Drury Lane Darling Read Online Free PDF Page A

shouldn’t think so. Actually your presence detracts from the intrigue, but I’m sure Lady Chamaude will enjoy your company excessively. Nigel won’t have her all to himself.”
    “Nigel?” he asked, surprised.
    “Oh, you thought of that, too. No, Sir Aubrey wouldn’t dare tackle her when his wife is on guard.”
    Breslau felt a pronounced urge to exclaim, Miss Comstock! in the outraged accents of his spinster aunts. Then he saw the gleam of laughter in her topaz eyes, and feared he was going to speak as one shouldn’t to an innocent country lass.
    “How old are you?” he asked instead.
    “Twenty-two. What has that got to do with anything?”
    “The parents are slow in bringing this match between you and Nigel to fruition.”
    “Not really. Nigel is only twenty-two as well. It’s pretty ancient for a lady, of course, but the pragmatics of matchmaking decree that a gentleman of two and twenty is scarcely breeched. I expect we can stave them off for two more years, and by then I hope to have—” She stopped and bit her lip. Why was she rattling on so freely to this stranger?
    “Found someone more to your liking?” he suggested.
    “I’ve seen enough of marriage; I’m not eager to incarcerate myself. At twenty-four, I come in charge of my dowry. It was left to me by an aunt, and Papa can’t keep it from me.”
    “Will it be a farm in the country, like the ladies of Llangollen?”
    “Certainly not! I’ve had enough of that. I want to broaden myself in London. The theater, balls, the shops.”
    “An intellectual,” he nodded. “Will you be setting up a bluestocking saloon?”
    “I don’t own any blue stockings. Never mind smirking, Lord Breslau. I know what a bluestocking is,” she added sharply. “I have no intellectual pretensions. No, what I should like to do is live with my older brother, Harley. He’s an M.P., you must know.”
    “I didn’t. Nigel failed to relate that in your favor. Would his wife condone such a ménage à trois ?”
    “He doesn’t have one at the moment, though two recent letters have mentioned a Miss Greenwood in such casual terms that I’m considerably concerned. In any case, I could always have my own apartment in their house, for I wouldn’t like to live all alone, with only some wretched spinster relative to keep me company.”
    “You know, of course, what happens to young ladies who don’t nab a parti? They eventually grow into that dread species, the spinster relative, themselves.”
    Pamela’s attention strayed to Nigel and the marquise. He was gazing into her eyes, besotted. “Would you mind rescuing him, Lord Breslau, before Lady Raleigh returns and catches him making a cake of himself?”
    Breslau took up his cup. “With the greatest reluctance, Miss Comstock.” A quick frown of incomprehension flashed across her mobile face. “That was a compliment. I am fond of Fleur’s company.”
    “Oh, but you prefer mine! How flattering!”
    Breslau inclined his head to hers. A glint of amusement removed the edge of cynicism from his aristocratic features. “If you and your ten thousand pounds have any notion of taking London by storm when you move in with Harley, I might just drop you a hint. Young ladies aren’t required to utter every thought that crops into their pates. A simple blush of pleasure would have been more appropriate.”
    “I shall bear that in mind, in the unlikely case that any other gentleman is kind enough to pretend he prefers my company to that of the marquise’s.”
    “Young gentlemen, too, are sometimes required to restrain their tongues. Mum’s the word on that charge of pretending. Why do you suppose we bother pretending to young ladies?” he asked with a lazy smile. This was flattery of a high order in Breslau’s opinion. It merited, and in any saloon in London would have earned, a simper of delight. Why did it cause Miss Comstock to frown, and stare at him so oddly.
    Good gracious, he’s trying to flirt with me! I must set