Read Online Winning the Wallflower: A Novella by Eloisa James - Free Book Online Page B

uncharitable as she would think he did it to make himself appear taller. In fact, Pole was fairly handsome, if one ignored the tight look around his eyes and the way his nose sharpened to a slight point.
    While they made their way down the set, Lucy did her best to look enthralled by his subject of conversation: to wit, the abomination known as a purple waistcoat.
    “I had not considered that the color of a man’s waistcoat reveals anything particular about him,” she said, when Pole finally paused for breath and looked for an answer.
    He barked a laugh and launched deeper into his sartorial diatribe. It seemed that the color purple used to be reserved for royalty, and only the truly ill bred wouldn’t have a thorough knowledge of that .
    Glancing around her, Lucy saw various shades of purple on all sides, including in her own gown. She could only assume that Pole hadn’t noticed that she, to his way of thinking, was risking an insult to the Crown.
    “Lavender,” Pole said, in a mincing voice that was clearly supposed to be crushing mockery. “Violet!” He shuddered. It seemed that purple-waistcoat wearers harbored delusions about their ability to mingle with those of high blood, and wore a royal color in order to hide their plebeian origins.
    When the dance ended, Lady Summers announced a light supper. At this, the duke escorted her to a small table in the library crowded with his cronies. The duke didn’t ignore her once they were seated, either. He handed her tidbits to eat, leaned close to share a few choice jokes about the appearance of those at the next table, and summoned a footman to refill her champagne glass.
    Lucy found it an excruciating experience, especially when he glanced sideways at her with a lurking harshness in his eyes that promised that if she were an oak tree, he would have chopped her to a suitable height. So when a friend of one of her brothers, Lord Rathbone, happened by, she treated his casual smile as an invitation and sprang from her seat to greet him.
    When she glanced back at Pole, he was regarding her with barely restrained irritation. She treated him to a casual farewell, and returned to the ballroom to dance with Lord Rathbone—who was tall enough, golden-haired, and effortlessly charming.
    Normally her mother would have called for their carriage an hour ago, but she had been so thrilled by the sight of her daughter eating with the Duke of Pole that she retired to a comfortable sofa in Lady Summers’s sitting room and instructed Lucy not to call her under any circumstances until the duke left the premises.
    Rathbone made her laugh so hard with stories of his misdeeds at Cambridge that she danced with him a second time, and later accompanied him to the refreshment tables in the library for a midnight snack. Over plum tartlets they discovered to their pleasure that they were both enormously fond of Byron’s verse.
    “The obvious poem to quote to you is ‘She walks in beauty like the night,’ ” Rathbone said, his eyes lingering on her hair. “But do you know, I am more fond of those poems in which he’s not quite so confident. The one in which he prays to be able to love, though he can’t be loved. Well, it’s something like that.”
    “Byron is certainly beloved,” Lucy said, giving Rathbone a lavish smile because she had just realized that Cyrus was in the library as well. He was piling a plate with delicacies for the pretty Miss Edger. Cyrus had danced with her twice. Lucy forced her mind back to the subject. “He plays a romantic role in many young ladies’ imaginations. Though,” she added, thinking of Cyrus’s scorn, “Byron does seem rather self-indulgent at times.”
    Rathbone grinned. “It’s very hard for the rest of us mere mortals,” he said. “My valet wants me to grow my hair and wear it in a romantic flop over my eyes, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to see clearly.”
    He had a delightful grin. His face wasn’t at all closed, the way