Pursuing Lord Pascal Read Free

He’d come
up to Town, vowing he’d do anything to restore his fortune.
    But surely there must be better alternatives
than Miss Veivers and her pretty little airheaded friends.
    Did London this season contain no women of
sense? Clearly none had attended this extravagant ball to launch
Lord and Lady Raynor’s youngest daughter. When he’d waltzed with
the overexcited Raynor girl, she’d nearly giggled him to death.
    Bored, he glanced over the top of his
partner’s ridiculous coiffure. Why did females torture their hair
into such God awful monstrosities? Half of Kew Gardens sprouted
from the girl’s elaborate brown curls. Across the room, he noticed
a party of late arrivals.
    Four pretty women in the first stare of
fashion. He immediately recognized the tall blonde as Sally Cowan,
who bore enough resemblance to the young miss in white to suggest a
relationship. Probably aunt and niece. Beside them was a graceful
brunette in buttercup yellow.
    Last to step into the ballroom was a tall
woman with tawny hair arranged with an elegant simplicity that set
off her striking features. Her rich purple gown clung to her
Junoesque figure with breathtaking precision. She reminded him of
someone, although Pascal would swear they’d never met.
    His heart crashed against his ribs, and he
only just stopped himself stumbling. He who was lauded as a perfect
dancer. In a room full of fluttering, cooing doves, this woman had
the presence and power of a swan floating across a moonlit
lake.
    How could he concentrate on half-baked girls
when that luscious banquet of a woman wandered into sight? Damn it,
he had to find out who she was.
    “L-Lord Pascal?” the chit in his arms
stammered, the chit whose name he’d already forgotten. “Are you
going to the Bartletts’ ball tomorrow night? Mamma is most eager
that we at…attend.”
    “I’m sure I’ll be there.” He was hardly aware
what he said, as he took her hand to lead her up the line. He
couldn’t take his eyes off the superb creature standing beside
Sally. Who the devil was she? He wasn’t looking for a mistress, and
the state of his finances meant he couldn’t veer from his purpose.
But by God, even across the crowded room, he wanted her.
    “Oh,” the chit said breathlessly. “Oh,
doubtless we’ll see you there.”
    “Doubtless.” He wondered idly what he’d
agreed to. But he didn’t wonder much. Most of his mind remained
fixed on the tall woman, who had joined Lord and Lady Kenwick near
the French doors, closed against the chilly night.
    Brutal necessity insisted he pay court to one
of the wellborn virgins brought to London to shine on the marriage
mart. Every masculine impulse insisted he engage the attention of
the woman in imperial purple.
    The battle was brief, its outcome sure, even
before it began.
    He returned Miss Veivers—at last he
remembered her name—to her parents and set off in pursuit of much
more interesting prey.
    * * *
    “Stop picking at your gown,” Sally hissed out
of the corner of her mouth as they stood in a laughing group with
Anthony and Fenella Townsend, and Fenella’s handsome son Brandon
Deerham.
    Guiltily Amy forced her trembling hand down
from where she’d been hauling at the low bodice. “It’s too tight.
And I feel half naked.”
    “For pity’s sake, you look wonderful—and the
dress is quite modest by London standards.”
    “Not by Leicestershire standards. And it’s so
bright.”
    “It is,” Sally said. “And don’t start
fiddling with your hair instead. You said you liked it when my maid
put it up like that.”
    “I do.” She liked the dress, too, although
she felt painfully self-conscious in the flashy color. “But it
doesn’t look like everyone else’s hair.”
    Around her, she saw women whose hair was
arranged into elaborate ringlets and knots. Hers was almost austere
in its simplicity.
    “No, and all the better for it. You’ve got a
classical beauty. Make the most of it.”
    “I don’t think I’ve got any