What a Lady Needs for Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

young man, probably handsome, full of charm. He’d be blond, for the handsomest young men usually are—also English somewhere not too far back in his pedigree. Does the tale sound familiar?”
    Had he already heard the gossip? Not twenty-four hours after the debacle, and even Mr. Hartwell, who could not belong to the best clubs or have the ear of the worst gossips, seemed to know the particulars.
    “Go on.”
    “The handsome young swain exerted his charm, he made promises—he served the young lady strong drink and stronger compliments, and he made more promises. He took liberties, and the young lady was perhaps flattered, to think she’d inspired a handsome, charming man’s passions to that extent.”
    Joan’s head came up. “I wasn’t flattered. I was muddled.” Also horrified.
    “You have made a wreck of my handkerchief,” Mr. Hartwell observed, gently prying the balled-up cotton from her grasp.
    “I’ve made a wreck of my life.”
    ***
    Nothing good came from a fellow involving himself with damsels in distress. Dante knew this, the way a lad raised up in the mills knows to keep his head down and his hands to himself, lest some piece of clattering machinery part him from same.
    Rowena had been a damsel in distress, and look how that had turned out.
    And yet, Charlie hadn’t allowed him to ignore Lady Joan, and some vestige of chivalry known to even clerks, porters, and wherry men hadn’t allowed it either. Now that Dante had rescued his damp handkerchief from her grasp, she traced the lines of the Brodie hunting plaid draped across his thigh.
    Joan Flynn was a toucher, a fine quality in a woman, regardless of her station. Charlie was a toucher. She had to get her hands on things to understand them, the same way Dante had to take things apart to see how they fit together.
    “You have not made a wreck of your life, my lady. The worthless bounder who stole a few kisses will keep his mouth shut about it, and not because he’s a gentleman.”
    Gentlemen tattled on themselves at length over their whiskey and port, and called it bragging. Worse than the waltzing and bowing, listening to their manly drivel had affronted Dante’s sensibilities.
    “Why should he keep his mouth shut?”
    “Because it reflects badly on him that he’d take those liberties. Your papa could ruin the man socially, to say nothing of what your mama might do. Pretty English boys who take advantage of innocent women need their social consequence if they’re to pursue their games.”
    Her brows drew down in thought, which was an improvement over tears, and her fingers stroked closer to his knee.
    “You are certain of your logic, Mr. Hartwell.”
    “I am certain of young, charming Englishmen.” He was also certain that Lady Joan ought not to be cuddled up with him this way, now that her tears had ceased.
    And yet, he stayed right where he was.
    She wrinkled her splendid nose. “He’s engaged, that Englishman.”
    “Which he neglected to tell you as he was leering at your bodice.” Her attributes. She’d used the more delicate word. The woman beside him wasn’t overendowed. Even in her feminine attributes, Lady Joan had a tidy, elegant quality. “That little omission on his part had to hurt.”
    She left off patting his knee—a relief, that—and worried a nail. “The announcement was in this morning’s papers. I was an idiot and I panicked.”
    Whoever the English Lothario was, he’d upset a good woman, and done it dishonorably. Many a man had stolen a kiss, but not when promised to another, and not by using cold calculation to muddle the lady.
    “You were an innocent, and I suspect you still are. Nobody can tell, you know.”
    His blunt speech had her sitting up.
    “I beg your pardon?” Her tone was curious rather than indignant, and Dante was glad he didn’t know which mincing fop had taken liberties with her.
    “Nobody can tell which favors you’ve bestowed on whom. Maybe you kissed him witless; maybe he put his