Elisabeth Fairchild Read Online Free PDF

entertainments other than her clumsiness.
    The stranger who had offered her his hand, remarked--oh so smoothly--in a low, cultured voice, “I thought you might be feeling a trifle faint,” as if she had gone down in a swoon rather than out of sheer galloping clumsiness!
    She darted a piercing look into the stranger’s eyes, weighing his intent in remaining by her side and engaging her in conversation. The thought ran through her head that the blue of these eyes was exactly the color of Runaway Jack, or Hay-maidens as the Gill flower was sometimes called. It was a color she associated with damp, shady places where one might go to be peaceful, a color that pleased her. She did not want to be readily pleased with any man but Marsh while her hip throbbed and her carefully laid plans were laid waste in a moment of clumsiness.
    “Do you require smelling salts?” His voice was slick as satinwood and as deep as the shady pools of those eyes. It irritated her. One could not read much through such a polished veneer. Was he ribbing her? Did he dare to make fun of her humiliating predicament? She would pluck the pretty blue eyes out if that was this dandy’s game.
    The endangered orbs, so long and sooty-lashed as to make any female alive positively green with envy, sparkled in a very knowing manner. He was trying valiantly to stop from laughing, no misreading the twitch of his lips. How very like a man, she thought. Any one of her brothers would have been slapping his thigh and shouting with laughter by now. This gentleman might be more restrained, but his thoughts ran along the same lines. He found her ridiculous.
    And yet, are you not, in thisoment, exactly that? part of herself insisted. Her predicament was certainly ridiculous. For a moment, her own mouth was in danger of smiling, but she would not openly acknowledge the humor of her situation. Pride stood in her way. She would not be intimidated by this peacock! She challenged his faint smile with a fiercely proud glare and the firm jut of her jaw, searching the depths of gill flower blue.
    Something inexplicable she saw there unarmed her. For reasons incomprehensible, the peacock liked her. There was no other explanation for the warmth directed her way, unless perhaps he liked all females and was in the habit of smiling at them deep within his eyes.
    Aurora lowered her chin, more uneasy with admiration than she might have been with contempt. How baffling, that this polished prig should find something to admire in a female who danced so poorly she landed in a heap on the floor at his glossy feet. What a picture of fun she must have been, sprawled on her back in the middle of a very formal room, beneath the very gentleman she hoped most to impress. Perhaps she was no more than an object of amusement to this fellow. She bit down on her lower lip to stop its defection. She must not smile. Falling on her fanny in public was not funny! It was horribly humiliating. But, her mouth disagreed as much as the gentleman before her.
    His eyes dared her to laugh. He was most definitely amused.
    She lifted her chin, determined to take as much amusement in the peacock as he did in her. “I am quite all right. Really!” Unable to suppress a sudden chuckle, she ducked her head. “How very absurd this is. I do apologize for the disruption.”
    “Not at all.” The stranger’s voice was musical in its gliding tones, as if his words waltzed. “Would you care to dance, Miss Ramsay?” He gave a courtly bow and held out his immaculately gloved hand.
    She was smoothing her gown when he asked, rearranging the damnable tucker that had come rather dramatically untucked. Her head came up with a snap. “Would I care to dance?” Her eyes narrowed. Had she read him wrong? Was there malice in this prancing peacock after all? “Have you not just seen me crash to the floor in that very pursuit? Whatever gave you the notion I might care to dance?”
    “Were you dancing?” he asked in so smoothly