“And used her garter to—”
“Mr. MacKintosh! Please!” Mrs. Bilker protested, fanning herself while the younger ladies giggled behind theirs.
Mrs. Eames’s lashes waved up and quickly down again, but James could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile on her lips.
“A great achievement for a woman,” he said.
“A great achievement for anyone,” came the counter. Her chin jutted out defensively and this time, she met his gaze full on. Her wide eyes flashed, daring him to argue.
The first hint of pleasure he’d been able to summon all evening teased the corner of his mouth, and he raised his glass to her in silent salute.
Her lips pursed, but this time he was sure she was suppressing a grin of her own.
The string quartet the Goulds had hired for the evening began to play. A few couples from around the room drifted toward the center for some impromptu dancing. The trio of younger ladies around him immediately perked up with sighs of ‘Oh, how I love this song!’ and ‘I love to dance! Don’t you, Mr. MacKintosh?’
James looked at Prim Eames, his interest still piqued.
“Would you care to dance, Mrs. Eames?”
She tilted her head again as if he were a curiosity at the zoo. “No…thank you for asking.”
The refusal was immediate, the cushion to the blow coming a mite too late to indicate any regrets on her part. She gave the man hovering at her elbow a tight smile and, putting her hand on his arm, left the group.
Not to the dance floor though. James watched as the gentlemen led her toward the door but no farther.
His spark of interest extinguished as quickly as it had flamed. That was that then.
With a shrug, he turned back to the ladies still around him, considering the pack. Might as well do his duty then. Picking out young Elise, his host’s plain-faced cousin, he gave a slight bow.
“Miss Gould, may I have the pleasure?”
CHAPTER 2
I can get on with beasts first-rate; but men rile me awfully…
~Louisa May Alcottfrom Jo’s Boys
“For heaven’s sake, Shane, I would hardly call a brief spurt of automotive repartee flirting,” Prim said sourly as her older brother escorted her through the series of connected drawing rooms. Though it didn’t seem so much as if she were being escorted but rather towed along beside him.
“You were smiling and waving your fan as much as any of the other ladies surrounding him, and what were they doing if not flirting with him?” her brother asked.
“They might have been but I was not.” She sighed impatiently, wondering why she bothered. Arguing her lack of any coyness or fan waving would do no good. Men, she’d found, saw what they wanted to see. “I hardly know the man at all. Certainly I have no interest in engaging…much less marrying him.”
Or marrying at all, she added silently.
“I should think not.” Shane paused to pluck two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. “A spoiled nobleman like that? What would you do with a man constantly ordering you about?”
“I have no idea,” was her dry response.
There was no sarcasm in his question, no teasing. The better question might have been what would she dowithouta man constantly ordering her about? Oh, she loved her three older brothers dearly. She did. But to the last, each one was more prone to patting her head as if she were a simpleton than listening to her opinion.
Things hadn’t changed much for her between her father’s home and her husband’s. Fletcher Eames had been raised to believe women were fragile and senseless. He took the greatest care of her, seeing to her comfort and security. In that sense, he’d had admirable intentions. However, his belief that she mustn’t be burdened with any decisions greater than the management—superficially, of course—of her home and the care of her person tried her patience for close to a decade. It’d taken years to sway him from what he saw as his duty to relieve her of the pressures of making decisions regarding finances, the rearing and discipline of her children, and her future welfare.
The true irony of it was all of her male relatives considered her to be a veritable harridan, forever haranguing them. When all the while they ruled her world. The only power Prim possessed was whether to allow muddy boots on her parlor carpets. Or not.
“In any case,” Shane went on, tapping his glass against hers in a silent toast, “even the mildest flirtation might give him some encouragement, and a man like that would hardly know how to handle your fortune for you.”
Men also only heard what they wanted to hear.
