Page 27 of The Heiress's Daughter
But a waltz with Lord Randall. Followed by supper.
Grasping her fan in a tight grip, she took a deep breath and prepared to grasp the nettle. “Lord Randall—”
“How did your visit to the orphan asylum go?”
She started. “What do you mean?” He couldn’t possibly know about Zoë, could he?
“You were going to choose a maidservant. Did you find one?”
“Y—I mean, no. There…um. There was nobody suitable.”
He raised a darkly elegant brow. “Really?”
She felt her face heating. “Yes. We—that is Betty and I—are going to try another orphanage tomorrow.”
“I had no idea choosing a maidservant would be so difficult.”
She bit her lip, but the waiter arrived with a long cool drink of lemonade. Glad of the distraction, she seized it with relief and drank thirstily, very aware of those gray eyes watching her. With dancing, knowing devils in them.
“And here comes your chaperone, Mrs. um,” he said smoothly as she finished her glass.
“Price-Jones,” she said automatically.
“Exactly.” He rose. “Good evening, Mrs. Price-Jones, how refreshingly vivid you look this evening. Like a bright ray of sunshine on a gloomy day.”
Clarissa’s chaperone laughed delightedly. “Such a wicked flirt you are, Lord Randall.”
“Wicked? Oh, dear me, no. I assure you, dear lady, I am positively saintly”—he batted those preposterously long lashes—“in my flirting, at least.” His smile was pure essence of rogue. “It’s in other areas I’m reputed to be wicked.”
Mrs. Price-Jones rapped his arm playfully with her fan. “Such nonsense you talk. Go away with you.”
He bowed over her hand, bowed again to Clarissa and strolled away.
“Such a divine man!” Mrs. Price-Jones patted Clarissa on the arm, then said, “Oh, there’s Lady Bentinck. I want to have a word with her. You’ll be all right here on your own, won’t you, my dear?” Without waiting for Clarissa’s response, she hurried away.
A moment later an elegant lady drifted up to her. “Miss Studley?” The lady, who was approaching thirty, she guessed, was very attractive, slender and dark with vivid features. She was dressed in a dashing, low-cut claret silk gown. “May I sit down?”
“Yes, of course.” With a smile and wave of her hand Clarissa indicated the seat beside her, but her mind was racing. Who was this lady? Had they been introduced and Clarissa had forgotten? She couldn’t imagine it.
“I saw your face when you were dancing with Rake Randall,” the lady said.
Clarissa had no idea how to respond to that. “Oh?” she said.
The lady leaned closer. “Don’t get your hopes up, my dear. He’s elusive, unreliable and untrustworthy.”
Clarissa blinked.
“He’s notorious for raising hopes in virgin breasts,” the woman went on, “and then dashing them to pieces. So don’t be foolish. Keep your dreams for someone worthy.” She gave a brisk nod and sailed off, leaving Clarissa staring after her, quite bemused. And deeply embarrassed.
The lady had obviously noticed her secret tendre for Lord Randall, even though sheknewhe was not for her. And if that lady had, who else had noticed? It was a mortifying realization. She swallowed. The idea that people had been watching and pitying her was humiliating.
She glanced across to where Lord Randall was standing in a small semicircle of elegantly dressed ladies, all smiling and laughing up at him. He was the center of their attention.
The lady was right: Lord Randall was a born flirt. Compliments dripped from him like water from a broken pipe.Clarissa looked ravishing. Mrs. Price-Jones was a ray of sunshine.And who knew what he was saying now to make those sophisticated ladies giggle and blush. His words meant nothing.
Oh, she wish-wish-wishedshe hadn’t let herself be dazzled by him and agreed to dance the waltz with him. And go into supper with him. He was too tall, too handsome, too charming—and it was all false. And even though sheknewhis compliments were meaningless, they flustered her.
One lazy smile from those eyes and all her resolution just…dissolved.
