A Daring Desire (Daring Daughters Book 19) by Emma V Leech

Author:Emma V Leech [Leech, Emma V]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-20T23:00:00+00:00

“It wasn’t an omen,” Perry said for the fourth time in as many minutes.

Kilbane glowered at him, his eyes glinting in the dark.

“It wasn’t!” Perry protested. “A wheel breaking is not an uncommon event and, if it had been an omen, we wouldn’t have had such luck in getting it fixed so quickly.”

“Quickly?” Kilbane countered with a snort. “We’ll be lucky to get there before it ends.”

“Don’t exaggerate. We’ll be there by midnight, and you know very well affairs of this nature are only just getting into their stride by that hour. It will be perfect. You look quite magnificent, you know. You’ll make a grand entrance as the clock chimes and have all the young women in a swoon and the old tabbies fainting with shock.” Perry laughed at the appalled expression on the marquess’ face. “Lud! Don’t tell me you’re nervous?”

Kilbane slanted him an impatient look. “Of course I’m bloody nervous. Polite society has the tendency to tear me to shreds. I promise you, my life among the lower gaming hells and whorehouses was far less terrifying and less likely to see me come to harm than a room full of society matrons,” he retorted, folding his arms.

“How hen-hearted you are,” Perry replied, not above teasing him.

He received a glittering look for this sally but in the end Kilbane only sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t care for myself, but I won’t have Catherine made an object of… of pity or ridicule,” he said, the anger behind his words unmistakable.

“You really don’t know what you look like if you think that,” Perry said candidly. “There’s not a woman alive who would pity her tonight.”

There was a frustrated tut of impatience. “I know very well how I look and how to use it to good advantage, you impertinent devil. Desire is one thing, but if you think there will be a woman there tonight who does not pity Catherine to the bottom of her heart for her marriage to me, you’re a bigger fool than I believed. I might be good enough to dally with, but the idea of being seen with me in public at a respectable event like this….”

He made a sound of disgust, and Perry wondered at it. He had always believed Lord Kilbane had revelled in his notoriety, and perhaps that had been true once. It did not seem to hold now.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Perry soothed.

There was a darkly amused crack of laughter. “So you say.”

“We agreed you had to do this for her. You must show society she’s brought you to heel. I know that’s going to stick in your throat, but you owe her that much.”

“I know it!” he shot back, glaring at Perry indignantly. “You think I don’t? I don’t have to like it, do I?”

“Well, no, but there’s nothing to get in such a tizzy over.”

“I am not in a tizzy,” his lordship replied in glacial tones.

Perry shrugged. “And there’s no need to take a pet because you’re afraid.

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