His Lady Midnight by Jo Ann Ferguson

Author:Jo Ann Ferguson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504009157
Publisher: Open Road Distribution

Ten

“You look worried,” Galen said as he came down to where Phoebe had been welcoming their guests to the brightly lit parlor. “You need have no fears. With Mrs. Boyd and Vogel vying to make everything perfect, you can rest assured that the staff will be beyond reproach.”

Phoebe smiled. “I hope you are right.”

“I almost always am.” He offered his arm as he led her across the room.

Walking around one of the score of chairs and settees scattered throughout the large chamber, she chuckled. “Now that sounds like the Lord Townsend of rumor.” She sat on a dark green settee and glanced around the room where their guests were speaking as if they had not seen each other in weeks.

All the brasses, from the window latches to the andirons, glistened from a recent polish. No dust ruined the patterns on the rugs on the stone floor. Lamps hung from the high rafters and reflected off the diamond-shaped mullions in the large windows.

Sitting beside her, Galen smiled. “‘The Lord Townsend of rumor’? That sounds most disagreeable.”

“Unquestionably most disagreeable.”

“Yet, here you are with that most disagreeable of men.”

“So you are saying the rumors are, in fact, the truth?”

He laughed. “I doubt there has never been a rumor that did not have some hint of truth in it … somewhere and no matter how twisted by repetition.” His fingers slipped along her cheek. “If rumor spoke of how much I wished to meet a lady who matches wits with me and delights me with her pretty lips, then that rumor has more than a hint of truth in it.”

“You are trying to charm me.”

“And not succeeding if you can see through my ploy.”

Regret pinched Phoebe. “A ploy? Is that all this means to you?”

Galen cursed under his breath as Vogel, whose face suggested he never smiled, announced another guest. By Jove! How had his compliment, his most sincere compliment, to Phoebe been turned about to be thrown into his face?

Setting himself on his feet to follow her to where she was greeting Lord Windham and his pretty brunette wife, Nerissa, Galen winced. Blast this stupid wound! He had known that the price of playing the hero could be high, but it was now simply bothersome.

“Windham,” he said with all the gusto he could bring forth, “I thought you were coming to Town for this Season.”

The viscount glanced at his wife and smiled. “We decided it would be more prudent to remain close to home for the next few months.”

Galen offered his congratulations on his wife’s quickening to Windham, but hoped the conversation did not turn to heirs and the other obligations of a peer. His brother had harangued him about that today, asking Galen why he was wasting time with Lady Phoebe Brackenton. In Carr’s opinion, she was a hopeless puritan who was more interested in her quiet evenings at home than in finding a husband.

He hoped his smile would not waver. Carr had been exasperating all day, which showed that Phoebe had the good sense to occupy herself elsewhere.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.