Read Online Romantic Rebel by Joan Smith - Free Book Online

be one moment’s pleasure in this entire evening. I knew it as surely as I knew the two rawboned, awkward-looking youths toward whom we were rushing were Bellows’s friends. My next dances would be with them. I would ask Annie to leave as soon as tea was over.
    Bellows was soon proudly presenting me like a trophy to the awkward youths and their partners. It was clear from their assessing eyes that I had been much spoken of. “So this is Miss Nesbitt!” and “Delighted to meet you at last” would have told the tale if their conspiratorial grins had not.
    It did not seem to occur to any of them that our set lacked a couple, and the musicians’ violins were already making those squawking sounds which presage the beginning of the music. I said not a word.
    If we failed to fill the set, I might escape yet. The card parlor now seemed preferable to the dance.
    “We need another couple here. Where is the M.C.?” Mr. Bellows said in a fine, taking-charge manner.
    I smiled wanly and said, “Such a pity! It seems we cannot complete the set. Shall we retire ...”
    “Here’s a chap and his lady now,” Bellows said. “Why, it’s Lord Paton!”
    My heart sank to my slippers. I turned slowly and saw the unmistakable silvery-gold head and straight shoulders of Lord Paton gliding toward us. Any hope that he would not remember me vanished on the spot. His dark eyes were on me, and his lips were pursed in amusement.
    Within seconds he was presenting his partner, Mrs. Brisbane, to us. She was pretty, in a dashing way that fell just short of vulgarity. Her eyes were a shade too bright, her gown sprinkled with spangles, her voice just a touch loud, and her arm clung so tenaciously to Paton that it pulled his sleeve askew. I noticed she had the strongest possible effect on the provincial gentlemen in our set. That did not surprise me, but I had expected more discernment from Lord Paton.
    The music began, and the dance proceeded before anything that could rightly be called conversation took place. The provincials made no headway whatsoever with the dasher. Her flashing eyes were only for Lord Paton. No matter what partner the movements of the dance gave her, her attention never wavered from him. He was too polite to ignore her, but he did not return his undivided attention. As often as not, he was looking at me in a strangely conspiratorial way that was hard to account for.
    When the dance was over, he took Mrs. Brisbane on one arm, myself on the other, and swept us off. “I have someone who is very eager to meet you, Miss Nesbitt,” he said.
    Mrs. Brisbane was returned to a chaperone and very civilly thanked for the dance. She managed to both smile at Paton and glare at me before we resumed our walk, which took us toward the doorway.
    “Who is it that wishes to meet me?” I asked.
    We were at the doorway. He opened it and ushered me out without answering my question. ‘Tea will be announced immediately. In this way, we beat the crowd and get our choice of table. That one in the corner—not the one by the doorway. We’d be jostled to death.”
    I noticed that the table to which he dashed was a table for two. Most of them accommodated larger parties. “I am supposed to meet my chaperone,” I said.
    “She is at cards?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then she will wish to take tea with her group. You don’t really want to listen to card talk for half an hour, do you? Useless repinings about trumps and tricks and honors?”
    “But I said I would meet her.”
    He smiled urbanely. “I’ll go to her table and explain.”
    He drew my chair. I sat down, and Lord Paton summoned a waiter by some magic, invisible means. He ordered tea and cakes, and I once again asked who wished to meet me.
    “Me,” he replied with a smile that would not only lure birds from a tree, but vultures from a carcass.
    It was a peculiarly intimate smile that had more to do with the eyes than the lips. It took me a moment to recover my wits, but eventually I said,