“Oh, dear.” Lady Honora was wringing her hands. “I’m sure we shouldn’t be discussing kissing. Or luring. Or bedchambers.”
“Perhaps not, Honora, but who else am I meant to talk to if not you and Violet? Do you suppose I’ll discuss kissing and bedchambers with my grandmother?”
The idea Iris would have such a discussion with Lady Chase, their elderly, cantankerous grandmother, sent Violet off into fresh gales of laughter.
Iris glared at her younger sister. “You may laugh all you like, Violet, but you’d do well to keep in mind you’ll have to manage your own troublesome suitors soon enough. Now, what am I meant to do to encourage, ah…a physical expression of affection?”
“Do?” Lady Honora gasped in horror. “Why, nothing at all. How can you ask such a thing, Iris?”
“How can Inotask it, Honora? If anyone bothered to show young ladies how to subtly indicate to a gentleman a kiss would be welcome, I wouldn’t need your advice at all. For pity’s sake, all that time spent practicing the quadrille and pounding away at the pianoforte, but not a word about how to orchestrate a seduction.”
“Seduction?” Lady Honora looked ready to swoon. “Have you lost your wits?”
“Well, what have you done to encourage him so far?” Violet had overcome her fit of hysteria, and she clapped her hands together with her usual practicality, as if preparing to marshal her troops.
Iris gave a helpless shrug. The truth was, she didn’t have the faintest idea how to entice a gentleman into a kiss. “Whatever I could think of. Gazed into his eyes, brushed his hand with mine when he takes my arm—that sort of thing. We’ve walked alone in Grandmother’s garden several times, once in the moonlight, even, but Lord Huntington is immune to every amorous overture.”
Immune, or oblivious. Iris hadn’t yet decided which. The latter could be overcome easily enough, but the former…
That was a bit more worrying.
Violet tapped her bottom lip with her finger, considering. “Have you licked your lips? I read somewhere glistening lips make gentlemen think of kissing.”
Iris stared at her sister. Wherever did Violet get such notions? “I haven’t triedthat, no.”
Lady Honora let out a little moan of distress and covered her face.
“Oh, do stop moaning, Honora. It’s a kiss, not a ruination, and theyarebetrothed, after all.” Violet paused, her gaze narrowing on Honora’s flushed face. “You’re betrothed too, come to that. Has Lord Harley kissedyou?”
Lady Honora’s flush spread to the roots of her hair. “Well, I—that is…oh, for goodness’ sakes, Violet. Very well. Yes, he managed to corner me into it once, in this very garden. He’s quicker than he looks, you see.”
Lady Honora’s voice quivered with distaste. She didn’t care at all for Lord Harley, but Lady Fairchild insisted on the match, and Honora wouldn’t dare to question her mother’s wishes.
Violet’s brows drew into a puzzled frown. “Well, perhaps the glistening lips would help, but otherwise I can’t account for it. Lord Huntington is quite…well, he’s a vigorous sort of gentleman, isn’t he?”
They all paused for a moment to consider the question of Lord Huntington’s vigor.
A moment was all it took.
Lady Honora let a tiny sigh escape, and Iris and Violet responded with breathless sighs of their own.
Physically speaking, Phineas Knight, the Marquess of Huntington, was utter perfection.
His presence was enough to set feminine eyelashes fluttering across every ballroom in London, and for good reason. But it wasn’t just his broad shoulders, his cool hazel eyes, or his thick golden-brown hair that made every bosom in London heave with delight. It wasn’t even his ancient title, or the impressive fortune that accompanied it, though any one of these things was more than enough to recommend him to a young lady.
No, it was the man himself. He was the quintessential English gentleman. Honorable, handsome, and intelligent, fashionable without being a fop, skilled with the sword and pistol, and an accomplished whip, Lord Huntington was what every lady sighed for, and every gentleman aspired to be, and if he was a bit too cold and grand for some tastes, fashionable society didn’t blink at it.
The manwasa marquess, after all.
Lady Honora sighed again. “His face is perfect in every regard.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “No one is flawless, Honora, not even Lord Huntington.”
“Well, what’s his flaw, then? I defy you to identify one.”
“It’s that tiny dimple in the center of his chin,” Violet declared without hesitation.
“But that dimple is charming. Don’t you think so, Iris?”
