Barbara Metzger Read Free

week’s end, unless I miss my guess. They’ll be writing poems to your eyebrows or your elbows, or whatever poppycock is in fashion this sennight. Just see that your head doesn’t get turned by all the praise.”
    “Gammon,” she said with a laugh, flashing her dimples at him. Trust Gray to try to make her feel comfortable when all eyes in the room were on them, as if she cared what anyone else thought of her. He’d already complimented her with a wide grin before the family supper earlier. His father had said she was almost as pretty as her mother at that age, high praise indeed, but Gray had whispered, “Fustian, no one can hold a candle to my Daffy.”
    It wasn’t just Spanish coin he was handing her either, Graydon reflected. His little tagalong chum had improved no end. She almost reached his shoulder now, for one thing, especially if you counted the blond curls piled high on top of her head. They were threaded through with blue ribbons that matched her eyes, and the white roses he’d sent, on his aunt’s advice. Daphne was dressed all in white, of course, but with a gauzy overskirt embroidered with tiny blue flowers that made her seem a fairy sprite. That fall of lace at the neckline was a clever touch, too—Lady Whilton’s fine hand, no doubt—adding a hint of mystery where he knew very well there wasn’t much of a secret, or anything else. Still, she was the comeliest deb of this season, he thought with pride, but perhaps too comely. Those dimples were deuced appealing.
    Gray frowned over Daphne’s head at the young bucks on the sidelines who were ogling his partner as if she were a tempting morsel. “You’re no lobster patty,” he fumed out loud, causing her to miss a step.
    She giggled. “If that’s a sample of the handsome compliments I can expect to receive, you needn’t worry my head will swell.”
    “Not what I meant at all, brat, and you know it. I just don’t like the way those chaps are looking at you, like cats about to pounce. Stop showing those dimples, blast it!”
    She laughed the harder. Dear, dear Gray.
    “I’m serious, Daffy, you have to be careful. You’ll be all the crack, a regular Toast. Add a dowry rich enough to set the poorest makebait up on Easy Street, and they’ll be after you like flies on honey. And those whose dibs are already in tune are looking for a pretty, well-born chit to be mother to their sons. Deuce take it, you’re the daughter of a baron, with an earl sponsoring you.”
    “Do you think that’s enough to make people forget about Uncle Albert?”
    The current baron had arrived that evening at Howell House, uninvited. Luckily he came before most of the invited guests, for he stood in the entryway ranting that Daphne was way too young and gauche to be presented, much less engaged. She wasn’t betrothed, not formally, but Uncle Albert never asked, too concerned with losing the interest on her dowry. He was also too castaway to put up much of a fuss when Graydon and two footmen bundled him into a hackney and sent him home before he could ruin Daphne’s big night.
    Remembering how the man stank of stale whiskey and staler linen, Graydon brightened. “Right, no one would want that dirty dish in the family. I cannot imagine how he and your father came from the same parents.”
    “Neither could Papa. He used to call him Awful Albie, you know, and wondered if Grandmother had played her husband false.”
    “Nice talk, Daffy. Don’t let the old tabbies hear you or they’ll label you fast. You’ll never get vouchers to Almack’s.”
    “Sally Jersey already promised them. So did Princess Lieven, I’ll have you know.”
    “Lud, when you show up at the Marriage Mart, every basket-scrambler in Town will be sniffing at your skirts.”
    “If you’re so worried about other men paying their addresses,” Daphne told him in what she thought was a reasonable tone, instead of the breathless yearning she really felt, “why don’t we announce the betrothal