Read Online Lady Eve's Indiscretion by Grace Burrowes - Free Book Online Page A

Moreland mansion, Deene was almost sorry to see the outing end. He helped Eve down from the vehicle, then paused for a moment, his hands at her waist.
    â€œWe never did broach the topic I’d intended to bring up.”
    She had her hands braced on his arms, making him realize again how diminutive she was.
    â€œWhat topic was that?”
    He let her go and signaled to the tiger to walk the horses while he offered Eve his arm. “I’ll walk you in, but let’s go by way of the gardens, shall we?”
    She took the hint and trundled along beside him quietly until they were away from the street.
    â€œMy original agenda for requesting your company this afternoon was not to talk your ear off about King William.”
    She took a bench behind a privet hedge and patted the place beside her. “Your agenda was rescuing me from Mr. Trit-Trot, though I fear you’re too late. He has that blindly determined look in his eye.”
    â€œTrit-Trot?” While he took the place beside her, Eve took off her bonnet and set it aside, then smoothed her hand over her hair.
    When that little delaying tactic was at an end, she grimaced. “Louisa finds these appellations and applies them indiscriminately to the poor gentlemen who come to call. She’s gotten worse since she married. Tridelphius Trottenham, ergo Trit-Trot, and it suits him.”
    â€œDear Trit-Trot has a gambling problem.”
    One did not share such a thing with the ladies, generally, but if the idiot was thinking to offer for a Windham daughter, somebody needed to sound a warning.
    And as to that, the idea of Trit-Trot—the man was now doomed to wear the unfortunate moniker forevermore in Deene’s mind—kissing any of Moreland’s young ladies, much less kissing Eve, made Deene’s sanguine mood… sink a trifle.
    â€œHe also clicks his heels in the most aggravating manner,” Eve said, her gaze fixed on a bed of cheery yellow tulips. “And he doesn’t hold a conversation, he chirps. He licks his fingers when he’s eaten tea cakes, though he’s a passable dancer and has a kind heart.”
    Bright yellow tulips meant something in the language of flowers: I am hopelessly in love. In his idiot youth, Deene had sent a few such bouquets to some opera dancers and merry widows.
    Rather than ponder those follies, Deene considered the woman beside him. “I never gave a great deal of thought to how much you ladies must simply endure the company of your callers. Is it so very bad?”
    She shifted her focus up, to where a stately oak was sporting a reddish cast to its branches in anticipation of leafing out. “It’s worse now that Sophie, Maggie, and Louisa are married. One heard of the infantry squares at Waterloo, closing ranks again and again as the French cavalry charged them. I expect we two youngest sisters share a little of that same sense.”
    Oak leaves for bravery.
    He spoke slowly, the words dragged past his pride by the mental plough horse of practicality. “I might be able to help, Eve, and you could do me a considerable service in return.”
    Now she studied a lilac bush about a week away from blooming. First emotions of love.
    â€œYou already rendered me a considerable service, Lucas.” She spoke very quietly, and hunched in on herself, bracing her hands on the bench beneath them.
    She’d called him Lucas. He’d been Lucas to the entire Windham family as a youth, and now he was Lucas to no one save Georgie. He wasn’t sure if he liked this presumption on Eve’s part, or resented it.
    â€œI can have a word with Trit-Trot if you want me to run him off.”
    She waved a hand. “I’ll mention the fact that I have only two dozen pairs of shoes, and the Season is soon upon us. In the alternative, I can suggest I’m never up before noon because I must have my drops every night without fail just to sleep. The tittering has slowed him down