Page 21 of One Night to Remember
Chapter 4
Felicity gazed up at her newest dance partner with a creeping sense of dread. Now that Lord Raymore was no longer an option, she needed to leave tonight’s soirée with at least one potential suitor on the hook. Even if it meant this one.
Lord Kenwood was not her first choice in husbands for a variety of reasons. The earl didn’t bother to sit in the House of Lords, only one of his properties was safely entailed, and he frequently made “jests” such asthe best women are buxom women.
Felicity was not as curvaceous as some ladies, but with the right bodice and the right undergarments, she could catch a man’s eye. Like tonight. Lord Kenwood had begged for a dance the moment her décolletage entered the ballroom.
“What a charming gown,” the earl murmured.
He lowered his head, ostensibly to whisper into her ear, but when no further commentary was forthcoming, Felicity was forced to presume he’d simply angled for a better look down her bosom.
“Thank you.” She answered with a smile despite the urge to scream.
Felicity had actuallylikedLord Raymore. But her aversion to Lord Kenwood’s greasy personality was not a factor. Marrying a well-situated husband was a woman’s best chance to shape her future. And Felicity had much bigger plans than chasing her own comfort. She would doanythingto help children who could not help themselves.
If that meant being wed to a man like Lord Kenwood for the rest of her life, then so be it. A countess could be quite powerful. That was, if an earl like this could be convinced to sign a betrothal contract allowing his wife to use a portion of their wealth for charitable works.
Lord Kenwood leaned a little too close. “Would you like to take a turn in the garden after this set?”
“It’s raining,” Felicity pointed out, then forced herself to add, “else I would have loved to.”
The earl glanced over his shoulder at the rivulets of cold rain dripping down the open garden doors in surprise and dismay. He clearly had not been hoping to enjoy the weather, but rather an unobserved private moment with Felicity and her artfully arranged bosom. Her stomach turned.
She hated that she had to try so hard to attract a man like this.
“One day soon when the sun is out,” Lord Kenwood said, “why don’t we take an afternoon promenade through Hyde Park in my phaeton?”
This was it.The opening she’d been hoping for, the chance to be seen as something more than a mere dance partner. A potential courtship, on display before all and sundry.
Yet at the words Hyde Park, the only “sundry” on Felicity’s mind was handsome, talented Giles Langford. Might he be there at the same time? What would he think to see her locked to the earl’s side as they paraded by their peers in a high-flying phaeton?
For a foolish moment, she wished that it was Langford who had invited her to the park, that she were dancing in Langford’s arms, rather than the earl’s. Did Langford know how to waltz? Felicity shoved the thought aside. She didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Her job was to make a good match.
“A marvelous idea,” she said aloud. “I love carriages.”
Lord Kenwood gave her a kind but pitying look, as if he doubted that she could tell a barouche from a landau, but would condescend to escort her and her bosom all the same. She would have to be careful not to spoil the assumption.
When the music ended, the earl returned her to the group of friends she’d been chatting with before her set with Lord Kenwood, then escorted Lady Penelope Wakefield to the dance floor. When the music began, Felicity’s teeth clenched. Perhaps she had misread the earl’s intentions after all.
“A waltz,” she groaned so low that only Hester Donnell might overhear.
“A hundred waltzes wouldn’t deviate Lady Penelope from her path,” Hester promised. “Lord Findon will whisk her to the altar before the Season is through.”
Felicity wished she were half as certain as Hester. “Is Lord Raymore just as smitten?”
Hester pointed the edge of her fan across the ballroom, where the gray-haired marquess whirled the lovely Miss Corning in time to the music.
Felicity gasped. “Second waltz in one night?”
“Practically a public proposal,” Hester agreed. “His offer is forthcoming, if he hasn’t made it already.”
“That was… fast,” Felicity said faintly. She’d been trying to attract the earl since long before Miss Corning’s debut.
Hester wrinkled her nose as if deciding whether or not to reveal a secret, then at last sighed and lowered her fan. “The gossips claim Raymorewouldhave picked you, had you not been on the shelf for so long. You have good hair and pretty eyes, but the marquess likes a certain type. Your flaw is that you’re old.”
The advanced age of four-and-twenty was far from Felicity’s only flaw. She’d had several suitors, none of whom came up to scratch at the final hour. The charitable works clause repelled every last one of them.
Worse, image was everything to aristocrats. If Lord Raymore’s peers didn’t want Felicity… the marquess didn’t want her, either. Not when there were so many pretty debutantes floating about. She curled her hands into fists.
