A Lady in Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

dances, though they spent more of that set glaring at their eldest brother than flattering their female partners. During the rest of the sets, they glared at each other.
    Though Sarah knew all the steps, her attention was neither on her dancing nor on her partners. The compliments passed around her like shreds of mist, because they did not come from Lord Reyne. After dinner, he had disappeared. No, wait, there he was, talking to Lady Phelps. Looking over her shoulder at the earl, Sarah stumbled.
    With a bow, her partner took responsibility for the mistake, then proceeded on, releasing her hand to turn away. Sarah began to follow. At her next step, however, the cold floor communicated itself to the sole of her foot. Sarah paused, as the dance went on without her, and looked down. Her delicately colored stocking peeked out from beneath the hem of her gown. She wiggled her toes, to be certain she saw what she saw.
    One sandal had definitely come off. Looking about, she beheld it, only a foot away. Sarah began to bend for it, but the stays Molly had insisted she wear precluded any deviation from perfect uprightness. With a stricken look, she glanced up at her partner. Finding she had not followed him through the dance, he came over at once, kicking the sandal away, unaware he'd done so.
    It slid across the slick floor, was checked by another girl executing a turn, and then was sent skidding backwards by another male dancing pump. Hastily, Sarah shoved out her shod foot to stop it, only to misjudge the distance. The sandal went shooting on. Revolving slowly, it came to rest against the foot of the Earl of Reyne.
    Sarah saw Lord Reyne look down and then back to the face of his hostess. For a heartbeat, he continued to talk pleasantly before he glanced involuntarily downward again, a tiny frown drawing his brows together.
    The brilliant blue eyes darted right and left, scanning the feet of the women present. The fashion was for skirts to be extra long this year and his investigation met with defeat.
    He smiled once more upon Lady Phelps, even as he drew out his handkerchief to wipe his brow, though Sarah had not noticed any perspiration upon it. Dropping the linen square, he laughed at his clumsiness.
    After a moment, he waved to one of the footmen, keeping his own foot upon the handkerchief. She saw him point down and smile apologetically. The servant, young Fred, hesitated when he stooped and touched the square of cloth. He looked up from his bent position and said, “My lord?"
    "My handkerchief, if you please."
    "Yes, yes, Fred, what is the difficulty?” Lady Phelps asked. “Kindly pick it up for his lordship."
    Lord Reyne wore a bland smile. Picking up the handkerchief in both hands, the footman handed it to the earl, who, in return, handed over something that glinted in the candlelight.
    Folding the handkerchief with some difficulty, Lord Reyne tucked it once more into his inner breast pocket. The sandal had vanished, but Sarah had not seen it kicked away.
    Pleasantly, Sarah said to her partner, “I think we shall sit down now.” The floor was cold, but she contrived to walk without favoring her right foot. She sat alone for a few moments after sending the young man off to fetch her a cooling sip of lemonade. Aunt Whitsun had said that this was the best method of distracting a man. Sarah felt a brief shock that Aunt Whitsun should be right about something.
    Lord Reyne still stood beside Lady Phelps. Glancing at the card dangling from her wrist, Sarah realized she had only until the end of this second dance of the set, now beginning, to reclaim her sandal. Then some man, whose name she could not quite make out, would come to escort her through another.
    Searching out Lady Phelps, very noticeable in a bright pink silk tunic over her evening dress, Sarah rose to approach the gentleman beside her hostess. Though she shrank from speaking to Lord Reyne about such an embarrassing subject, she could not pretend to have two sandals