Page 11 of One Night for Seduction
He took a deep breath. “Do you know Diana Middleton?”
Felicity blinked. “No.”
“Have you heard her name before?”
She frowned in thought, then shook her head. “Why?”
A vision of long-lashed blue eyes and plump, kissable lips filled his head. Cole pushed it away. “I need her to find her true love.”
“Is it you?”
“It is not me,” he said quickly. “Right now it’s nobody, because nobody seems to know she exists.”
“Except for you?”
“And her guardian. Thaddeus Middleton.”
Felicity nodded slowly. “Thad is a good chap. He should bring his ward to one of these soirées.”
“She’satone of these soirées.” Cole tilted the back of his head toward the opposite wall. “She’s atthissoirée.”
Felicity’s brow creased. “What am I looking for? Blond ringlets? Brown chignon? The girl with a feather in her hair?”
“The one whose gown is made out of the same fabric as the wallpaper,” he answered grimly. “The one who looks like she might bepartof the wallpaper.”
Almost a full minute passed before Felicity’s eyes widened. “I see… something?”
Cole nodded. “It’s a small favor. A tiny one. Introduce yourself, then introduce her to… everyone you know. Especially the gentlemen. I’ll take it from there.”
“This is a dare, isn’t it?” Felicity crossed her arms. “Who put you up to this? Was it Eastleigh? Why the deuce amIinvolved?”
“Don’t say ‘deuce,’” he scolded her. “Wait until you’ve some hapless fool wrapped about your finger, and then feel free to swear like a sailor.”
“Sailors don’t say ‘deuce,’” she informed him with a flutter of her lashes. “Sailors say ‘to the devil with you’ and ‘I’ll be damned if I will’ and ‘of all the bloody ballrooms in England, you had to stroll into my—’”
He grabbed his sister by the shoulders and spun her toward the spinsters and duennas. “I’ll owe you.”
Her expression turned crafty. “You’ll take me shopping?”
“You have unlimited access to my purse strings,” he reminded her through clenched teeth. “Why do you needmypresence?”
“Because you hate it,” she replied sweetly.
“You tried to outfit me in vermilion stripes and puce muslin,” he reminded her. “I’ll never forgive you for that. You get lemon tarts or no deal.”
“I’m not doing this for you, but for the mystery of it.” Felicity narrowed her eyes toward Miss Middleton. “And for the lemon tarts.”
Chapter 5
“Dance with me.”
Diana glanced up to find her cousin Thaddeus sweeping toward her, one dark curl clinging to his temple after several consecutive sets upon the dance floor.
She shook her head. “I’m fine right here. Besides, I think the Everett twins are going to expire on the spot if you don’t add your name to their cards.”
He hesitated. “You’re certain you don’t wish to dance?”
“As certain as Adrien-Marie Legendre’s prime number theorem,” she assured him.
