The Perfect Wife Read Free

with suppressed energy. He glanced away quickly. No one stared in their direction. The music played on. Conversations continued.
    Amazing. Was he the only one who noticed the subtle power of her presence? Did he alone sense a change in the very air around them? Did excitement and mystery call out to him and no other?
    Inevitably, his gaze was drawn back to hers, and he lost himself in the glittering green depths of her eyes. Depths that spoke of promises and passion and, at the moment... amusement.
    “My lord.” Her voice was low and husky, sensual and inviting. An unexpected shiver ran through him at the sound. “Have I done something to cause you to stare so intensely?”
    He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. His gaze never left hers, and his earlier sense of discomfort vanished. Confronted by a beautiful woman, he had no lack of confidence. In many circles he was considered an expert.
    “Why no, my lady, I am simply struck with awe in the presence of such beauty.”
    She laughed, a delightful, honeyed sound that wrapped around him and settled in his soul.
    “Father,” Erick said, “may I present Belinda’s mother, Lady Winfield, the dowager Marchioness of Stanford.”
    Nicholas started. This magnificent creature was the lady he had investigated. His reports had mentioned she was considered a great beauty at her first season nearly twenty years ago, but nothing he read on paper could have prepared him for meeting her in the flesh. Cool, creamy, porcelain flesh. She wrinkled her nose at the word
dowager
, and he thought the gesture charming. Perhaps this marriage was not a mistake after all.
    So this was Erick’s father, Sabrina thought. He was far more handsome than she’d been told. Extremely tall, with hair and eyes nearly as black as the evening coat that stretched across broad, muscular shoulders. A flirtatious smile lingered over full, sensual lips. An aura of strength and power surrounded him. Intriguing, beckoning, irresistible.
    She gazed into his eyes. It was obvious he was taken with her. The realization gave her a certain amount of satisfaction. Even at the advanced age of six-and-thirty she could still turn a man’s head. She couldn’t resist angling her face slightly and deepening her smile, a gesture certain to reveal the dimple in her cheek.
    “So, my lord, I gather we are to be family soon?”
    “Family?” He appeared startled, then quickly recovered. “Oh yes, of course, family.”
    He glanced at his son and future daughter-in-law. “And what a charming family it shall be with two such lovely ladies as its newest members.”
    “Oh, Erick, look. Isn’t that Anne Hartly?” Belinda nodded at a young woman across the room. “Mother, do you mind?”
    “Of course not, darling. You two go along.” She glanced demurely at Nicholas. “I feel I’m in very good hands.”
    The two young people headed toward their friends, and Sabrina’s gaze followed. “They seem so very young.”
    “You are not so terribly old yourself,” Nicholas said, a note of appreciation sounding in his voice.
    Sabrina snapped her gaze back to his. “Age is such a relative thing, is it not? When I was their age I thought someone as old as I am now was ancient. Now they are grown, yet I see them as children. And I still feel as I did then. My emotions are no different now than they were in my first season.”
    Nicholas stared down at her. “I regret having missed that first season.”
    The intensity of his words gave Sabrina pause. Abruptly, she realized that without thinking, she’d dropped her well-practiced guard. It was indeed past time to return to the meaningless, flirtatious banter with which she was so skilled.
    She lowered her gaze. “I fear, my lord, we are becoming far too serious for an event such as this.” Sabrina flashed him her most polished smile. “And I, for one, refuse to be serious when I hear music. I would much prefer to dance.”
    Nicholas’s smile echoed her own. “I can