Read Online My Favorite Bride by Christina Dodd - Free Book Online

primitive reaction to an attractive female.
    Duncan watched William as if William had blurted out his thoughts rather than carefully concealing them. “Your other governesses were twittering idiots. I listened at the window. I heard this one giving you hell. She’s going to be tough to resist.”
    â€œI don’t like women who don’t know their place.”
    Duncan grinned again, but this time with bitter perception. “Tell yourself that. Keep telling yourself that.”

Chapter Six
B LYTHE M ANOR , T HE T HROCKMORTO N H OME
S UFFOLK , E NGLAND
T HE S AME D AY
    â€œMy gracious, young man, you certainly know how to show an old woman a lively dance.” Valda, the countess of Featherstonebaugh, leaned against the marble column in the Throckmortons’ grand ballroom and fanned herself with her peacock feather fan. “I’ll wager you’re popular with the ladies.”
    The ridiculous Lord Heath smirked and handed the countess her cane. “Thank you, ma’am, I like to think I please them in my own way. Could I get you a refreshing ice or a lemonade? After such strenuous exercise, a lady of your advanced age must be exhausted.”
    She closed her fan and tapped it on his arm. “You charmer! If you would take one more moment out of your precious time to fetch me a lemonade, I’d be grateful.”
    â€œYes, ma’am. Glad to, ma’am.” He swept her a bow and walked off, a tall, dark, and almost handsome man.
    Except for that horrible rash of disgusting pimples that so marred his features. Valda waited until he was out of sight, then she walked off, smiling and nodding as she moved like a she-wolf through the pack of bleating sheep. One of the young ewes wore a feather in her upswept hair and a simper on her dimpled face. Another wore a ball gown of shimmering gold silk which made her complexion sallow. Of course, the male sheep all dressed alike: dark coats, plaid trousers, shiny black leather shoes and snowy white shirts.
    In her purple velvet turban with its diamond clip and her purple velvet gown with a pink silk overjacket that buttoned to the waist, Valda looked better than all of them.
    She caught a glimpse of herself in one of the many mirrors which ringed the ballroom. Or rather—she would, if she weren’t so old.
    In her face and form, she saw the remnants of the beauty that had caught an earl. Tall, charming, elegant—she was still all those.
    But old. So old. She hated this business of aging. She fought it, but she was losing, and to a woman of her breeding and intelligence, that was unthinkable. She had spent her whole life overcoming every challenge life offered. She had been genteel and poor. She had married noble and rich. Her husband had lost his money and she’d been exiled on his family’s damned primitive Lake District estate . . . ah, getting out of Maitland Manor hadbeen her greatest success. She had discovered a way to make more money than anyone could imagine, and at the same time she got to outwit the dogs that protected these finely dressed, vapid sheep who danced, laughed, and flirted, all unsuspecting while a she-wolf slunk undetected through their midst.
    Valda liked being smarter than everyone else. But she hated the liver spots on her cheeks, the stoop in her back, the cane she had to carry. Most of all, she hated the way the pimple-faced young men condescended to dance with her. Thirty years ago they had begged for the honor. Now they did their duty by her—and dancing made her hip ache.
    Featherstonebaugh, the old fool, could still gavotte. She stopped behind a tall vase filled with magnificent flowers and watched Rupert prance about the floor with young Miss Kaye. He was spry as ever, chasing after girls who weren’t half as pretty as Valda had been. If he could, he would have abandoned her completely, except she tied the purse strings around her arthritic fingers. And lately . . . lately,