Love Only Once Read Online Free PDF Page B

good deed for the day.”
    “I wouldn’t go near that place if my little bird didn’t need her wings clipped,” Nicholas confided.
    “Ruffled your feathers, did she?”
    “Would you credit she thinks to make me jealous?” Nicholas asked, outraged.
    “You? Jealous?” Percy guffawed. “I would love to see the day, dearly I would.”
    “You’re welcome to come along and watch my performance. I mean to give a very good one for Lady E. before I call it quits,” Nicholas said darkly.
    “You’re not going to call the poor fellow out, are you?”
    “Good God, over a woman? Of course not. But she will think so, while I will in fact give him my blessing of her. She’ll be left to blame herself for her folly, for she will have seen the last of me.”
    “That’s a novel way to go about it,” Percy mused. “I must remember to try that. Look, why not give me your blessing of her? Fine-looking woman, Lady E. Oh, I say.” Percy looked off across the street. “Speaking of…isn’t that her carriage over there?”
    Nicholas followed the direction of his nod tosee the bright, outrageously painted pink-and-green curricle he knew so well. “Impossible,” he muttered. “She would die rather than be late for that ball, and it’s long since started.”
    “Don’t know anyone else who owns such a smart-looking carriage,” Percy remarked. “Been meaning to paint my own those colors.”
    Nicholas threw him a horrified look before glancing back at the street. “Who do we know who lives on this street?” he asked his friend.
    “No one I can think of,” Percy began. “Wait a minute! I think I know whose house she’s stopped in front of. The house belongs to young Malory’s kin—oh, what’s his name? You know. Not the wild one who hasn’t been around for years, but the other one, the one who’s so good a marksman that no one will—oh, I have it! Anthony, Lord Anthony. Good God! You don’t think she means to make you jealous with him? Even you don’t dare mess with him, Nick.”
    Nicholas didn’t answer. Slowly, very slowly, he left the park and crossed the street. If that was Selena, then she was right where she knew he would see her, because he passed this way every night on his way home from his club. As it happened, they had come out of the park that night near the end of Piccadilly, and if Percy hadn’t spotted the carriage, he might not have either. But now his curiosity was aroused. Was Selena sitting inside the closed carriage, waiting for him to pass, unaware that he had already gone around her? Had she been unable to get an escort to her damned ball, and was againdetermined to drag him there with her? It was impossible that she could know Anthony Malory. He and his cronies were in a completely different league, rakehells all, thumbing their noses at society. Nicholas might have a tarnished reputation himself, but even he wouldn’t be classed with that group of wastrels.
    But what if she had somehow met Malory? But she would not dally here tonight of all nights. The Shepford ball meant too much. It was all she had talked about for the last month.
    Yet what if she had come here to tryst with Malory? Nicholas stopped by the curb three houses away. Percy caught up with him, looking alarmed. “That wasn’t a dare I made back there, you know,” Percy said earnestly. “You’re not thinking of doing anything foolish, are you?”
    “I’ve just been thinking, Percy.” Nicholas was grinning. “If that is Lady E. in there, then she’ll be coming out any moment now.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “The ball. She might be late for it, but she isn’t going to miss it, not she. However, maybe she will miss it after all. Yes, it would do her a world of good to miss it. A woman shouldn’t get so involved with something that she ignores the man in her life. That lesson should be made clear to her, don’t you think? Yes, quite clear. Very clear. So she won’t make the same mistake again.”
    “Montieth!