Read Online Fortunate Wager by Jan Jones - Free Book Online

today?’
    ‘Giles, we are not! We cannot be. I was assiduous in not attracting one of that damned woman’s invitations!’
    ‘Dear, dear. You should have warned me. Knowing time was likely to be hanging on our hands, I accepted for both of us.’
    ‘Accepted? For poor company and bad wine? Are you mad? Whatever possessed you?’
    ‘She has a deuced pretty daughter.’
    ‘Now I know you are all about in your head. That was last season. And however pleasing a young woman is to the eye, if she has an encroaching mother, it is as much as one’s life is worth to pursue the acquaintance.’
    ‘Hence your monopoly of the goldsmith’s chit at the Assembly Rooms, I suppose? No vulgar mama to bring you up to scratch.’
    ‘I would hardly describe it as a monopoly. You stood up with her yourself when they called the extra dance at the end.’
    ‘But I had to bribe the fiddle player to stay on for another half-hour – you simply lordshipped your way into displacing some poor yokel for the privilege.’
    ‘And was well-served by being wearied to death. A beauty she may be, but Miss Taylor has precious little conversation.’
    ‘Lord, Alex, there’s no rule says you have to listen to ’em.’
    Which was presumably why his friend had not realized Louisa Taylor was infatuated with Harry Fortune. Alex decided against enlightening him. A fruitless pursuit might at least stop Giles plaguing him out of his life while he was forced to reside in Newmarket.
    It gave him a morbid satisfaction when Mrs Fortune’s At Home proved exactly as he had prophesied. The room itself was not quite in the newest fashion, overly gilded, and chilly to boot. Giles, naturally, charmed his way into the circle of ladies by the fire. Alex, after nodding glacially and giving his hostess no encouragement when she presented him to Caroline’s empty-headed younger sister – who wasn’t even out for goodness sake! – decided with no enthusiasm whatsoever that his duty lay in the direction of Fortune Senior and his cronies. The man was a gentleman trainer, after all. Alex would never have a better opportunity to get into conversation with him. And then to steer that conversation towards the race course.
     
    Hoping her hospitality to Papa’s colleagues’ daughters would prevent Mama from finding yet another elderly widower for her to make herself agreeable to, Caroline watched Lord Rothwell out of the corner of her eye as she kept up a flow of inconsequential chatter. He was doing it again! Why did he come to these gatherings, only to be bored? That he was bored she knew full well, even though he was listening to her father with every appearance of interest. He had a tiny little trick of twitching his shoulders inside his coat as if he were longing to be off, but was constrained by politeness to stay. It was a puzzle.Nothing Caroline had seen of Lord Alexander Rothwell before the assembly inclined her to the belief that he put manners before his own comfort. And yet it was a full forty minutes before he eased himself away. By that time, Caroline had been twice round the circle of young ladies and chaperons, had detached her agreeably flustered sister Selina from Giles d’Arblay and had managed, under the guise of offering him tea and cake, to fit in a very informative chat with the manager of the bank where the racing account resided. Now she crossed to Lord Rothwell as he sought to make his escape. It was ill done in her, no doubt, but he piqued her curiosity considerably.
    ‘Would you care for tea, my lord? Or coffee? I can fetch it over so you do not need to run the gamut of the tray.’
    ‘No,’ he said, with more force than politeness. ‘I can think of nothing I would like less than tea at this moment.’
    Goodness, he really had been bored. How intriguing. ‘I am sure that’s not true,’ said Caroline.
    ‘I do not wish for tea,’ he repeated through set lips.
    ‘That I comprehended. I only meant there must be many things you would like