Winning the Wallflower: A Novella Read Free Page B

supercilious Duke of Pole—who is, by the way, not nearly as delectable as Mr. Ravensthorpe and barely taller than I am—or do you want to fight for your fiancé?”
    “I’ll kiss Ravensthorpe,” Lucy said, with sudden determination. “I could even tear my bodice. Mother would die, but that would do the trick.”
    “I should think that a kiss will be sufficient.” Olivia gave her a mischievous smile. “I’ll keep an eye out and try to surprise the two of you, shall I? I’ll tell my mother that I feel overheated and drag her around till we find you. Be sure to kiss him as soon as you see me coming. Mother will be genuinely horrified, which will give the occasion a terrific sense of drama.”
    Lucy put her hands on her cheeks. “Oh Lord . . .”
    “If you’re going to fight for him, Lucy, it’ll have to be tonight.” Olivia rose. “Your mother cannot announce your newly eligible status until the betrothal is formally ended, which gives you a very small window. I can see Rupert wandering aimlessly with a glass of lemonade, so I suppose I’ll have to rescue him before—” She stopped abruptly.
    “Oh, dear. He’s dropped it down Miss Elton’s back,” she remarked a second later. “What a pity her gown was white. The yellow shows up so boldly; it looks as if someone emptied a chamber pot over her head. I must go, Lucy.”
    Lucy stayed hidden behind the palms, trying to gather courage. How on earth did one entice a man who has never shown the faintest interest in kissing her to do just that—in front of an audience?
    She might die of humiliation.
    But at least she would expire having been kissed by Mr. Ravensthorpe, Esq., the most beautiful man in London, at least once.
    It seemed like a fair trade.

 
    C HAPTER T HREE
     
    M r. Cyrus Ptolemy Ravensthorpe was not a man who cared for excesses of emotion. But that didn’t mean he was free of them.
    He knew as well as anyone that his ferocious ambition to regain the place in London society that his mother had thrown away for love was excessive. To his mind, passion was always excessive. But he had also noticed that passion drove men to great accomplishments.
    He had honed this ambition while at Eton. He had been sent to that school because, marriage to a commoner notwithstanding, his mother was daughter to a duke and grandsons of dukes went to Eton. By nine years later he had had violent physical encounters with almost half the boys in his year—invariably because they had made slighting remarks about his father.
    Even though his father never gave a toss.
    “Let them be, Son,” Mr. Ravensthorpe the elder would say, looking up from a table piled high with papers. “The poor lads will spend their lives drifting about London. I can’t imagine how tedious their middle years will be.” He would look over his glasses, appalled at the very prospect. “Life is for doing things. Now what do you suppose I did with that evidence in the Pendle case? That patently false letter from Mrs. Pendle saying that she . . .”
    But Cyrus did care. He couldn’t help it. It might have been the hundred-and-one slights he received at Eton, a good many of which were handed out by his first cousin. Or the way his mother cheerfully denied caring whether her sisters invited her to their Christmas parties or no.
    It mattered. It mattered to him, and he knew perfectly well that it would matter even more to his sisters. They were still in the classroom, but Cyrus was determined they should marry into the highest ranks of society.
    He informed his parents of his plan to reclaim the family’s status only after he had achieved Numbers One through Four on his to-do list, which had resulted in the rather extraordinary wealth in stocks that he now enjoyed.
    Unsurprisingly, his father had balked when Cyrus broached the plan. “I’d rather your sisters married men who had something to talk about,” he had said. “Can you imagine how boring it would be to have one of those fops