Page 9 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“He cares,” Charlotte sighed, turning her face away from where Corin was staring with a frown. “He’s just…”
There were a lot of adjectives she could have used and been right in using. Corin could think of at least twenty off of the top of his head that he would have used himself.
Selfish, childish, reckless, impetuous, carefree, emotionally stunted…
“Can we talk of no happier topics?” Corin asked Charlotte as he bumped his shoulder into hers. “First Romeo, then the topic of nuptials that won’t be happening, and then Romeo again. We’re at a gathering, my dear cousin. Surely there is something more exciting for you to bring up.”
Anything would have been preferable to those two topics.
“Oh, there she is!” Charlotte said excitedly, craning her neck toward the entrance with a quick, happy smile. “The new friend I was telling you about!”
Corin’s lips twitched as he chose not to point out that Charlotte made a new friend at least twice a day with her countenance and instead turned to see who she was referring to.
The woman in question had her back to him when he looked, already trapped by his aunt in some conversation or another, but that didn’t stop him from looking her over.
She was a small thing, barely reaching his aunt’s shoulder, with a slender waist and curves that her evening gown did nothing to hide, even from the angle that he was looking at her from. But that wasn’t what caught his eye the most, despite how it should have.
It was her hair.
Long and not done up like the majority of the ladies piled atop of her head it was only half up, the rest of the chestnut waves cascading down her back and even framing her face as she turned…
And skewered Corin right to the spot…
She was dainty even from the front, her features soft and slightly pointed like some fairy creature, with wide, almond-shaped hazel eyes that sparked even across the distance of the room that separated them.
Corin’s heart stopped completely as recognition ignited every inch of his being, his whole body going stiff.
Imelda.
Chapter 3
“Do stop fiddling about, Spencer,” Lady Merrit chastised with no real bite to her tone as they shuffled forward in the queue to enter the ballroom. “We’re already late as it is.”
“We’re not late,” Spencer argued tonelessly, picking at his cufflinks with a bored frown. “They haven’t even sat down to dinner yet.”
Imelda bit back a smile. Leave it to her brother to consider only his stomach when it came to a social event. A fact that their aunt could only sigh heavily about as they moved forward toward the line of people being greeted by Lady Waddeson.
“This is your sister’s first Season, Spencer,” Lady Merrit reminded him with all the patience of a saint. “Do remember that she’s supposed to be out dancing and beingseen.”
“My first Season, too, my dear aunt,” Spencer returned cheekily.
Lady Merrit rolled her eyes. “Yes, but you’re a man.” And that one sentence summed everything up.
Imelda didn’t have to bite back a smile at that, but rather a grimace.
It was her first London Season, to be sure, but she hardly considered that of any importance. She’d only agreed to the whole thing to keep her father from trying to make a match for her with another of the lords in Lancashire. The prospect of choosing her own husband, even if it was a secondary purpose, far better appealed to her sense than being auctioned off like some highly coveted livestock among ‘gentlemen’ in the country.
“She’ll be seen at dinner,” Spencer laughed, quieting as soon as they reached the front of the line and he was under Lady Waddeson’s eye.
“I’d ask where your husband is,” Lady Waddeson greeted fondly, kissing both of Lady Merrit’s cheeks as they embraced politely, “but I don’t dare think he’s anywhere but with his troop rehearsing for yet another new play.”
“If you did dare, you’d be wrong,” Lady Merrit laughed, leaning in for a moment before she straightened. “Oh, Lydia, this is lovely! Look at all of these beautiful flower arrangements. I’ll never know how you put something like this together so flawlessly!”
“Money and a lot of hired help,” Lady Waddeson responded dryly. “Where is Charlotte? Oh! There she is, with my nephew there, heading this way, wonderful.”
Imelda turned, a ready smile on her lips that all but melted off the moment that she caught sight of Charlotte.
Although it wasn’t Charlotte that stole the breath from her lungs and the smile from her face but the face of the man whose arm she was approaching on.
