The Courtesan's Wager by DAIN CLAUDIA

Author:DAIN, CLAUDIA [DAIN, CLAUDIA]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440687068
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-12-11T02:22:19.483000+00:00

Sixteen

OF course, what else was Penelope to feel but that she’d stumbled and fallen badly in the conversation with the Duke of Calbourne? What was to have been a display of her wit and vivacity had turned somehow into a display of her education and logic. Men hated that sort of thing, positively loathed it. She’d have to do better if she wanted to be a duchess, that was all. Simply have to do better. She was quite confident that looking a bit stupid and gullible was not at all difficult. Logic simply screamed that it should be nearly effortless. All she had to do was keep her mouth closed and her opinions to herself. Time enough after she was a duchess to speak her mind.

The question, and she had not worked this bit out, was how to attract a duke when speaking was not actually encouraged?

She’d love to ask Lord Cranleigh, as he seemed a forward sort who might actually be willing to give her a straight answer on the subject, but as he was busy staring firebolts at Amelia Caversham and the Duke of Calbourne he did not look readily available. Though, by the look of things, it did seem that somehow it should be possible to use the clear animosity between Amelia and Cranleigh to ruin things between Amelia and Calbourne. Penelope did not see at all how this could be done, but she did feel that it ought, and indeed, should be done.

“If you hadn’t given her that shawl, she might have left by now,” Cranleigh muttered. As she was the only one standing near him and as she had been the one to loan a shawl, Penelope presumed he was speaking to her.

“I only loaned her a shawl, Lord Cranleigh,” she said as politely as possible because, after all, Cranleigh had a brother who was going to be a duke and he simply must, for that reason alone, be mollified. How stupid of Amelia Caversham to be so irritating and combative with Cranleigh. No wonder the girl had not managed to marry in two full years, coming up on three. Of course, Penelope hadn’t married either, but she didn’t have a duke for a father. With that sort of advantage, there truly could be no excuse. It really was imperative to get Amelia married off, clearing the field, as it were. “I felt I had little choice, the condition of her gown being what it is.”

“Ruined,” he whispered, staring at the dancers distractedly. At Lady Amelia? Possibly. In hatred? Distrust? Annoyance?

Penelope was far from an expert on men, but it did seem, almost, that Cranleigh watched Lady Amelia with . . . longing.

Longing?

Oh, dear, that could be made use of, though how she could not quite imagine. Certainly there must be some way to push Cranleigh in Amelia’s direction. Oughtn’t things somehow fall into place from there?

“Yes, it is quite fully ruined,” Penelope said, staring at Cranleigh’s profile. He was quite a hard-looking man, not at all the look one associated with nobility, even if he were an earl.

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