An Extraordinary Flirtation Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Perhaps.”
    She beamed at him. “Then I shall save you the dinner dance!”
    “I’m honored,” Nick said gravely, and bowed politely, and took his leave.
    Fitz broke off his own conversation and followed, with the result that Ianthe was left uncertain as to whether she should wear orange with green, or green with purple, or all three at once. “I don’t like this, Nicky,” Fitz said, as the gentlemen strolled out of earshot. “It ain’t like you to amuse yourself with the infantry.”
    Lord Mannering questioned whether “amusement” was the proper term for what he was doing. “I was merely being polite. Would you rather I was not?”
    Fitz looked exasperated. “Of course you’re supposed to be polite, you’re a marquess. But you weren't being polite just then! In fact, if you weren’t getting up a flirtation, my name ain’t Adolphus.”
    Alas, Adolphus was poor Fitz’s given name, a fact known only to his closest friends. Nick glanced at him. “I’m not trying to get up a flirtation; she is. I daresay she finds it more exciting than practicing her scales upon the pianoforte.”
    Fitz blinked. “Is the girl mad?”
    Nick reclaimed his reins from his groom and took his place on the curricle seat. “My dear Fitz, she is a Loversall. The entire family is mad. They are creatures of the senses, not of logic. It is a large part of their charm, as you would know if you had an interest in anything other than the latest furbelow.”
    Fitz climbed into the curricle. “I ain’t a fribble!” he protested.
    Nick lifted the reins. “I never said you were.”
    Fitz turned awkwardly toward him. “This is a fudge, ain’t it, Nicky? Please tell me that it is!”
    Nick smiled. “What if I were to tell you instead that I am quite épris?”
    Fitz sniffed. “I’d say maybe you drank too much champagne.”
     

Chapter 4
     
    It was late in the day when Lady Norwood’s traveling carriage drew up in front of the Loversall town house in Brook Street, which if not among the most fashionable of London neighborhoods, was still respectable. From the carriage emerged Lady Norwood, her maidservant, Barrow, and Daisy, who at the last moment had refused to be left behind. Unfortunately, it had soon been discovered that the setter didn’t travel well. Beau was grateful that he had ridden alongside the carriage, and not inside.
    He dismounted, handed his reins to a groom, and strode toward the front door where the butler stood. Widdle had only recently come into the Loversall employ, following an unfortunate incident involving some missing silver plate. Servants did not last long in this household, but at his age—Widdle’s hair was sparse, his posture bent—opportunities were scarce. He squinted at the women approaching in his new master’s wake. One, a middle-aged female who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, was evidently a servant. The other was unmistakably a member of the family. Widdle hoped she might be more conversant with the proprieties than the other residents of this household seemed to be. Except for Miss Ianthe, but of course no one listened to her. And was that orange-and-white-speckled creature a canine?
    It was, and it knocked him over. From a prone position between lapping tongue and wagging tail, Widdle suggested that the lady might like some tea.
    The lady first preferred to freshen up. Once safely inside her chamber—which had not changed a bit since she last saw it, from the canopy bed with blue silk hangings to the flowered china ewer on the corner basin stand, although she hoped dust and spiders had not been gathering all that time—Cara pulled off her bonnet and sank down in a chair. “I don’t like this, mum,” said Barrow, for what seemed the hundredth time since they’d set out from Norwood House. “What will Squire Anderley think, you running off like that?”
    Paul would think, quite rightly, that Cara was playing least-in-sight, and he could make of it what he wished.