Seducing an Angel Read Free

word. Perhaps it is time you began to live on your own account. And love. Perhaps you will meet a gentleman and he will realize what a perfect gem he has found and will fall in love with you and you with him. Perhaps you will live happily ever after.”
    “But not with a dozen children, I hope,” Alice said with a look of mock horror, and they both laughed again.
    Ah, there was so little opportunity for laughter these days. It seemed to Cassandra that she could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had felt sheer amusement during the past ten years.
    “I had better go and dust off my black bonnet,” she said.
    *  *  *
    Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, was riding in Hyde Park with Constantine Huxtable, his second cousin. It was the fashionable hour of the afternoon, and the main carriageway was packed with vehicles of all descriptions, most of them open so that the occupants could more readily take the air and look about at all the activity around them and converse with the occupants of other carriages and with pedestrians. There were crowds of the latter too on the footpath. And there were many riders on horseback. Stephen and Constantine were two of them as they wove their way skillfully among the carriages.
    It was a lovely early summer day with just enough fluffy white clouds to offer the occasional welcome shade and prevent the sun from being too scorching.
    Stephen did not mind the crowds. One did not come here in order to get anywhere in a hurry. One came to socialize, and he always enjoyed doing that. He was a gregarious, good-natured young man.
    “Are you going to Meg’s ball tomorrow night?” he asked Constantine.
    Meg was his eldest sister, Margaret Pennethorne, Countess of Sheringford. She and Sherry had come to town this spring after missing the past two, despite the fact that they had had newborn Alexander to bring with them this year as well as two-year-old Sarah and seven-year-old Toby. They had decided at last to face down the old scandal dating from the time when Sherry had eloped with a married lady and lived with her until her death. There were still those who thought Toby was his son and Mrs. Turner’s—and both Sherry and Meg were content to let that sleeping dog lie.
    Meg had backbone—Stephen had always admired that about her. She would never choose to cower indefinitely in the relative safety of the country rather than confront her demons. Sherry himself had never had much difficulty engaging demons in a staringcontest and being the last to blink. And now, because all the fashionable world had been unable to resist attending the curiosity of their wedding three years ago, that same fashionable world was effectively obliged to attend their ball tomorrow evening.
    Not that many would have missed it anyway, curiosity being a somewhat stronger motivating factor than disapproval. The ton would be curious to discover how the marriage was prospering, or not prospering, after three years.
    “But of course. I would not miss it for worlds,” Constantine said, touching his whip to the brim of his hat as they passed a barouche containing four ladies.
    Stephen did the same thing, and all four smiled and nodded in return.
    “There is no of course about it,” he said. “You did not attend Nessie’s ball the week before last.”
    Nessie—Vanessa Wallace, Duchess of Moreland—was the middle of Stephen’s three sisters. The duke also happened to be Constantine’s first cousin. Their mothers had been sisters and had passed on their dark Greek good looks to their sons, who looked more like brothers than cousins. Almost like twins, in fact.
    Constantine had not attended Vanessa and Elliott’s ball, even though he had been in town.
    “I was not invited,” he said, looking across at Stephen with lazy, somewhat amused eyes. “And I would not have gone if I had been.”
    Stephen looked apologetic. He had just been on something of a fishing expedition, as Con seemed to