Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice Read Free Page B

about the Green’s do Tuesday next?”
    “No, I am afraid I have not received that invitation, either,” Colin replied in mild tones at odds with the pounding in his head. He hadn’t an aptitude for deceit and he feared the insightful Miss Armistead saw through his denials.
    “What of the Russell’s; have you not received their invitation?” Colin merely gave her a terse smile, unwilling to say anything that would further expose his perfidy, but she would not be silent. “It is certain you have received word of the Ames’ ball. And the Roberts’? Or perhaps the Scott-Montgomery’s?”
    Colin silently shook his head with each name and prayed she would run out of friends and acquaintances before he, in a too conspicuous move, jumped to his feet and consigned the stack of invitations on his mantle to the flames below it.
    “Mr. Lloyd-Jones, you grace the portals of Almack’s on occasion, do you not?” Miss Armistead asked in reasonable tones. They unaccountably served to soothe his frayed nerves in spite of his suspicions that she was aiding her mother in a quest to ascertain his schedule.
    “Not often. In point of fact, I have sworn to a friend of mine that we should avoid all such entertainments this season.” Rather than be dismayed at his revelation of such a personal nature, he was relieved to give the ladies the truth, one which had no reflection on them at all whatsoever. In spite of that, a shadow passed over Miss Armistead’s face as if he had indeed dissembled at their expense.
    “What a pity,” Miss Hale remarked. “I am persuaded I should have very much enjoyed dancing with you.”
    Miss Armistead leaned forward and intently regarded her friend. However, Miss Hale seemed impervious to the silent admonition.
    “You can’t be anything but an exquisite dancer, what with those longs legs of yours,” Miss Halecontinued shamelessly.
    “Miss Hale,” Miss Armistead cut in. “You forget yourself. It is one thing to talk so amongst the officers back home, but you will find that few in London society shall look on you with favor if you do not mind your tongue.”
    “I only wished to dance with him, Elizabeth, not wed him,” Miss Hale said with a pert air.
    This admission seemed only to deepen Miss Armistead’s vexation and she rose quickly to her feet. “Mr. Lloyd-Jones, we thank you for your congenial hospitality but perhaps it would be best if we waited elsewhere.”
    As it seemed unlikely that they should ever again lay eyes on one another, Colin was loathe to be so rude as to send them away. “I won’t hear of it. As a bachelor who lives alone, I am most often deprived of such genteel company.” As he listened to the words he spoke, he was surprised to know that they were indeed, true. Convinced that he would never again allow himself to be caught in the talons of a Cecily Ponsonby, he felt unaccountably safe admiring the disingenuous Miss Armistead from the distance his wounded heart afforded. Certainly, the heat from the fire had never turned Cecily’s cheeks such a delicious shade of pink nor had her pale blue eyes sparkled as, even now, Miss Armistead’s green ones did, for any reason at all whatsoever. So lost was he in his thoughts that he, at first, failed to notice that Miss Armistead still stood as if about to depart.
    “Miss Armistead,” he admonished as he rose to his feet, “do take your seat.” When she did not immediately comply, he dared to take her by the elbow so as to guide her descent into the wing backed chair. He was unprepared for the flash of resistance she demonstrated and was utterly confounded by how the rigidity of her arm dissolved into compliance once she had raised her magnificent eyes to look into his.
    She was far too beautiful to fail to recognize his admiration of her; as such, he had expected her to be immune to the veneration she had surely recognized in his expression. Instead, her face betrayed an emotion to which he could assign no name save that