Despite all of the lessons and whippings from Dupont, nothing could have prepared me for walking into the ballroom. I didn’t hear the announcer’s words in the hush but I knew the script. I had been there when Eloise had approved it:
“Now presenting the Lady Margaux Cordelia Hawthorne, daughter of the Lord Richard Edward Hawthorne, Most Honourable Marquess of Bridcombe.”
As though I didn’t have a mother or whole other family. No, now I was just the daughter of Richard Hawthorne, rather than my own woman. Just his illegitimate get.
But at least I didn’t fall down the stairs, right?
Which was a small miracle against the endless, nauseating blur of noise and light and colour that assaulted my senses. Faces blended into each other, one dress or suit the same as all the others in a sea of
