Catherine Gayle

Leg-Shackled

ONE

Audrey Veazey had always considered herself to be a very open-minded woman-at least she normally did when in comparison to her contemporaries. Yet sitting in Lady Quinton’s parlor of an afternoon during this house party and listening to the other young, married ladies titter and whisper behind their hands, giving each other knowing grins, left Audrey feeling like a prude for some reason. Not to mention completely in the dark about it all.

The curious part about it all was that she couldn’t quite determine why she felt prudish all of a sudden. Since she wasn’t privy to their conversations, they could be discussing fashions or ribbons or trinkets, for all she knew. Yet the fact was, she didn’t know. Not at all. They simply whispered all around her with knowing sparkles lighting their features, and Audrey sat there wondering all the while, yet unable to bring herself to involve herself in their conversations uninvited.

But something inside Audrey was desperate to discover just precisely what they were discussing.

When Lady Lipscombe leaned across Lady Tucker Flynn in order to whisper something quite heatedly to Lady Raynesford, who blushed prettily and nodded, Audrey set her embroidery down on the occasional table next to her with an exaggerated sigh.

“ What has caused this fit of the blue devils, my dear Lady Veazey?” came a voice beside her-male, rich, and entirely too sycophantic not to rattle her nerves to the point of breakage.

Audrey turned and met the cold, black gaze of the Earl of Holbrook, leering shamelessly down at her. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, my lord,” she said as haughtily as she could muster beneath his heated stare.

“ Come now,” he said, taking the open seat next to her on the sofa and stretching his long legs out before him. “I’ve been watching you. You want what they have, but you don’t know how to get it-you don’t even know what it is-and it is utterly driving you to distraction.”