She should have taken heed of such a sign before it had been too late.
“Thank you for paying me the honor of this dance, Miss Winter,” the earl said stiffly as they approached the dancers forming in lines on the polished parquet of the dance floor.
How formal he was. How joyless. She disliked his mannerisms every bit as much as she loathed her unwanted reaction to him. He was not, after all, the first handsome man she had ever seen. And she was weary of gentlemen looking upon her sisters as if they were purses of gold rather than ladies with hearts and minds.
The final thread holding her patience in place broke. “Why are you dancing with me when you so plainly have no wish to do so, my lord?” she demanded, piqued.
“Who says I have no wish to do so?” he asked softly, his tone still formal.
“Your countenance,” she returned, forcing a bright smile to her lips. “It speaks for you, Lord Hertford.”
He arched a brow and sent a quelling look in her direction. “And what is it saying now, Miss Winter?”
She stared back at him, a surge of defiance making her bold. “It is saying you are a pompous bore.”
Ahandsome, pompous bore.
His lips twitched, almost as if he were about to laugh. “Perhaps I might return your question to you. Why areyoudancing with me when it seems you have no wish to do so, Miss Winter?”
But there was the problem. She ratherdidwant to dance with him, and she did not like the urge. Thankfully, she was saved from having to answer when they took their positions in the lines, opposite each other. Their gazes met and held, and she could not help but to read a challenge in his. She inclined her head in acknowledgment.
The orchestra struck up a lively reel in the next instant, and the time for talking was done.
Chapter Two
“Ithink Ishall ask the chit in the red dress after all, in spite of her somewhat sullied reputation,” Aylesford told Cam the next morning as their mounts trotted beside each other in the sprawling park of Abingdon Hall.
For reasons he did not care to examine, the proclamation disturbed Cam. He found himself frowning into the frost-kissed grass undulating before them, then beyond to the tree-lined horizon. “Miss Eugenia Winter,” he said.
Eugie, Mr. Winter had called her, and the diminutive suited her far better than Eugenia did. The name Eugie had a sweetness to it, like a confection one could not help but devour. Fitting, he thought. She was soft and lush, curves everywhere a man could want, and when he had danced with her the night before, he had realized she was prettier at proximity than she had been from afar.
Even if she had gazed upon him as if he were a thief she had caught in the act of filching the family silver. Most vexing, that. What had she to disapprove of in him? He was the Earl of Hertford. Even drowning in debt, he was a catch. Whilst she was decidedly the opposite.
“That is the one,” Aylesford said cheerily. “If I am to have a betrothed, I have decided I should like one who is not averse to a spot of fun, now and again.”
He clenched his jaw. Of all the Winter sisters, Eugie seemed designed, by the Lord Himself, for just the sort of fun Aylesford referred to. Her berry-red lips were a perpetual pout a man could not help but want to kiss. Her breasts would more than fill his hands. And her chocolate-brown eyes…
Dear God, what was he waxing on about? Had the unseasonably cold December air infected his mind? Surely it had. That was the only reason to find his thoughts lingering upon such an unsuitable female. He had come to Abingdon Hall to secure himself a bride and a fortune, not to lust over the Winter with the most scandal-tainted reputation.
“Here now, Aylesford,” he still felt compelled to admonish, “when I proposed the idea of you taking on a counterfeit fiancée, I never intended for you to seduce the girl. Whoever she is, you must leave her just as she was upon entering into the arrangement when you sever it.”
Especially if you choose Miss Eugie Winter, said a voice inside him.
Aylesford, however, was undeterred by his censure. He grinned. “I said fun, old chap. What is the harm in a few kisses, here or there? Perhaps a chance encounter in the garden?”
“No,” he bit out before he could rein himself in or wonder why the notion of Aylesford stealing away with Eugie Winter into the garden might fill him with a possessive surge of protection.
Protection? For a female who had not smiled at him once as they shared a dance, and who had already thoroughly ruined herself?
How foolish.
How mutton-headed.
Aylesford was eying him with a knowing look. “You want the red dress for yourself, do you?”
“Cease referring to her as that, will you?” he grumbled in spite of himself. “She has a name.”
“Ah, yes. Euphemia, was it?” his friend asked.
