Read Online A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh - Free Book Online

were a number of Lord Ravensberg’s friends, who rode up beside the curricle to exchange pleasantries with him and to be presented to her.
    It was not a difficult occasion to endure. Having made a public appearance last evening, she no longer felt the dread that had kept her in virtual hiding for over a year. It was a bright, sunny day and she was enjoying herself far more than she ought—and far more than she would have in Mr. Bartlett-Howe’s company, she thought treacherously. But how could the viscount have openly referred to that scandalous fight in the park when he should be properly mortified to realize that she had witnessed it? He had fought in a woman’s defense—in a milkmaid’s defense. Most men would not even have noticed the distress of a woman so far beneath them in rank.
    Most gentlemen within hailing distance acknowledged him and seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Most ladies either openly ignored him or nodded to him with distant hauteur. But many of them, old and young alike, stole covert glances at him. He was indeed a gentleman whom it was impossible not to notice. He exuded vitality, laughter, and a careless disregard of sober propriety. And
she
was the only woman with whom he had danced last evening.
She
was the one he had invited to drive with him this afternoon. She, Lauren Edgeworth, the very personification of sober propriety.
    The thought ought not to be flattering at all.
    Viscount Ravensberg steered his curricle clear of the crowds before they had made the complete circuit. Soon, she thought, disappointed despite herself, they would be back in Grosvenor Square and she must make clear to him that she would not welcome any further attempt to make her the object of his gallantry. But there was a question she could not resist asking, unmannerly as it might be.
    “Why did you invite me to dance last evening?” she asked him. “And why only me? You left immediately afterward. Why did you send me roses on the strength of that single encounter? Why did you ask me to drive with you this afternoon?”
    Oh, dear. More than one question, all of them unpardonably rude. And she had plenty of time in which to realize the fact and feel increasingly uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that she did not immediately notice that he had turned his curricle, not onto the main thoroughfare leading out onto the streets of London but onto another path that led deeper into a less traveled, more wooded area of the park. By the time she did notice, it was too late to protest.
This
would certainly be remarked upon, she thought—first she had waltzed with a notorious rakehell, then she had driven with him, and now she was allowing him to drive off alone with her.
    “Perhaps you have not looked at yourself in a glass lately, Miss Edgeworth,” he said at last.
    “But Lady Mannering’s ballroom was filled with ladies lovelier than I,” she said. “And most of them considerably younger.”
    “I cannot answer for your youth,” he said, “but I can for your beauty. If you did not realize that you were by far the loveliest lady at the ball, then indeed you have not looked at your reflection lately.”
    “How absurd.” She had never had a great deal of patience with flattery. Or with ladies who fished for compliments. Was that what she had just done? If so, she had been served well. The loveliest lady at the ball, indeed! The path dipped into a hollow bordered on either side by giant oak trees, whose branches met in an arch over-head.
    “It is your eyes that make you uniquely lovely, of course.” He slanted her a look. “I have never seen any others of quite their color or beauty.”
    This was all highly improper. But she had only herself to blame.
    “You knew who I was, I suppose,” she said. “Someone had pointed me out to you. You knew what happened to me last year. Was it curiosity, then?”
    He angled a penetrating look at her. “To dance with a bride who had been abandoned at the altar?” he said. “I