Read Online A Matchmaker's Match by Nina Coombs Pykare - Free Book Online

looks. The best legs in London were now gracefully crossed, admirably broad shoulders leaned back against his chair. He had a very handsome if somewhat commanding face, and a low vibrant voice that could echo deep in a woman’s bones. As for his behavior—
    The footman appeared with the deck of cards and silently handed them to the earl.
    “Who shall be first?” he inquired politely, turning to face the others.
    “Me! Oh me!” squealed the stickish Miss Linden, smoothing the skirt of her Grecian gown. The girl was too young and too thin for the Greek style. Its severe lines did little to make her more attractive. She looked like a little girl masquerading as a grown-up lady.
    Handing Psyche the cards, the earl slowly winked. This evening was going to be fun. He meant to stay close to her, for as long as he could.
    He got up. “Sit right here, Miss Linden. Allow me to help you.”
    Miss Linden lowered her gaze and flushed clear to her pale forehead. “Oh, milord, you’re most kind.”
    He pushed her up to the table and then turned back to the sofa. He leaned over, examining Psyche’s foot where it lay propped up among the pillows. He tugged a pillow a few inches to one side. Actually, it was not the pillows he wanted to touch, but Psyche herself. She looked so fetching, lying there like that. Almost as he had pictured her in Spain, only then he had not imagined her on a sofa.
    Psyche shuffled the cards and, seeing the red stain spreading on Amanda’s pale cheeks, wished herself someplace else, any place else. “I am fine,” she snapped at the earl. “Quite comfortable. Kindly sit down.”
    The earl raised a surprised eyebrow at this unprovoked waspishness, but remained silent, resuming his seat.
    Psyche sighed. What was she to do? She was not a quitter. She had never been a quitter. And she certainly had no intention of letting the despicable Lindens drive her back to the country.
    Imagine those two thinking themselves responsible for her departure from town! She’d been bored, that’s all, tired of town life—the patent artificiality, the glittering false world of on-dits and scandal where kindness was a flaw and lies and innuendo everyday fare. So she had gone back to her estate in Sussex, lived there quite comfortably, too, until Overton had come to disrupt her orderly, if somewhat lonely, existence with his pleas for help.
    She dealt out thirteen cards, face up in a circle, then put three more, face down, inside it.
    Miss Linden leaned forward, her expression eager, her pale hands plucking nervously at each other. How strange that such a girl should put store in this kind of thing.
    Psyche looked down at the circle of cards. “Ten of clubs,” she said. “Beware, a popular young woman you know is not to be trusted.”
    Miss Linden’s pale brow furrowed. She was reviewing her so-called friends, Psyche thought, and probably mistrusting every one of them. “Eight of spades,” Psyche continued. “Unless you are careful you will lose a friend through selfishness.” Surely that was likely, if the girl had any friends to begin with. She moved on to the next card. “Five of diamonds. You will inherit something of value.”
    Miss Linden’s plain face brightened. “Can you tell me what it is?”
    Psyche shook her head. “The cards don’t say.” She continued her reading, ending with the last of the thirteen cards. “Five of clubs. Someone will try to get you to repeat gossip. Pretend you know nothing and save yourself a lot of trouble.” Excellent advice, Psyche told herself, but clearly wasted on someone of Miss Linden’s ilk.
    Miss Linden gnawed on her lower lip. “Is there— Is there nothing of a romantic nature in the cards?”
    Psyche frowned. “Not here.” So, even Miss Linden wished for a husband. Too bad, with a mother like hers she certainly had little chance of getting married. Poor thing. Pity stirred in Psyche’s heart. She knew what it was like to have the wrong kind of mama. Being