Page 3 of Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé
“Wishing for solitude?” he asked, pointing at her with his own snifter of something inebriating.
She raised her glass in salute. “You too, I see.” Then she drank and smiled.
My, how she liked the cut of him. Appealingly taller than most men, shoulders handsomely encased in a form-fitting coat, he stepped into more light from the moon. And she caught her breath. Surely she’d never met him. If she had, she would have recalled the cocky brows, the shock of brown curls, the swagger. Yes, that especially.
“I am in need of peace, regrettable as it is for my sudden desire to know you better.” He lifted his glass toward the door. “Would you mind taking your champagne and moving to the library?”
“Ah. But wouldn’t a map table serve your purposes better than that tiny settee?” She motioned across the room toward the prim little two-seater.
He gave a silent chuckle and took another step closer to her. “You assume the risqué nature of my need.”
“Am I wrong?”Please say I am, she pleaded with him silently. Challenging men always was such fun. Papa enjoyed her repartee. Not too many others did, however.
The stranger swirled the liquor in his glass and admired her, toes to curls, then focused on her lips. “Of course not.”
She shrugged in that dramatic little way she’d seen older ladies amuse a man. “Quel dommage.”
“A shame?” He snorted, surprised. “Pourquoi?”
“I should have liked to be that woman.”
“I doubt you could be.”
She tipped her head. “Why not?”
“You don’t look the type.”
“Ah, so much for appearance. Well then.Bon chance, Monsieur.” That was the gayest she could manage because she didn’t know if she were insulted or complimented. So she rose, picked up her glass and made for the door.
“Wait!” he called.
She spun, longing shooting through her that he’d ask her to stay and talk and do other imaginably delightful acts.
He sailed forward, grinning at her with appealingly firm lips and dancing hazel eyes, and lifting her slippers high in the air. “Allow me,” he said as he went to one knee, sought out one of her feet, wrapped his warm fingers around her ankle and slid her shoe on, then did the other. “Cendrilloncannot forget her shoes.”
“Merci, Monsieur. Adieu,” she told him, every fiber of her being conscious of his long fingers still circling her ankles.
“Au revoir.”
Hopeful, his goodbye, wasn’t it? After all, she had not met him before. Had no name to put to his face. He was English, clearly from his diction. But she had no additional characteristics to identify him, other than his enticing good looks, his superbly cut clothes and his intriguing nature. She did not see him in the ballroom after that and had no means to ask her friends about him. Therefore, she had no expectations to see him again.
But she had.
The next night she’d learned his formal name. Marquess of Northington.
By the next, she’d investigated his credentials. Oxford. Friend of Her Grace, Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond. A frequent visitor to the Home Office.
By their fourth meeting—another ball—he’d been introduced to her by a mutual friend. As he took her hand to lead her in a quadrille, he revealed that he’d come only because he’d learned she would attend.
“I’m complimented,” she said, as a challenge to cover her admission of delight.
“Good. Shall I ask you to call me by my given name?”
“You could.”
“Giles.Will you use it?”
“When it’s suitable.”
