Slightly Dangerous Read Online Free PDF Page A

room, where the gentlemen had been asked to gather, and discovered the Earl of Kitredge and Viscount Elrick there ahead of him. Both gentlemen were older than he, and he had always found them congenial company. It was a promising sign. Mowbury and his younger brother, Justin Magnus, were there too. Wulfric had never had any dealings with Magnus, but he seemed an amiable young man.
    Perhaps this was, after all, just the thing for him, Wulfric thought as he settled into conversation. He would enjoy two weeks of interesting company and then be ready to return to Lindsey Hall for the rest of the summer. After all, one could not become a hermit simply because one’s brothers and sisters had all married and one’s mistress had died.
    And then the door opened again and he heard two extremely unpleasant sounds—feminine giggles and male laughter. Male and female voices mingled in a flurry of merry sound. The ladies went on their way; a large group of gentlemen came inside the room. And there was not one among them, Wulfric estimated, who was above twenty-five years of age. And not one of them—if he was to judge by their laughter and posturing and swaggering—who had a brain in his head.
    And if he was not very much mistaken, just as large a group of their female counterparts had just walked by.
    They were the very people who filled London ballrooms every Season for the grand marriage mart. They were the very reason why he avoided all such entertainments unless circumstances absolutely forced him to attend.
    They were his fellow guests.
    “Ah,” one of their number said—Sir Lewis Wiseman, a fresh-faced, genial youngster whom Wulfric knew by sight, “it looks as if almost everyone else has arrived too. A fellow does not really
need
a betrothal party in his honor, but Audrey’s sister and her mother disagree—and Audrey too, I suppose. So here we all are.” He blushed and laughed while his young companions slapped him on the shoulders and made foolish and bawdy comments.
    Wiseman, Wulfric recalled now when it was too late, had recently announced his betrothal to Miss Magnus—Lady Renable’s sister. This was a house party in honor of the betrothal. And since both halves of the couple were very young people, most of their invited guests were also very young.
    Wulfric was appalled.
    He had been brought here under false pretenses to
frolic
with the infantry of both sexes?
    For two whole weeks?
    Had Mowbury deliberately misled him? Or had someone deliberately misled Mowbury?
    He had no one to blame but himself, of course, for believing a man who was so vague in his dealings with the outside world that he had been known to put in an appearance at White’s Club wearing two quite mismatched boots. It was altogether possible that he had forgotten about the recent betrothal of his sister.
    Wulfric’s hand curled about the handle of his quizzing glass, and almost unconsciously he assumed his most chilling, forbidding demeanor as the young gentlemen showed some inclination to treat him and the other elders with boisterous camaraderie.
    He blinked a few times. His eye, he realized, was still aching slightly.
     
    C HRISTINE ’ S SISTER-IN-LAW , Hermione Derrick, Viscountess Elrick, was one of the first ladies to arrive. Tall and fair and slender, she was looking as beautiful and elegant as ever though she must be past forty by now. Christine, feeling as if her heart were about to beat right out of her bosom, stood up and smiled at her. She would have kissed her cheek, but something in the other woman’s demeanor stopped her and so she stood awkwardly where she was.
    “How are you, Hermione?” she asked.
    “Christine.” Hermione greeted her with a stiff nod and ignored the question. “Melanie informed me that you were one of her guests.”
    “And how are the boys?” Christine asked. Oscar’s nephews were no longer children, she realized, but young men who were no doubt out in the world, experiencing life on their own