Page 65 of The Heiress's Daughter
She hesitated, swallowed and then said crisply, “I require fidelity in a husband.”
He frowned. “So do I in a wife.” Her expression was so skeptical he added, “And you can be assured that once I marry, I will never stray.”
She shook her head. “A leopard cannot change his spots.”
“I’m no spotty leopard,” he said indignantly. “A lion, perhaps, but—”
“Male lions preside over a pride of lionesses—in other words, they have a harem. That’s not for me.”
He laughed ruefully. “I can see it will do me no good to bandy words with you. So, what shall we bandy? I know, how about kisses?” His eyes danced with roguish invitation.
“Hush! This conversation is ridiculous.”
“This conversation isnecessary. What would you say if I told you I—”
At that point Lady Davenham tinkled a little bell, and people hurried to take their seats. Suddenly he and Clarissa were hemmed in on all sides, and their few moments of privacy were at an end. Curse it. But there would be an interval, surely, for tea and cakes or whatever.
A young woman sitting on a small platform at the front of the room opened a book and announced in a clear voice, “An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart, by Selina Davenport. The beginning of volume two.”
“That’s one of Lady Davenham’s nieces,” Clarissa whispered.
Race leaned across to Clarissa and whispered back, “You don’t really think of me as an uncle, do you?”
She blushed rosily and shook her head.
The young woman began to read.
Race folded his arms and settled down to wait.
Dammit, he’d been about to declare himself in front ofa gaggle of nosy old ladies. What the devil was the matter with him? He was famed for his sangfroid. He’d always known what to say and when to say it—and to whom. But somehow, when it came to Clarissa Studley, he became a green youth prone to blurting out things, secret things, private things. And in the most inappropriate of settings.
But at least she didn’t think of him as an uncle.
He sat through the reading—it was more entertaining than he’d expected—but when an interval was declared and tea and cakes served, he was quite unable to get a private moment with Miss Studley at all—everyone wanted to talk.
The second half of the program was much the same, only with a different niece reading. But when the event drew to a close, and people were leaving, he thought he might have a few moments of private conversation, except her dratted chaperone decided to stick to her like glue.
Race knew when he was beaten.
Yet another ball. Clarissa stood with Mrs. Price-Jones in the receiving line, waiting for Lord and Lady Frampton, their host and hostess, to welcome them. Really, she was getting quite tired of this endless round of parties and receptions and balls. Other people seemed to love this life: not Clarissa.
For once she’d like to spend a week just doing whatever she felt like; reading, getting to know Zoë, playing with Lady Tarrant’s little girls, or the dogs, pottering around the garden or working in what Lady Scattergood had taken to calling “Clarissa’s stillroom,” where she produced her creams and lotions.
She loved making them up, trying out different combinations of herbs and flowers, and in London it was so much easier to obtain the more specialized ingredients she required, as well as some of the rarer ones.
But the season was more than half over, and Mrs. Price-Jones had stressed that it did a girl no good to be left on the shelf by the summer. Not that Clarissa gave the snap of her fingers for that—she wasn’t going to get betrothed just for the sake of it.
But Mrs. Price-Jones was employed to chaperone her and help her to find a husband, so here they were again, entering yet another ballroom and wondering who would ask her to dance this time.
The real question in her mind, she acknowledged to herself, was whether Lord Randall would be in attendance tonight. Which was foolish. She’d done her best to discourage him, but the hope that he’d come regardless refused to die.
Her contradictory thoughts about him were driving her mad.
They greeted their host and hostess and entered the ballroom, which at this early stage of the evening smelled of the fresh flowers and swags of greenery with which it had been lavishly decorated. Usually Mrs. Price-Jones preferred to arrive at this kind of event what she called “stylishly late” but for some reason they’d arrived right at the start. The dancing had not yet begun and the decorative chalk pattern on the floor was still crisp and elegant.
“There’s Lucy, Lady Thornton and her husband,” Mrs. Price-Jones said. “Shall we join them?”
Lord Randall arrived half an hour later, looking splendid in his dark evening clothes, and she tensed, but he’d obviously taken her words to heart and made no attempt to approach her. He simply bowed slightly and inclined his head to her and then strolled off to join a group of other men.
