James's Lady (Regency Club Venus 5) by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer [Mortimer, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-910597-88-0
Publisher: Carole Mortimer

Chapter Five

“Not feeling brave enough to venture out onto the Shaftesburys’ terrace this evening?” a familiar voice murmured behind Beatrix.

She turned to face James, having bristled at the underlying mockery she could hear in his voice. “We shall be eating dinner shortly.” The Shaftesburys’ guests were lingering to chat in the sitting room before dinner was announced.

“Afterwards, perhaps,” he dismissed. “Unless you have grown soft since coming to London?”

“I have not,” she denied stiffly, knowing James was aware of the walks she had often took on Benedict’s estate in Surrey. He had accompanied once or twice during his visit there.

To say James looked handsome in his tailored black evening jacket and fitted trousers, his linen snowy white, would be a serious understatement. The jacket fit him like a glove, emphasizing the width of his muscular shoulders and chest, and the leanness of his waist and hips. He wore some sort of complicated arrangement of white at his throat, adorned with a single diamond pin.

Tonight, he looked every inch the elegant and wealthy—and very eligible!—Earl of Ipswich.

Beatrix’s hands felt damp inside her gloves as she wondered if she had perhaps been foolhardy in turning down James’s proposal in favor of first having him see her as a fully desirable woman and his equal.

What if, while she was attempting to have James see those things, he should meet someone else he was more attracted to than her?

Worse, what if he fell in love with someone other than her?

Ultimately, Beatrix knew if that should happen, then their love for each other was not meant to be.

“What are you thinking about?” He tilted his head down so that he could better see her expression. “Whatever it is seems to be making you sad.”

She was feeling sad at the thought of James falling in love with another woman and her having to be a witness to his changed allegiance. Perhaps she ought—

“Dinner is served,” the announcement by the Shaftesburys’ butler interrupted her doubts.

“Shall we?” James held his arm out for Beatrix to take before escorting her into the dining room.

There were twenty or so people sitting down to dinner this evening. The Shaftesburys as hosts, her brother Benedict and his friends and all their wives, herself and James, two older couples, each accompanied by their unmarried daughters, and three single and handsome gentlemen. The latter, Beatrix knew, would have been invited by Abigail with the hope of inciting James’s jealousy as they hopefully flirted with Beatrix.

Except James, having seen Beatrix seated between two of those young gentlemen, the third seated opposite, had moved down the table to take his own seat. At which time he proceeded to converse with the young unmarried lady sitting on his left and the one seated on his right, and seemed to totally forget that Beatrix was even present.

Much as the three young gentlemen seated either side and across from Beatrix tried to engage and hold her attention, they ultimately failed. How could she possibly enjoy their company when it

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