I measured myself again this morning and am sad to report that my dratted bosoms still refuse to stop growing …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 15
“The current problems on the Continent all rest squarely on the shoulders of bad governance.” Lord Dorchester had been joined by his favorite cronies and was now waxing lyrical about the spate of revolutions that had occurred this year across the Channel. It was one of his favorite current topics, so Vee felt petty for being so fed up with it. “France still isn’t fully over Napoleon despite their sensible readoption of the monarchy because…”
“Sorry to interrupt.” Olivia caught her elbow, relieving her of the chore of listening, only for her to turn and come face-to-face with Galahad, who typically looked more handsome in his perfectly tailored evening clothes than any man had a right to. The cut of his coat drew her eyes to the vexing wretch’s broad shoulders and almost caused her to stare at them in appreciation—which vexed her further. “But I have a dashing young man here eager to steal a spot on your dance card.”
He didn’t look the least bit eager. To be frank, he looked as horrified by the suggestion as she was. “Oh … um…” She was instantly flustered because they had categorically never danced together before. Never sat beside each other at a dinner table or coffee table, for that matter. Or even loitered within ten feet of each other anywhere. They certainly hadn’t ever managed a conversation longer than a few minutes in all the years she had known him. Had never even touched since the night she had attacked him—not that she could recall at any rate—so the prospect of three whole minutes making polite small talk during the enforced intimacy of a dance was unsettling. Especially as she was still smarting at his mocking the state of the orphanage the other day with his much-too-dismissive eyes.
“I am not sure I have any left.” Beyond the nineteen remaining out of the twenty listed.
“Nonsense!” Olivia snatched the card from her wrist before Vee could stop her, then to her further horror opened it where he could see all the glaring empty spaces still left upon it—because she had only granted the one. “Which do you fancy, Galahad?”
“That one.” He jabbed at the country dance directly beneath the imminent waltz for which she had penciled in Lord Dorchester. Remembering his manners, he inclined his head and smiled politely. “If that suits you, Miss Venus.”
“Of course.” She bobbed an insincere curtsy, making sure her wayward eyes never ventured anywhere near his shoulders on the way up or down. “I shall look forward to it.” About as much as she looked forward to losing all her teeth to old age and being forced to eat nothing but mashed food till she died.
“Splendid!” Olivia beamed at them both. “I shall leave you bright young things to your conversation.” She shot Galahad a pointed glare. “And your dance.” With that parting salvo, and with a wicked glint in her calculating blue eyes, Olivia bolted, leaving them standing together awkwardly.
“You really don’t have to dance with me.” He threw her that lifeline the moment their tormentor was out of earshot. “Although I think it might be good for both of us if you did.”
“Why on earth would you think that?”
“Because…” He huffed out a sigh that made him look boyish and somehow more appealing. “I reckon it’s time we buried the hatchet, Miss Venus.”
“And why would we want to do that?” It seemed daft to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about when there had always been not so much a rift between them as a gaping impasse.
“Because your sister is married to my cousin. Because we collide all the time as a result. And because I’ve never been entirely sure exactly what we’ve been at war over. Have you?” He had her there. Aside from the unequivocal fact that he—and his dratted shoulders and twinkling green eyes—unsettled her for some reason. “Besides, it occurs to me that all the animosity we seem to harbor for each other is from the past, and a version of the past that wasn’t entirely accurate back then, yet it still taints the now even though it shouldn’t.” There was no hint of his usual mockery as he held out his hand. “Truce?”
She stared at the offending limb for several seconds before she shook it, then immediately regretted it because his touch sent her pulse berserk. “Truce.”
They yanked their hands away simultaneously as if they had both been bitten. His to hide behind his back and hers to fiddle in discomfort in full view. The flesh on her fingers felt suddenly more alive than it ever had before.
“On the tail of that truce, I should also like to apologize for any unintentional offense I caused you the other day. It wasn’t the state of the orphanage that horrified me, Miss Venus—” As always and despite their new peace treaty, the way he insisted on using her full name made her bristle. “—so much as the fact that we have known each other for four years and yet, to my eternal shame, I had no clue where it was. It was remiss of me not to have asked before, or to have shown much interest in your worthy endeavors, when it is a cause close to your heart and the necessary work that you do there is beyond admirable.”
Vee blinked, waiting for the veiled insult, and when none came blinked some more. “Thank you for clarifying.”
He shrugged, looking more boyish and handsome and annoyingly sincere. “I would have clarified at the time, only you stomped off before I could.” To her shame, she had stomped. He had a knack for making her stomp. “So how many little rascals do you have in that place?”
“Forty.” She remembered the reverend’s pickpocket. “Forty-one to be precise, as of last week. Boys and girls who run the gamut in ages from five to twelve years.”
He whistled his surprise. “That’s a lot. More than enough to keep you busy then. All characters, I’m guessing, because you have to grow a big one to survive on the streets alone.” An insightful comment Vee would have questioned had Lord Dorchester not clicked his fingers by her ear.
“What is the name of the new king of France, Miss Vee? The one who replaced Charles the Tenth?” He clicked his fingers again and she suppressed the urge to frown at his rude summons, noticing that Galahad didn’t. His expression at the curt interruption was positively thunderous.
“Er … Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orléans, I believe.”
“Yes indeed.” Lord Dorchester didn’t even bother thanking her as he continued his lecture. “Charles was ultimately usurped by the court of public opinion in much the same way as our despotic King Richard the Third—because his shoddy behavior had lost the goodwill of his subjects.”
“Or so Shakespeare would have us believe.” That surprising comment came from a still-frowning Galahad. “And ol’ Henry had to find a way to justify him killing the king and stealing the crown from the head it rightfully belonged on.”
“Shakespeare was a chronicler of our past, Mr. Sinclair.” Lord Dorchester said this in the most patronizing fashion, as if speaking to a child who couldn’t possibly understand it. “He had no reason to warp the facts of what happened more than a hundred years before he wrote about it.”
“Didn’t he?” Galahad’s dark-gold brows kissed in consternation. “He wrote plays for the elite, didn’t he? Relied on the patronage of the aristocracy to pay his bills and knew if he didn’t write something pleasin’ for ol’ Henry’s granddaughter, the sittin’ queen, he’d likely have his head separated from his shoulders with a blunt blade.”
For some reason he was drawling certain words to sound more of a stranger to these shores than not, which was a bold move when discussing the intricacies of English history with a peer of the realm whose family was intrinsically part of it. “That strikes me as incentive enough to do some tweakin’.” His mischievous green gaze locked with hers and managed to send a ripple of awareness everywhere. “What say you, Miss Venus?” He was daring her to disagree with Dorchester.
“Well, I think…” She thought Galahad had made a valid, if surprising, point and one she completely concurred with, but for a moment she considered lying to please her lord. But as that was disingenuous and because Lord Dorchester was always saying that debate was healthy, she told the truth. “Shakespeare isn’t the most reliable source to glean accurate historical facts from. I’ve always taken his royal plays as fiction more to entertain than to educate, as that would have been their intended purpose back in his day and…” As Lord Dorchester’s less vibrant green eyes were shooting her daggers, she smiled as her voice trailed off. “Well, frankly, you know I have always preferred his comedies.”
“Which have no educational value whatsoever.” Dorchester rewarded her traitorous opinion by turning his back to continue his discussion about the new French king as if she hadn’t spoken at all, effectively excluding her and Galahad from the rest of the conversation.
“I prefer the comedies, too.” It was Galahad who came to her rescue by pretending the slight hadn’t happened. “Give me a Falstaff over a Hamlet any day of the week.”
“I thought you’d never heard of Shakespeare.”
Galahad shrugged, a contrite smile playing with the corners of his mouth. “Maybe one or two of his plays made it all the way to the savage, uncivilized shores of New York. And maybe I went to see a couple—including that one that you put so much stock in that you re-read it every year. I rooted for Beatrice and Benedick throughout, by the way. I liked her grit and his wit.”
“That does surprise me.” Or more, he had. “I can only assume you feigned ignorance to irritate me.”
“Guilty as charged.” His smile this time was disarming. “I might have read them all.”
“All?” Something strange happened in the vicinity of her heart. Something strange and most disconcerting. She decided there and then that she much preferred Galahad when she had thought he couldn’t read, because that had made him easier to dislike.
He nodded. “Even all one hundred and fifty-four of his famed sonnets.” He shrugged unrepentant, grinning, displaying a perfectly straight set of pearly white teeth. “Although I have to admit I do find some of his comedies a bit far-fetched. All those women posing as men and the men not noticing makes me wonder what those Tudor women looked like.” He pulled a face. “They must have been very homely ladies indeed.”
“Homely?” By the amusement dancing in his eyes that word must mean something quite different to him than it did to her.
“It means ugly in my version of your language, Miss Venus.” He nudged her playfully with his elbow as he winked, which was rather … charming. “More attractive on the inside than on the out.”
“Ah … well…” What a gentle way of insulting someone. “I suppose those plays made more sense in Shakespeare’s time because all the female parts were played by males. Women weren’t allowed to tread the boards until the end of the next century.”
“I did not know that.” He chuckled at the ridiculousness of it. A deep, silky sound that did odd things to her insides. “Another one of life’s great mysteries solved. Though now you mention it, it suddenly all makes such perfect sense I should have figured it out before. No wonder those men never noticed all those incognito ladies were ladies—when clearly they all wore beards.”
She would have told him more about how Shakespeare put his plays on, but the first bars of the waltz had begun so Galahad had stepped aside. He swept his arm in Dorchester’s direction. “They are playing your tune.”
“Apparently so.” When her lord failed to turn around to claim her, she tapped him on the shoulder. “I believe this dance is yours, my lord.”
“But we are in the middle of a riveting discussion.” Dorchester seemed put out by her interruption. “You do not mind if we pass this time, do you?”
Vee smiled tightly, put out by his continued indifference, and humiliated to have been dismissed so curtly in front of Galahad. “Of course not.” He had turned back to his friends before she even uttered the second word.
“You should mind.” Galahad appeared furious on her behalf and was glaring at Dorchester’s back. “That is no way to treat a lady.”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“That’s as good as saying that you don’t matter, Miss Venus.” His stormy emerald gaze flicked to hers. “If he asked you to dance, he should honor it. Especially if he nabbed the honor of the first waltz.”
Technically, it had been Vee who had done the asking. Not outright in an overt would-you-dance-the-waltz-with-me way, but more in the casual, rhetorical, should-I-save-a-space-for-you-tonight kind of way that had forced Lord Dorchester to nod. Probably on sufferance. It had been she who penciled his name beside the first waltz. Her contriteness at that must have showed on her face as Galahad gaped open-mouthed in despair. “Unless he didn’t—and you forced his hand.”
“Lord Dorchester isn’t a huge fan of dancing. He is a scholar at heart.” Good heavens, this was awkward. “Like me. To be frank, I really couldn’t care less if I ever danced at these affairs or not.” She feigned boredom to cover her embarrassment. “I much prefer the conversation, especially if it leads to a stimulating debate.”
He glanced back at Dorchester, who was still holding court and hadn’t paused for breath, or even noticed that he was rudely ignoring her. “Where I come from a conversation is a two-way affair, Miss Venus, and a debate is an exchange of ideas and opinions, not one participant dominating and drowning out everyone else with his pontificating.”
“He simply feels very strongly about the current political climate in Europe, that is all. He isn’t usually so—”
“Lecturing? Domineering? High and mighty? Selfish? Downright thoughtless?”
Urgh! She hated that Galahad’s criticism echoed all of her own in this precise moment. “I can see how you would think that, but he isn’t the least bit like that once you get to know him as well as I do. Lord Dorchester—”
“Lord Dorchester? Surely if you know him so well, he wouldn’t be a lord to you?” She wanted to kick him in his irritating shins for his galling perceptiveness. “Or are you, like me, too beneath him to use his Christian name? Or worse, he thinks himself so superior to everybody else, only his mother gets to call him Marmaduke.” He said the name with an impeccable and clipped aristocratic English accent, making it sound foppish and daft. “And I thought our names were bad.”
“None of us can help our names, Galahad.”
“We can’t, but we can all help the way we behave and treat others.”
She was furious at both men now. Galahad for being his usual annoying self and Dorchester for forcing her to defend the indefensible. “It’s clear that you do not like him.” Yet another name to add to an ever-growing list of people who didn’t. Including hers at this precise moment. “But…”
He groaned aloud. “But? What the hell do you see in him, Miss Venus?”
“Lord Dorchester is a proper gentleman of quality—unlike some I could mention!”
“I’m not sure that the daughter of a forger is in any position to criticize my pedigree.”
Maybe she would kick him in both shins. Or higher. “By quality, I meant that he knows how to behave!”
“That is quality behavior?” Galahad frowned as if she had taken leave of her senses. “He’s rude and obnoxious, thinks he knows everything, and refuses to be corrected. Looks down his nose at everyone and he’s a narcissist. I’ve never met a man who considers himself so undeservedly superior to everyone else in a room.”
“He is very different in private than he is…”
“Why are you so blind to his flaws when the rest of us have already worked out that your droning viscount is a dead loss?” A question that Olivia had asked her almost verbatim in the carriage tonight, as well as yesterday and the day before when she had lectured her on the importance of the frisson and urged Vee to hold off picking a mate until she truly felt it.
“Olivia put you up to this, didn’t she?” Vee wafted her hand in the direction of her meddling relation, who was watching them with interest while pretending not to. “You didn’t really want to bury the hatchet at all, did you? You were dragged over here expressly to find a way to enlighten me regarding your disapproval of Dorchester.”
He went to deny it then huffed. “Yes … and no.” He winced. “Yes, I cannot deny that Olivia is worried about your attachment to him when she does not see any evidence that your regard is reciprocated, but no, that isn’t why I came over. While I do think that windbag is a pompous ass—” He jerked his thumb in Dorchester’s direction. “—I also think that whoever you’ve pinned your colors to is none of my business, and I told Olivia so. But I did come over here to bury the hatchet.”
“In my back, apparently.”
She knew it had been too good to be true. She and he attempting cordiality and sociability when they had never been able to manage it before. Not that this failed attempt had lasted long thanks to his thinly disguised ulterior motive.
“But at least you can report this inconsequential slight back to Olivia. It will add weight to her argument that he is wrong for me in every possible way, and you’ll both get to gloat about my continued poor judgment regarding the male of the species while you congratulate yourselves that you told me so.” All of a sudden she wanted to go home. Wanted to run out of this stupid ballroom and have a good cry at her own continued stupidity wherever men were concerned. Because they were right. She knew they were right. Every sign from the universe screamed that she was barking up the wrong tree—yet again—out of desperation. Instead of admitting that aloud and surrendering to the truth of it, she folded her arms and summoned what remained of her battered pride. “You’ve had your fun, so go away, Galahad.”
“Miss Venus, I…”
“I said go.”
With a sigh, he did exactly that, but he hadn’t gone six feet before he marched back to grab her hand. “Let’s dance.”
He tugged her but she dug her heels in. “I’d rather not. Contrary to what you might think, I am a wallflower by choice and rarely have any trouble finding dance partners.” That at least was the truth. There had been several men ogling her all evening who never failed to ask to take a turn with her across the dance floor before they suggested she might want to take a very different sort of turn with them somewhere private afterward. “I certainly do not need one out of pity.”
He glanced heavenward for strength. “If you want that idiot, you aren’t going to get anywhere with him until he sees you.” Which, irritatingly, she had also worked out for herself. “And that idiot isn’t going to see you when you’ve turned yourself into his lapdog, always there and loyally waiting for him to throw you a few scraps—so let’s dance. Let’s give him the opportunity to see you like all the sensible men in this ballroom do—as a beautiful, intelligent, and desirable woman he would be damn lucky to converse with, let alone hold in his arms.”
He yanked her to follow again, and, a little stunned at his unexpected compliment, she did.
At the edge of the floor, he stopped dead and held his palm out flat. “Take off those eyeglasses.”
“If I do that, I won’t be able to see your smug face!” With his hand still outstretched, he rolled his eyes in a manner that made Vee instantly seethe. “Which now that you mention it might not be a bad thing.”
She slapped them into his palm, and he pocketed them, then held it out again for her to take. The second she did, he pulled her into his arms. They were strong arms. The square shoulders beneath her fingers were as unmistakably sturdy as they looked, too. He was broader than Dorchester and taller, overwhelming in his maleness and youthful vigor, and the big hand that engulfed hers wasn’t the slightest bit clammy. Or too smooth to have seen an honest day’s work. The slightly roughened texture told her in no uncertain terms that Galahad’s hands did more than waft in the air while he pontificated. He also, and much to her consternation, smelled and felt divine, and the intensity of his gaze gave hers no option but to lose herself in it.
“I’ll give you fair warning that for the next few minutes I am going to hold you too close, and you are going to act every inch a woman who is enjoying it.” Although against her wishes her wayward body was enjoying it already, so she sincerely doubted much acting would be required.
“Under no circumstances are you to look his way, understand? Even when I twirl you right past him.” She nodded again, and his serious expression softened to one of amusement. “You also might want to have a go at smiling, Miss Venus, rather than glaring like you want to murder me. No matter how much you currently do. Give that fool something to be jealous about and I guarantee he’ll come running to you for a change.”
Begrudgingly, she did, and he chuckled. The silky rumble still had the same devastating impact on her nerve endings, only this time it was amplified because she could also feel it in the most improper and distracting manner against her ribs. Because the wretch was already holding her so scandalously close her bosom lay flush against his chest.
And they liked it there.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Vee decided not to dignify that with a response.
To vex her further, Galahad proved to be an expert at waltzing who maneuvered her effortlessly and gracefully around the floor. Probably because the waltz was one of the few dances he’d ever deigned to dance on the rare occasions when he attended society affairs, and he usually danced them with whichever attractive lady he happened to be linked to by the gossip columns. He had a penchant for young widows, or the most daring and flirtatious single ladies with the most dubious reputations who liked to have a good time.
Just like him.
“We’re coming up on Marmaduke now.” That murmur, so close to her ear, raised distracting goose bumps on her flesh. “So eyes front and center, missy, and let’s put on a show … talk to me.”
As if hypnotized, she smiled up at his face. It startled her that not all of that smile was a sham. “What do you want to talk about?”
He pulled her closer still, his hand slipping from her waist downward until it rested intimately in the small of her back, scandalously waking all of the nerve endings that resided below her waist. “What do you like about teaching those orphans?”
She forced herself to focus on the question and not the odd effect he was having on her body. “It is good to give something back to those less fortunate.”
“Too predictable and rehearsed an answer.” He rolled his eyes again without malice, forcing her to notice how striking they were. The unusual green irises were ringed by a deeper green and flecked with amber. The lashes that flanked them were a darker brown, which surprised her when the hair on his head didn’t have a single strand of dark brown in it. It ran the gamut between pale gold and burnished bronze instead, with no two strands the same. Exactly like his eyebrows. “I’m interested in all the other less pious reasons you do it, Saint Venus. The real things that have you going back there day after day when you are already guaranteed a spot in heaven after so many years of charitable benevolence. What’s in it for you?”
“I enjoy the work.” Good gracious, but she was off kilter. Locked in the sublime cage of his arms, she felt as if she were simultaneously floating and falling. “The sense of accomplishment and purpose. I have never been very good doing nothing.”
“That big ol’ brain of yours likes to keep busy.”
“It does…” Had he just complimented her intelligence for a second time? He must have, because like a dolt she was already floating some more. “I enjoy the challenge of finding ways to rob Peter to pay Paul, or of solving the many problems that the orphanage throws up. For example, this week, after the roof sprang another leak and was finally condemned by every tradesman we asked to patch it, I’m in the throes of haggling a decent price to replace it.” They were all still eye-watering, though, so she sincerely hoped Mrs. Leyton-Brown had been as generous as the reverend had claimed … else they would continue to be rained on indoors in perpetuity.
“I also adore the children, so most of the time it honestly doesn’t feel like work. Frankly, it is impossible not to adore them. As you already said, some of them are real characters, and that ensures that I constantly have to think on my feet. Every day throws up a different challenge.” Like this current challenge. Who knew dancing with Galahad would be so … intoxicating?
“And that clever mind of yours must love a challenge.” To her chagrin, alongside all the nods to her intelligence, she realized that she also adored his accent and the sultry timbre of his voice. Certain syllables even gave her goose bumps.
“We have these twins—” She paused, fearing that she was too overwhelmed to realize that he was only being polite and wasn’t really interested in what she had to say, but his expression was every bit as interested as he had claimed to be. She could see that as clear as crystal in his expressive eyes. “—Tommy and Sydney Claypole. Two absolute tearaways who seem to thrive on causing trouble. Not the awful, malicious, and dangerous sort of trouble. More relentless and purposeful mischief, because I suspect they like to make all the other children laugh. Today they decided to torment all the little girls with spiders. Not one or two, because that would be too pedestrian a prank for the Claypoles—but an entire trinket box full. They must have been collecting them for weeks to get quite so many, and they released them in the girls’ dormitory first thing.”
Those emerald eyes twinkled with mirth. “I am sure much screaming ensued.”
“It is a miracle none of our neighbors called the police as it turns out twenty girls can make quite the cacophony.” Vee chuckled herself at the memory. “Although to be fair to the girls, the matron and the reverend did their own share of screaming as neither are fond of spiders, so it was left to me to bring order to the chaos.”
“Which you did with…?”
“A sturdy broom, some vigorous sweeping, and some very stern words to the Claypoles after I managed to clear away their contraband collection of arachnids.” Words the two rapscallions had listened to with bowed heads that did not disguise the proud smiles on their freckled faces at their achievement. “Not that I believe for one second they will change their ways as they so faithfully promised, as they seem to enjoy a good carpeting for their misdemeanors almost as much as they enjoy the pranks they pull.”
“I suppose being told off makes them feel like they have parents. That they aren’t all alone in the world and that they belong somewhere.” Another insightful comment that surprised her. “And going out of their way to do something naughty guarantees them some regular and private time with somebody like you—someone who cares enough about them to remind them of the error of their ways. We all want to be appreciated for something, after all.”
“You might be right. I hadn’t considered that.” Her smile for him now was entirely genuine, and that felt … odd. But strangely pleasant. Like discovering that your taste buds have changed overnight and you suddenly enjoy the flavor of something you rebelled against before. “Anyway, they are twelve and should have left us for an apprenticeship somewhere, but every single one we put them up for, even the ones where we have ensured they will stay together, they manage to sabotage it in some way before they have even started.”
“How long have they been with you?”
“Ever since we opened. Before that, they had spent a year living rough on the streets.”
“That explains the sabotage.” His expression was more wistful than amused. As if he understood rather than sympathized. “The orphanage is their home, and they are scared to leave it in case they go backward. The streets are awful for anyone—but especially hard for the young who are easily exploited. They chew you up and spit out the bones. I would have done the same given half the chance.”
Something in the way he said that made her wonder. “Did you ever live on the streets, Galahad?” Because she got the distinct feeling, somehow, that he might have.
“I’ve lived everywhere, Miss Venus.”
Then, perhaps because he wanted to distract her from that, and because he kept asking all the right questions, she found herself opening up to him in a way she never had before. Telling him all about the twins and the scrapes they had embroiled themselves in, and before she knew it the dance was done. More bizarre, she was disappointed that their little interlude was over as he led her by the hand from the floor. Yet she was buoyed and exhilarated by it at the same time.
Over the course of those few short minutes, she had gone from feeling unseen and inconsequential to interesting and vibrant. Seen for who she was for a change, both inside and out.
“I am ready for our dance now.” She hadn’t even noticed Dorchester waiting impatiently for her at the edge of the floor until he spoke. He held out his hand to claim her and Galahad held hers tighter—not that she had been tempted to let his go—but instead of bristling at the reminder to have more respect for herself where her lord was concerned, it only served to strengthen her resolve not to allow him to take her for granted.
“Thank you for the honor of that dance, Miss Venus.” Her unlikely ally smiled politely as he stealthily returned her spectacles to her empty palm, but the conspiratorial look in his striking eyes reminded her that he knew he was responsible for her lord’s sudden bout of interest. “I enjoyed it immensely.” He lifted her hand and placed a lingering kiss on her fingers. All for show, of course, yet she still felt it everywhere. “I’m already lookin’ forward to the next.”
Galahad released her with a convincingly heated look and melted back into the crowd, and because she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him, she watched him go. She was thrown more off kilter by that waltz than she had been by any other before.
Or, more bizarre, by any dance partner.
“Our dance, madam?” Dorchester’s tone was clipped as he waggled his hand again in outraged reminder, but at least he refrained from clicking his fingers. She could tell from the tightness of his jaw that that apparent concession took all his willpower and clearly went against the grain.
Which she supposed spoke volumes about his character.
“Would you mind if we passed for now?” If that sentence surprised her, it completely flummoxed him. “Only I have just spied someone that I desperately want to talk to.”
She took a leaf out of Galahad’s book and made a lazy, smiling exit, leaving her lackluster and lackadaisical dead loss of a viscount gaping at her retreating back.