A Regency Match Read Free Page A

“But it appears,” she said ruefully, “that not everyone is in agreement with you.”
    â€œNever mind him,” Bertie insisted, following her eyes. “Most any man would agree with me, whatever that fellow thinks. You cut a regular dash!”
    Sophia couldn’t help grinning. She turned her full attention to her cousin. “And you, Bertie,” she said with affectionate bluntness, “why, you’ve become a veritable butter-box. Oh, Bertie, I am so glad to see you! Let’s find a quiet corner where we can sit down, and you can tell me everything that’s happened to you in the last eleven years.”
    â€œNothing I’d like better,” Bertie agreed amiably, “but perhaps we’d better find Grandmama first. I haven’t seen her yet.”
    The rest of the evening flew for Sophia. She and Bertie found time for a comfortable coz behind the potted palms, and she and Lady Alicia went down to supper on his arm. After supper, when the dancing resumed, Sophia found herself surrounded by more than her usual number of admirers asking for her hand for the few dances that were left. Correctly attributing her rise in popularity to the attention she’d received for the little scene she’d caused earlier in the evening, she nevertheless enjoyed herself hugely, flirting and laughing and cavorting on the dance floor with more than her usual animation.
    Bertie, escorting his grandmother and cousin to their carriage at the end of the festivities, remarked, as they walked down the curved stairway, that their little Sophy had taken the shine out of all the females in the room. “She made more conquests than anyone else, I’d warrant,” he said proudly.
    Lady Alicia, who had been a witness to the entire episode of mistaken identity and knew that it was only a brief and vulgar notoriety that had caused the flurry of popularity for her granddaughter, merely grunted. At that moment, they arrived at the bottom of the stairway and came face to face with the stranger whom Sophy had so embarrassed. She met his eye and blushed to the roots of her hair. The gentleman’s lips seemed to tighten; he nodded briefly and went quickly out the door. Sophy threw a nervous glance at her grandmother, who was frowning at her disdainfully. “Well, Bertie,” Sophia laughed uncomfortably, her eyes on the stranger’s retreating back, “you’ll have to admit that I didn’t make a conquest there .”

Chapter Two
    L ADY ALICIA EDGERTON had a few choice words to say to her granddaughter before they retired, and she delivered them in a voice whose vigor and venom were not in the least impaired by her advanced age, the lateness of the hour, or the fact that the servants (those that might be lurking about outside the drawing room door) could have, if they tried, heard every word. She told her granddaughter without any roundaboutation that the incident had been a humiliating one for all concerned, and that it had been brought about by Sophia’s heedlessness, her impetuosity and her inexcusable lack of good manners.
    â€œBut Grandmama,” the girl protested, “it was only a little mistake—”
    â€œOne needn’t make one’s mistakes on quite so grand a scale,” her grandmother declared icily. “Surely you knew that everyone’s eyes were on you when you made that grand entrance in that dreadful red dress—”
    â€œYou said you liked the dress when you saw it earlier!” Sophia cried in understandable annoyance.
    â€œThat was before I realized that you intended to make one of your scandalous entrances in it. When you lifted your skirts and ran across the room crying Bertie’s name, no one could miss you. You should have seen Martha gape. And Gussie Derwent’s eyes nearly popped from her head. I was so ashamed I didn’t know where to look.”
    â€œI’m truly sorry I embarrassed you, Grandmama,