Winning the Wallflower: A Novella Read Online Free PDF

thereof.”
    A small pool of silence spread around them, as everyone waited to see whether Ravensthorpe would finally strike his cousin. But Cyrus had made up his mind long ago that he would not rise to Pole’s bait. Ever.
    “If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace,” he said now, his voice cool and even. “I’m sure you have an engagement to dance, so I shan’t keep you.”
    Pole snorted. “The Tower had a lucky escape when that fortune came her way. She should at least have a decent bedding in trade for giving up her good name. Now she has the chance to marry a man who’s not a cold fish.”
    For a moment Cyrus came perilously close to abandoning his own policy. Every part of his soul itched to give his cousin an undercut to the chin.
    “Reckon I can make the Tower lean in my direction,” Pole added mockingly, barely lowering his voice.
    Cyrus made a lightning quick decision between two less than appealing choices. He could flatten his cousin, or he could reveal Number Seven on his plan. Self-control won out. “I’ve just signed the final papers on a most interesting purchase, Cousin .”
    “Nothing you do could possibly . . .” Pole’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “No.”
    “I gather you were forced to break up the estate? Such a pity that you haven’t had better luck at cards. Perhaps you’ll do better at love.” He pivoted on his heel.
    But Pole’s roar followed him. “ What did you buy? ”
    Cyrus stopped and turned to face Pole. “Why, the country estate, Cousin. The one you lost gambling . . . the one where my mother grew up, and her mother, and her grandmother, and her great-grandmother. Your solicitor mentioned that you didn’t wish to be informed as to the identity of the buyer, but I knew you’d be overjoyed to know that the land will stay in the family after all.”
    He turned again and walked away without waiting to see his cousin’s reaction, meeting the fascinated eyes of those around him with a mask of utter composure frozen on his face. “Mrs. Iffleigh,” he said, taking the hand of the first woman he recognized. “If you are not engaged for this dance, may I have the pleasure?”
    “Mr. Ravensthorpe, of course,” the young matron said, her eyes shining as she dropped into a curtsy.
    And then, when he escorted her to the edge of the dance floor and the first strains of a waltz sounded, she leaned over and whispered, “Bravo!”
    Apparently there were a few who noted Pole’s offensiveness, and ventured to disapprove. Cyrus smiled at Mrs. Iffleigh, and they moved onto the floor.
    For all his surface composure, he was well aware that he had just come closer to losing his temper than he had since leaving school. His heart was still pounding.
    It was some consolation to think that his cousin was feeling precisely the same. His buying the estate had surely been a blow to Pole’s kidneys—though he hadn’t done it for that reason.
    Acquiring an estate was always a signal part of his plan. Marry into the nobility, acquire a suitable country house—though he had never dreamed his ancestral estate would be available—acquire a title by gift of the Crown (the adroit lending that generally resulted in such honorifics was already in course), and then reestablish his mother’s place in the ton . He would, thereby, wipe out the scandal incurred by his mother’s class-defying love for his father.
    His mother might not care about the scandal, but he did.
    In fact, a dispassionate observer might say that it was the only thing he cared about.

 
    C HAPTER S IX
     
    “W here on earth have you been?” Lady Towerton scolded when Lucy appeared at her side after a brief visit to the ladies’ retiring room to powder her nose. “Your entire dance card is full, and you have already missed two dances. I’ve had to apologize for you, and it was most embarrassing.”
    Lucy sat down and blinked at the dance card her mother held out, every line filled in with a scrawled name.