The Wedding Party by Kasey Michaels

Author:Kasey Michaels [Michaels, Kasey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Four

Bailey hadn’t realized how uncomfortable he’d been with Sylvia Wise and her mother in residence until they’d gone. He knew he hadn’t been happy, but never had a leave-taking made him feel more ebullient. He wondered how Sylvia would feel if she knew how much she brightened a room just by leaving it.

Gideon Redgrave had been and gone, but not before delivering a pithy, ear-burning bedside lecture to his brother Valentine on the merits of his mouth consulting with his brain before it opened, especially when it was a beautiful woman seeking his assistance. He’d then imperiously—Gideon was brilliant at being imperious—gathered up Sylvia Wise and her reluctant mother, and surprised everyone by ordering one of the lesser coaches for them, saying that he’d planned to travel to London by horseback in any case, and then escort his grandmother to Redgrave House in her own coach.

So much for any of Lady Wise’s possible thoughts about bracketing her Sylvia to the infamous Earl of Saltwood (she’d actually said she never believed those rumors about him murdering people anyway, or at least not enough to toss away the chance to be mother to a countess).

In any event, this outstanding tactical maneuver on Gideon’s part prompted Max to say in some awe as he stood at the window and watched the earl ride off, “That’s why it’s so convenient that he’s the earl. He thinks of things. All I could think was how I’d have been stuck inside the coach with those two all the way back to Mayfair, and how I was going to make Valentine pay for that indignity the moment his leg was mended. Still, we should have thought of something like that.”

“We shouldn’t have had to,” Kate responded, at which point she and Max and Bailey turned to stare at Valentine, who was pretending a great interest in the bit of orange marmalade slowly sliding off his piece of toast and heading for his nightshirt.

In any case, Sylvia Wise was halfway to the city by now, and while Bailey wasn’t breathing all that easily, he at least no longer felt as if a noose was slowly tightening around his neck.

And in just a few days’ time, he and Alana would be wed, and the unfortunate interlude with Sylvia Wise would be a thing of the past.

Unless Kate was wrong, and Alana was about to ask him to release her from their engagement.

Unless Kate was wrong, and Alana was in no mood to be spoken to, let alone…seduced.

And how in bloody blazes did a person go about seducing someone in the first place?

Bailey was young, only four and twenty, but he wasn’t some wet-behind-the-ears looby. He’d bedded his share of women. Granted, the evenings all ended with coins leaving his pocket to reside in the woman’s purse, but still—he wasn’t inexperienced.

It was just that Alana was…different. She was young, only just nineteen, and innocent. He’d written her poems. He’d brought her flowers. He’d kissed her fingertips. They’d shared only one brief, chaste betrothal kiss.

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