Page 33 of The Scoundrel's Daughter
“As for being hereen chaperone,” he continued, “isn’tthis a much more agreeable way of keeping a close eye on your charge?”
“Agreeable for whom?” she said tartly as she circled gracefully around him.
Those gray eyes had a wicked gleam in them. “For me, of course. I wouldn’t dare speculate about how you might feel. I don’t yet know what pleases you.”
Yet.As if he planned to discover what pleased her. No one had ever cared to discover what pleased her.
He was flirting. He was definitely flirting. And she had to nip it in the bud before he got ideas. She wasn’t that sort of widow.
***
Her first ever ton party, and she was dancing with a lord. Papa would be thrilled. Lucy was decidedly unthrilled.
Of all the lords in all the houses... And for him to be Lady Charlton’s nephew!
Had she known this party was for the arrogant fellow she’d encountered on the Brighton road, she’d never have come; she would have pretended she had the headache or something.
As it was, she’d done her best to avoid talking to him. She’d deliberately caused him to be swamped by marriage-minded debutantes, distracting him from looking too closely at her. And had turned her back on him and flirted madly with the two old fellows. Old sweethearts they were, too.
She’d been about to quietly slip away, but the minute the music sounded in the next room, Lord Thornton looked at her over the heads of the other girls—he was annoyingly tall—and asked her to dance. By name, so there would be no mistake.
Curse him. If he hadn’t been a lord, and she hadn’t encountered him on the Brighton road that day, she would have accepted like a shot. He was rather good-looking, and despite the fuss the other girls were making of him, he didn’t seem too big-headed.
But he was wrong for her in every way possible.
She’d pretended not to hear, but the clot of eager debutantes had parted like the Red Sea, leaving a clear path for Lord Thornton to step forward and repeat his invitation.
She’d looked around for Alice, but she was occupied talking to her tall admirer. So with all eyes on her, and it being the first dance at a birthday party for this wretched lord, Lucy had no option but to accept.
He led her into the next room, where people were beginning to form sets. “So, Miss Bamber, you’ve only just arrived in town.”
“Apparently so.” Imitating the haughtiest of her former schoolfellows, a girl she’d christened Lady Languid, Lucy gave him the sort of smile she hoped looked both cool and enigmatic. And repellant.
“Are you enjoying living in London?”
“It’s tolerable.” Lady Languid always spoke in an affected drawl. Nothing was ever fun or even enjoyable; everything was tolerable or intolerable or barely tolerable or insipid or dreary.
They danced on.
“Where were you living before?”
Lucy gave him a cold glance, but otherwise ignored him.
Apparently unaffected, he continued, “You’re quite a mystery, aren’t you? Everyone is wondering where you’ve sprung from.”
She arched a brow and said languidly, “They must have very dull lives to be so easily intrigued.”
They separated in the dance, and when they came back together, he seemed to have dropped—thank goodness—his interrogation about her origins. “You’re very light on your feet, Miss Bamber. You clearly enjoy dancing.”
“It’s tolerable.”
“What else do you enjoy? Music?”
“It’s tolerable.”
“Do you play an instrument?”
“No.” Would the man never give up?
