Gentlemen Prefer Mischief by Emily Greenwood

Author:Emily Greenwood [Greenwood, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical romance, Regency
ISBN: 9781402276354
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2013-12-02T22:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Gregory Donwell stood in the foyer outside the ballroom and watched Eloise leave the ladies’ retiring room. He knew she’d left the ball, just as he’d known when she arrived, because he always knew when she was near. A room with her in it was changed.

But to Eloise, he hardly registered. Some of that was to do with her infatuation with Ivorwood, but not all. She was a beautiful, aristocratic young woman who’d just had her coming-out Season, and he was an impecunious man of obscure origins.

She was coming closer—he stood in her path to the ballroom, between a loud gaggle of matrons and a group of tittering young ladies—and now she perceived his presence. Her eyes flicked over his black coat, her brows lifting slightly, and he realized that he’d forgotten to brush off after playing with a white dog that had been in the garden earlier. And perhaps the coat was rather old, having been his father’s, but he’d used up a good portion of his ready funds on his voyage to the northern climes.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the column to the side of him, effectively blocking her.

“Miss Waverly.”

“Mr. Donwell.” She made as if to move past him, but he didn’t budge. “If I might pass,” she said coolly, “you will not be afflicted with my lack of substance.”

“You have plenty of substance,” he said. “It just doesn’t interest you as much as dresses and gossip.”

Her sapphire eyes snapped at him. “Truly, you are the most arrogant man I have ever met. For you to stand there in ancient, filthy clothes and talk to me in this way is the height of idiocy.”

He grinned. “It is, isn’t it?”

He was so very pleased by her look of surprise and her bark of laughter.

“Donwell, you are an utter knave, after teasing me so horribly. Whatever are you up to?”

She was willing to forgive him; it was one of the things he liked best about her, this ability to hold things lightly.

“I hardly know,” he said, which was far too true. She was entirely opposite everything he knew, great leaping strides different. But she fascinated him, and the whole passage north he’d thought of her, so that when he’d finally glimpsed the aurora borealis, his first thought had been that now he’d seen something as splendid as Eloise Waverly.

He was on the verge of telling her something of this—just a hint, an introductory suggestion that he admired her—when the sound of a small sneeze came from behind one of the columns.

They looked at each other in surprise, then moved closer and peeked around the column.

“Freddy Waverly,” she said at the sight of her nephew, “what on earth are you doing down here, and at this hour?”

The boy was in his nightgown, and his rumpled hair told of time spent in bed, but his eyes were bright.

“Who could sleep with all this noise?” he said. “Besides, I wanted to see what a ball looked like.”

“And now that you have, what do you think?”

“It’s just a lot of dressed-up people talking and twirling around.

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