A Marriage Most Scandalous (Scandalous Ballroom Encounters Book 2) by Victoria Vale

alone.
    “I don’t understand. What is going on?”
    Penelope’s dark eyes had turned grave, her mouth a pinched line. “That, my dear, is what we call the cut direct. You just received it from half the ton .”
    She shook her head, brow creased in disbelief. “But … why ?”
    Her friend began to pace, seeming to have not heard her question. She sighed, hands clasped behind her back.
    “Why did you do it, Cecily? Did I not tell you that married men indulged in such pastimes behind their wives’ backs? What could have possessed you to go find out for yourself? Now, you might well be ruined!”
    “What on Earth are you talking about?”
    Agitation made her tone short and curt and caused sweat to coat her palms beneath her gloves. What had felt like a dream just that afternoon became a nightmare by the second.
    “Someone saw you, Cecily,” Penelope replied, pausing in her pacing and turning to face her. “Coming and going from Madame Petra’s in the dead of night.”
    A strangled sound escaped her throat despite the vise gripping it, preventing her from speaking.
    “No well-bred woman would be caught dead in such an establishment,” her friend continued. “Yet, you were seen, and someone has ousted you. Now gossip is swirling about what you might have been doing there. The speculation ranges from the obscene to the bizarre. It is not good, darling.”
    She squeezed her eyes closed, her mind filling with images of Petra on her knees, her lips and tongue coaxing wet heat from her cunt. Embarrassment filled her and she realized she was well and truly ruined.
    “I … I didn’t do anything wrong,” she protested meekly.
    Penelope came forward, taking her hands and squeezing them gently, her expression full of pity.
    “I know. You went after him because you felt betrayed, and you had every right to. Oh, but why couldn’t you have waited to confront him at home? His reputation would not have been ruined by his presence in that place, but yours may well have been.”
    She shook her head, no longer able to fight the tears cascading down her cheeks. “I never meant for this to happen.”
    “Of course you didn’t.”
    Penelope held her, hugging her tight. Clinging to her friend, she choked back a sob, realizing what this all meant for her. She would be shunned everywhere. No one would want a woman who consorted with whores to attend their parties, teas, or balls. No one would want to speak to her in Hyde Park, or invite her into their home, or allow their gently-bred, virginal daughters anywhere near her. And her charity groups …
    “The society,” she choked.
    Penelope shook her head. “They’ve designated me to inform you that you are no longer welcome.”
    Dashing at her tears, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “You shouldn’t be seen talking to me, Penelope. You should go back in there and ignore me, along with everyone else. There is no need for your reputation to suffer, as well.”
    “To hell with them all,” Penelope declared, wiping her hands together as if ridding them of bothersome dust. “I have always been my own person, and you know this more than anyone else. I am a spinster with no desire to marry—thus making me a bit of an oddity and an outcast as it is. It makes sense that I would count a salacious whore among my friends.”
    Amusement pulled at the corners of her lips, and she couldn’t hold back the laugh that shook her shoulders.
    “Oh, you do know how to make me feel better. A spinster and a whore—we make quite a pair, do we not?”
    Penelope’s face grew serious again. “What do you need? I want to help you.”
    Cecily sighed. “Just one thing. I want to go home. I need Sheridan.”
    “Of course. Wait here.”
    Penelope retreated, leaving her alone. Without her friend there to feed her confidence, her shoulders deflated and tears filled her eyes again.
    Why hadn’t she been more discreet? Of course, she’d known she took a risk in going to Madame Petra’s, but