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Chapter 7.3 (Part 2)
Maribella closed her eyes tightly, the opened them again but he was still there. As she watched, Lord Byron unfurled his long length and stood, magnificent and, suddenly; to Maribella at east, oddly intimidating, before her. In the light o the full moon spilling through the large windows, his tawny eyes rover appreciatively over her. He caught her small hand in his and raised it to his lips. “I didn’t think you’d be long.”
His lazy tones, pitched very low, washed languidly over Maribella. With a conscious effort, she tried to break free of heir hypnotic hold. “How could you know I was coming here? I didn’t.”
“Well,” he answered reasonably, “I couldn’t think where else you would go, if you didn’t have a par
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Despite her strategies, Maribella was seen as she slipped from the ballroom. Felix, returning from the card-room where he had been idly passing his time until he could, with reasonable excuse, gravitate to the side of his eldest ward, saw the bright chestnut curls dip through the doorway and for an instant had thought that Margaret was deserting him. But his sharp ears had almost immediately caught the husky tone of her laughter from a knot of gentlemen nearby and he realized it must have been Maribella, most like Margaret in colouring, whom he had seen. But he had more serious problems in his mind than whether Maribella had torn her flounce. His pursuit of the luscious Miss Fleming, or, rather, the difficulties which now lay in his path to her, were a matter for concern. The odd fact that he actually bothered to dance with his eldest ward had already
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 7.4 (Part 2)
The congestion of male forms about his eldest was brought a slight frown to Felix’s face. But the musicians obligingly laced bow to string, allowing him to extricate her from heir midst and sweep her on to the floor. He glanced down into her grey-green eyes and saw his own pleasure in dancing with her reflected there. His arm tightened slightly and her attention focused. “I do joe your sisters are behaving themselves?” Margaret returned his weary question with a smile. “Assuming your friends are doing likewise, I doubt there’ll be a problem.” Felix raised his brows. So she knew at least a little of what happened. After negotiating a difficult turn to avoid old Major
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 7.4 (Part 3)
Eventually, routed, Mr. Chistlebury rose, ostensibly to return Miss Senet to her parent. Watching his retreat with laughing eyes, Margaret returned her gaze to her guardian, only to see him look pointedly at the door from the ballroom. She glanced across and saw Maribella enter, slightly flushed with a too-bright smile on her lips. She made straight for the table where Sophia was sitting with a number of other and, with her usual facility, merged with the group, laughing up at the young man who leapt to his feet to offer her his chair. Margaret turned to Felix, a slight frown in her eyes, to find his attention had returned to the door. She followed his gaze and saw Lord Byron enter. To any casual observer, Henry was merely coming late to the supper-room, his languid gaze and s
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 8.1 (Part 1)
Maribella swatted at the bumble-bee blundering noisily by her head. She was lying on her stomach on the stone surround of the pond in the courtyard of Twyford House, idly training her fingers in the cool green water. Her delicate mull muslin, petal-pink in hue, clung revealingly to her curvaceous form while a straw hat protected her delicate complexion from the afternoon sun. Most other young ladies in a similar pose would have looked childish. Maribella, with her strangely wistful air, contrived to look mysteriously enchanting. Her sisters were similarly at their ease. Sophia was propped by the base of the sundial, her bergère hat shading her face as she threaded daisies into a chain. The dark green cambric gown she wore emphasized her arrestingly pale face, dominated by huge brown eyes, darkened now by the hint of misery. Emma saw beside the r
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 8.1 (Part 2)
Emma was right in her assessment that Felix disapproved of their association but wrong in her idea of the cause. Only too well-acquainted with his brother’s character, their guardian entertained a grave concern that the frustrates involved in behaving with decorum in the face of Emma Fleming’s bounteous temptations would prove overwhelming long before Franck’s was brought to admit he was in love with the chit. His worst fears had seemed well in the way to being realized when he had, entirely unintentionally, surprised them in their way back to the ballroom. His sharp blue eyes had not missed the glow in Emma’s face. Consequently, the look he had directed at his brother, which Emma had intercepted, had not been particularly encouraging. She had missed Francis’s carefree response. Margaret, reasonably certain of Felix’
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 8.1 (Part 3)
A silence fell as all four sisters pondered their rakes. Eventually, Margaret spoke. “Sophia, what are you planning?” Sophia wriggled her shoulders against the sundial’s pedestal. “Well, it occurred to me that perhaps I should make some effort to bring things to a head. But if I did the obvious, and started wildly flirting with a whole bevy of gentlemen, then most likely I’d only land myself in the suds. For a start, Daniel would very likely not believe it and I’d probably end with a very odd reputation. I’m not good at it, like Bella.” Maribella put her head on one side, the better to observe her sister. “I could give you lessons,” she offered.
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 8.2
It was Emma who initiated the Fleming sisters' friendship with the two Norwood girls, also being presented that year. The Misses Norwood, Amy and Antonia, were very pretty young ladies in the manner which had been all the rage until the Flemings came to town. They were pale and fair, as ethereal as the Flemings were earthy, as fragile as the Flemings were robust, and, unfortunately for them, as penniless as the Flemings were rich. Consequently, the quest to find well-heeled husbands for the Misses Norwood has not prospered. Strolling down yet another ballroom, Lady Thorpe's as it happened, on the arm of Francis, of course, Emma had caught the sharp words uttered by a large woman of horsey mine to a young lady, presumably her daughter, sitting passively at her side. "Why can't you two be like that? Those girls simply walk off with any man they fancy. All it needs is a bit of push. But you and Amy..." The rest of the tirade has been swall
The Duke And His Four Wards Chapter 8.3 (Part 1)
It was at Lady Adamson's ball that Sir Jack Finley first appeared as a cold in the Fleming's horizon. Or, more correctly, on the Misses Norwood's horizon, although by that stage, it was much the same thing. Sir Jack, with a tidy estate in Gloucestershire, was in London t look for a wig. His taste, it appeared, ran to sweet young things if the type personified by the Norwood sisters, Antonia Norwood in particular. Unfortunately for him, Sir Jack was possessed of an overwhelming self-conceit combined with an unprepossessing appearance. He was thus vetoed on sight as beneath consideration by the Misses Norwood and their mentors. However, Sir Jack was rather more wily than he appeared. Finding his attentions to Antonia Norwood compromised by the competing attractions of the large number of more personable young men who formed the combined Fleming-Norwood court, he retired from the lists and devoted his energies to cultivating Mr. and Mrs. N
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