Page 2 of One Night for Seduction
Cole wrinkled his nose. “I already did that one.”
“Trust me,” Eastleigh said with an exaggerated shudder. “If your ears had the misfortune of witnessing him bleat upon a bassoon in front of half of London, you’d agree one such memory is more than enough.”
“Notthat.” Thaddeus’s dark gaze focused intently on Cole. “I dare you to marry off my unmarriageable ward.”
“Fool’s errand,” Eastleigh scoffed. “If she’s unmarriageable, then by definition it cannot be done.”
But that old, familiar excitement was already prickling along Cole’s skin.
“What makes her unmarriageable?” he asked. It didn’t mean he was going to take the wager. It just meant he was…interested.
“Her age, for one,” Thaddeus admitted. “Even if she wasn’t a determined wallflower, most eligible bachelors consider her too long in the tooth for possible consideration.”
Cole straightened his spine. Thad’s ward was not a shy wallflower or a reluctant wallflower or an accidental wallflower, but ratherdeterminedto remain one? The lady was becoming more interesting by the minute.
“How many years on the shelf?” he pressed.
Thaddeus sighed. “I’m afraid she’s five-and-twenty.”
Five-and-twenty. Cole blinked. That ancient age meant the lady was only a scant year older than Cole’s younger sister.
Hisunwedyounger sister. Who absolutely was still marriageable and was one hundred percent guaranteed to stumble across a suitor too good to turn down.
Someday.
“Five-and-twenty isn’t a lost cause,” he said quickly. “After all, who wants some chit barely out of the schoolroom? Girls that age are flighty and silly because they haven’t experienced enough life yet to build up something worthy to say.”
“Ah.” Eastleigh stroked his chin in mock solemnity. “Everyone knows wallflowers are the most experienced at experiencing life.”
Cole ignored him.
“There must be something else,” he insisted. “Some other reason your ward hasn’t found a suitor she’s willing to wed.”
“The primary reason is that Diana hasn’thadany suitors.” Thaddeus winced. “She may have indicated her intention to refuse any such attention on more than one occasion.”
Cole frowned. “If she doesn’t wish to wed, what does she intend to do with her life?”
“She enjoys… fixing things,” Thaddeus hedged.
“Darning holes in stockings?” Eastleigh guessed from behind his mug of ale. “Mending the occasional rub iron whenever a loose axle nut pops the head block out of alignment on the family barouche?”
“Worse,” Thaddeus admitted with a sigh. “Diana arranges other people’s lives, whether they want her to or not. She was under my roof for less than a sennight before she’d completely reordered my house, from the ledgers to the rafters. I personally do not mind having my accounts in order, but then she started in on the neighbor—”
“Not the neighbor!” Eastleigh said with a melodramatic gasp.
“—and then the neighbor’s neighbor and so on, until I feared a mutiny on my hands. But it wasn’t until I caught Diana writing up an earnest, ten-page treatise on how Lady Jersey should better organize her household and her servants, as well as increase the efficiency and quality of Almack’s—”
This time, Eastleigh’s gasp was unfeigned, and he nearly choked on his beer. “Arrange LadyJersey?Why, if your ward had sent that letter, today she’d be nothing more than a pile of ash and a memory.”
Cole’s blood fairly danced with anticipation. “A challenge, to be sure.”
Eastleigh stared at him. “That’s not ‘challenging.’ That’s unmarriageable. This is not a wager you can win.”
Cole turned his gaze to Thaddeus. “What are the terms?”
“One hundred pounds,” he answered without hesitation. “No, two hundred. If you can make it happen.”
“Nobody can make it happen,” Eastleigh murmured with a shake of his head. “LadyJersey. Your ward has no sense of self-preservation.”
