Slightly Dangerous Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sarah said, “and so his age is of no consequence, Miriam. Papa says it would be beneath my dignity to marry below the rank of earl at the very least, though I had
dozens
of offers this spring from gentlemen most girls would consider perfectly eligible. It is not at all unlikely that I will marry a duke.”
    “What a conquest it would be to win the hand of the Duke of Bewcastle,” Beryl Chisholm added. “But why should we concede the victory to you, Sarah? Perhaps we should all compete for him.”
    There was a flurry of giggles.
    “You are all remarkably pretty young ladies,” Lady Mowbury said kindly, raising her voice so that she could be heard across the room, “and are bound to marry well within the next year or two, but perhaps you ought to be warned that Bewcastle has avoided every attempt to draw him into matrimony for so long that even the most determined mamas have given up trying to attract him for their daughters. I did not even consider him for Audrey.”
    “But who would want to marry him anyway?” that young lady said from the complacent safety of her betrothed state. “He has only to step into a room to lower the temperature by several degrees. The man lacks all feeling, all sensibility, and all heart. I have it on the most reliable authority. Lewis says that even most of the younger gentlemen at White’s are in awe of him and avoid him whenever possible. I think it was unsporting of my brother to invite him here.”
    So did Christine. If Hector had not invited the duke, then
she
would not be sitting here now, feeling partly uncomfortable and partly bored—
and
she would not have dripped lemonade in his eye. She felt somehow stranded between the older ladies, who moved together into a group and were soon deep in conversation with one another, and the young girls, who were closer, so that she became a de facto member of their group as they lowered their voices and resumed their giggling.
    “I propose a wager,” Lady Sarah half whispered. She must be the youngest of them all, Christine estimated. She looked like an escapee from the nursery, in fact, though she must be at least seventeen if she had made her come-out. “The winner will be the one who can entice the Duke of Bewcastle into making her a proposal of marriage before the fortnight is over.”
    “That is quite impossible, I am afraid, Sarah,” Audrey said while the others stifled giggles. “The duke does not mean to marry.”
    “And no wager is even remotely interesting,” Harriet King added, “if there is no chance of its being won by
someone
.”
    “What shall we wager on, then?” Sarah asked, still flushed and bright-eyed and determined not to let go of her idea entirely. “Whichever one of us can engage him in conversation? No, not that—that is
too
easy. Whoever is the first to dance with him? Does your sister have any dancing planned, Audrey? Or . . . what, then?”
    “The one who can engage his undivided attention for a whole hour,” Audrey suggested. “Believe me, that will be difficult enough to accomplish. And the winner—if there
is
a winner—will have earned her prize. An hour in the duke’s company would be akin to an hour sitting on the North Pole, I would imagine.”
    There was another flurry of giggles.
    But Sarah ignored the warning and looked with sparkling eyes at every member of the group—except Christine, who was not really a part of it though she had overheard every word.
    “An hour alone with him, then,” she said. “The winner will be the first to accomplish that feat. And who knows? Perhaps she will make him fall in love with her, and he will offer marriage after all. It would not be at all strange, I declare.”
    There was a pause for the inevitable giggling.
    “Who is in?” Lady Sarah asked.
    Lady Sarah, Rowena, Miriam, Beryl, her sister Penelope, and Harriet King all took up the challenge to the accompaniment of a great deal more squealing and giggling and indulgent smiles from the older