Secretly Bound to the Marquess by Diane Gaston

Author:Diane Gaston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-07-22T19:54:25+00:00

* * *

Nate was about to enter the refreshment room when he saw Eliza there. He stepped back, out of her sight. He did not want to assume their brief pleasant conversation meant she would want him by her side the whole night.

Crafton approached her instead.

What the devil? First Lady Sibyl, now Crafton? Was Crafton going to plague her like Lady Sibyl had done? Because of Nate?

Crafton’s approach seemed very deliberate. And she’d seemed less than pleased with his company.

Odd how Nate now saw Crafton and Lady Sibyl both as false and opportunist when before he’d merely thought them helpful. In no way was Nate going to allow Crafton—or Lady Sibyl—to bother Eliza.

But he waited for Eliza to leave the room. Crafton followed later. Nate got his glass of wine and stepped back into the ballroom. He scanned the room until he found Eliza in an inconspicuous corner watching the dancing.

He started to walk towards her when the set ended and the couples scattered and suddenly he stood face to face with Lady Sibyl on the arm of her dance partner, Lymond.

‘Well, Hale,’ Lymond said. ‘Not dancing?’

‘The ball has just begun,’ Nate replied which was no answer.

‘Hale is a reluctant dancer, Lymond,’ Lady Sibyl chimed in. ‘Not born to it, like you and I.’

‘No indeed,’ agreed Nate, feeling unfazed and damned grateful he owed her no more attention than this. He could not resist, though. ‘Fortunately, my title and fortune make the matter of dancing fairly irrelevant.’

Lady Sibyl gave him a haughty look. ‘Come, Lymond.’

They walked away.

Bentham and his wife hurried to his side.

‘Was that Lady Sibyl?’ Bentham asked. ‘How are you, by the way.’

‘It was,’ he responded. ‘And I am perfectly unscathed.’

‘Oh, good,’ his wife said. ‘She was civil to you?’

He laughed. ‘Almost civil. Just one minor jab at my lack of an aristocratic upbringing.’

‘The witch!’ exclaimed Bentham.

‘She is full of ill manners tonight, apparently,’ his wife added. ‘Susan and I cannot for the life of us figure why she would speak to Lizzie at all. I am not certain they were ever introduced.’

It seemed clear to Nate that Crafton and Lady Sibyl’s sudden interest in Eliza was due the failure of their manipulations to make Nate propose marriage. But could dancing with Eliza once and conversing with her briefly—which was all they could know of it—cause their spite?

It made no sense.

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