Teaching the Earl Read Free Page B

well."
    "Your excellent lead made it so easy."
    His eyebrows lifted in the faintest hint of surprise. Was he not used to compliments?
    "Would you care to take a turn about the room?" he asked.
    "Thank you."
    His arm was very firm under her fingertips, and even above the combined smells of perfume and pomade and beeswax, she imagined she caught his scent. Sandalwood, perhaps it was, and cloves. She turned her head a little towards him to catch it better, and he looked down at her and smiled his sad smile.
    "Are you enjoying the evening?" he said.
    "Very much, thank you. Everyone is extraordinarily kind."
    "It's easy to be kind to one who is so pretty."
    "Oh." She looked down, then peeked up at him through her lashes. "What a lovely compliment."
    "Have you been in town long?"
    "We usually live here, except in the heat of summer." It amazed her that he might be interested in her life, yet here he was, questioning her about it.
    "And then where are you located?"
    "In Brighton."
    "Ah, our seaside resort." He nodded as if he knew the place.
    "Yes. It's beautiful there, with the sea and the sunshine."
    "And promenades along the shore."
    "Precisely."
    "Mrs Seton said you are the eldest daughter of your family?"
    So he had been listening, though his mind had seemed elsewhere. "There are nine of us, and four girls in total."
    "A very prosperous number."
    "Papa likes to say he is blessed, and Mama says she is cursed."
    "Are you all so troublesome, then?"
    She felt her lips quirk at the idea, tilted her head toward him and confided, "I think it’s only that she must find husbands for us all. The task is so daunting."
    "No doubt you will pop off quickly, and then she'll see it's no chore at all."
    "Do you think so? That’s a pleasant thought, though my season has been so enjoyable thus far, I wouldn't mind another."
    "Have you taken to this frivolous life?"
    Was this a deeper question? She replied carefully, to avoid making a bad impression. "Not precisely. Only I would not like to be married off and disappear into the countryside, never to attend another ball. That would be very sad, I think."
    "I understand they have balls in the countryside," he said gravely.
    "Now you're teasing. I know that. But the London balls are in a class of their own; such amazing spectacles, so very grand. If I had them as a constant diet I'd become insufferably bored and jaded of course, but if I never had them again?" she shook her head, "No, that would not do either."
    "Would it not?"
    "Decidedly not. I would shed tears into my teacup." She pouted in a way that Papa had told her was adorable, and was rewarded with another faint smile, this one more genuine.
    "Tragedy indeed."
    "And what of you? Are you enjoying the Season?"
    A shadow seemed to come over his face, and th e smile disappeared. "I find I’m not in the mood for it."
    "Yes of course. The death of your cousin. I'm so sorry."
    For a moment he frowned at her as if puzzled, then his brows lifted. "Among other things."
    "So you'd rather not be here?" Which would explain his absent-mindedness. Poor man. So elegant and impressive, yet hurting underneath. Again there was that strange urge to comfort him, and tell him he was not alone. Yet she did not know him well enough. One did not impose on an earl.
    But her question seemed to bring him back to himself, because he met her with flattery again. "How could that be, when I find one such as you here?"
    What a charming man. So brave. To dance and flirt to entertain her, when his heart must be heavy as lead inside him.
    "You are too kind."
    "Now I must give you back to Mrs Cross, but it has been a pleasure to meet you." He bowed over her hand, and once again she saw that faint glimmer of a smile - there then gone - so swift she almost missed it.
    It warmed her.
    He deposited her at Mama's side. As he turned away from the group he met his mother's gaze, and the woman quickly excused herself and hurried after him. As she came up beside him he said something