A Game of Persuasion by Emma Locke

Author:Emma Locke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2015-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

TRUE TO HIS word, Roman was waiting for Lucy at the end of Lady Ditsworth’s receiving line, though they were early to arrive.

Lucy was breathless before she was even standing in front of him. Roman never, ever troubled himself to be punctual, yet he’d come tonight, for her.

He beamed at her, then bowed low over his extended leg. “My lady. I am your servant tonight.”

“Heavens, that’s an outrageous gambit!” Lady Ditsworth exclaimed, one hand flattened against her expansive chest. “Do not fall for it, Miss Lancester. Our Lord Montborne is a shameless flirt.”

Delilah tittered and poked Lucy in the ribs. Lucy ignored her sister. She was far too absorbed by the way Roman seemed to be watching her, as if daring her to contradict her cousin—when they both must know she was exactly right!

“I’m in a mood to be humored tonight,” Lucy said a bit breathlessly, extending her hand for Roman to take.

As he bent and brushed his lips across the air over her knuckles, he didn’t remove those sparkling eyes from hers. “Then I am your jester.”

As he straightened, he tucked her fingers into the crook of his elbow, drawing her into line beside him, to her increasing delight. Then he turned to her sister. “Miss Delilah, had I a sister with your luster, I’d be hard-pressed to allow her a come-out at all.”

Delilah’s smile truly was radiant. “I would have stayed home happily, my lord.”

Trestin looked heavenward, aggrieved by her lack of appreciation for his attempts to see her properly introduced into Society.

Roman chuckled. “Try to enjoy the evening anyway. It was no mean task, rounding up all the unattached gentlemen in London. I should hate to think my efforts were wasted.”

Delilah’s laugh sputtered. Her eyes caught Lucy’s. Oh, she knew how deeply that hurt!

Lady Ditsworth beamed from ear to ear. “Did you put yourself out for me, Lord Montborne? How kind of you! I did worry we’d be thin on young men, as I haven’t held a good party here since my Eliza made her come-out ten years ago. Did you hear that, Trestin? Our ball will be a smashing success!”

But his attention had drifted. “Wonderful,” he replied, his lips forming a not-quite-smile as he stared blankly at a red-haired woman being escorted up the stairs to the receiving line.

She wasn’t Celeste.

Lucy forgave him his woolgathering. Trestin had spent years scrimping and saving for their come-out. For any other man, his lack of enthusiasm would have been expected, but was his insistence on a proper London Season that had brought them here at all. If he was inattentive, it was only because he was truly, deeply miserable.

That one dark spot was to be the only disappointing part of Lucy’s evening. Not only had Roman personally urged every handsome, eligible man to accept his invitation, he must have instructed them to treat her like a princess. If there was a downside to dancing every set with a different man, it was the constant frustration that the man wasn’t Roman.

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