Surrender Read Free Page B

nearly twenty-five years old. We are both aware that men of the ton do not make offers to women of my advanced years unless they are lured by practical reasons. My fortune is a very practical reason.”
    “You speak as if you are on the shelf, and that is simply not true.”
    “Of course it’s true, and to be honest, I prefer it that way,” Victoria said evenly.
    Annabella shook her head. “But, why?”
    “It makes everything so much simpler,” Victoria explained vaguely, unconsciously scanning the crowd in search of Stonevale. She spotted him at last talking to his hostess near the door that opened onto the vast Atherton gardens. She studied the intimate manner in which he stood towering over the angelic Lady Atherton, who was a vision in pink.
    “If it makes you feel any better, Bertie has said absolutely nothing to imply that Stonevale is a fortune hunter,” Annabella said. “Quite the contrary. It’s rumored the old earl was an eccentric who hoarded his wealth until the day he died. Now it all belongs to our new earl. And you know Bertie. He would not dream of inviting anyone to accompany us tonight unless he approved of him.”
    That much was true, Victoria conceded. Lord Lyndwood, only two years older than his sister, took the duties of his recently inherited title quite seriously. He was highly protective of his flirtatious, exuberant sibling and he was always pleasant to Victoria. He would not expose either woman to a man whose background or reputation was questionable. Perhaps Annabella was right, Victoria thought, perhaps she was a bit overanxious on the subject of wily fortune hunters.
    Then she recalled Stonevale’s eyes. Even if he werenot a fortune hunter, he was still more dangerous than any man she had ever met with the possible exception of her stepfather.
    Victoria sucked in her breath at the thought and then discarded it angrily. No, she told herself with sudden fierceness, regardless of how dangerous Stonevale might be in his own right, she would not put him into the same category as the brutal man who had married her mother. Something deep within her was very certain the two men were not of the same mold.
    “Well, congratulations, Victoria, my dear. I see you have captured the attention of our new earl. Stonevale is an interesting specimen, is he not?”
    Startled out of her thoughts by the familiar, throaty voice, Victoria glanced to her left and saw Isabel Rycott standing nearby. She forced herself to smile. The truth was, she did not particularly care for the woman, but she did feel a trace of envy when she was around her.
    Isabel Rycott always reminded Victoria of an exotic jewel. She was in her early thirties and had about her an air of lush, feminine mystery that seemed to attract men the way honey enticed bees. The sense of exoticism was enhanced by Isabel’s catlike grace, her sleek black hair, and faintly slanted eyes. She was one of a handful of other women in the room besides Victoria who had defied the current style by wearing a strong color rather than demure white or pastel tonight. Her riveting deep emerald green gown shimmered brilliantly in the light of the ballroom.
    But it was not Isabel’s unusual looks that made Victoria regard her with a certain wistful envy. It was the freedom conferred upon her by her age and her status as a widow that Victoria secretly admired. A woman in Lady Rycott’s position was far less subject to the close scrutiny of the ton than Victoria was. Lady Rycott was even free to indulge in discreet affairs.
    Victoria had never met a man with whom she had wanted to have an affair, but she would have liked very much to have had the freedom to do so if she chose.
    “Good evening, Lady Rycott.” Victoria looked downat the woman who stood several inches shorter than she. “Are you acquainted with the earl?”
    Isabel shook her exquisitely shaped head. “We have not yet been introduced, unfortunately. He has only recently entered Society, although I