean to let me go alone?”
    â€œI . . . don’t know much about the city, and I think it best if I . . .” Her hand unconsciously went to her kiss-swollen lips, and he knew what she was thinking. Because he thought it too.
    Likely best if they had some space from each other.
    â€œBesides,” she continued, clearing her throat, “I feel certain the best chance of success will be when I attend the ball this evening.”
    He looked up at her. “You mean when I attend. I think it best if I go alone.”
    â€œAnd I think you are mad,” she countered. “Attending a military ball on your own? You will stick out like a sore thumb.”
    â€œYou alone would stick out like a sore thumb just as much as me. More so.”
    â€œNeed I remind you that you don’t know Eleanor, or what she looks like?”
    â€œAnd need I remind you, neither do you?” he countered. “You told me yourself you haven’t seen the girl in a decade.”
    â€œI’ll know her when I see her,” she said, her voice steel, just as the carriage came to a stop. “And with any luck, I’ll see her this evening. At the ball.”
    The door swung open, revealing that they were in front of Lord Ashby’s residence.
    â€œIf you insist on coming,” she said, hopping out of the carriage with the assistance of the driver, “you may escort me.”
    â€œCee, I think you’re forgetting something,” he called out, causing her to pause in the midmorning sunshine before her foot hit the first granite steps. “I have the tickets.”
    â€œCheck your pockets, Theo,” she retorted. “I think you’ll find that I have them.”
    She didn’t have to watch as he patted his coat and searched the inner breast pocket. Somehow, in their tangles, her hand found her fingers on the tickets and, well . . . somehow they had ended up in her pocket.
    But out of everything that had occurred in the past few hours, the fact that she had unconsciously filched the tickets to the ball from Theo’s pocket was the least disturbing.
    It had been, she decided, as the butler opened the door for her and the sound of the carriage clattered away, a very, very strange morning.

    AND IF THE morning had been strange, the evening was, no doubt, about to be much stranger. Because Miss Cecilia Goodhue—schoolteacher from Helmsley, Lincolnshire—was going to attend a London ball.
    And she hadn’t a thing to wear.
    â€œBut I never thought to bring a ball gown!” she had told Lady Ashby when she arrived back. Lady Ashby—who had quickly demanded that their guest call her Phoebe, especially considering that Cecilia had been witness to a violent amount of baby sick spewing all over the lady’s day dress. One simply cannot think of anyone as a countess when they are drenched in regurgitated milk, she’d been told, so why bother?
    â€œOf course not, why should you?” Phoebe replied, blotting her gown while a nurse took the baby and gently bounced it, walking in a circle. “But this will give me an excellent excuse to dress you.”
    â€œDress me?” Cecilia asked. “Oh no, my lady, I . . . I will simply wear a regular gown. We will not linger there, I’m sure—if Eleanor is not at the dance we will know very quickly.”
    â€œWhat if you get there before her?” Phoebe asked logically. “Or you could find that you need to ask other guests questions, and that simply will not do in a day dress—why, they’ll throw you out on the street!”
    â€œOh,” Cecilia said, sighing. “I