Her belly was roiling, though, at the sound of the water rushing by more than ten yards below the iron balustrade along Lady Belchamp’s walkway.
“One hears things,” Neederby said, wiggling his eyebrows. “About certain people.”
Charlotte heard the river roaring below and tried to edge back from the overlook. “I have no interest in gossip, sir, though a plate of Lady Belchamp’s buffet offerings has great appeal.”
His lordship refused to budge and clamped a gloved hand over Charlotte’s fingers. “What about my offerings? I’m tireless in the saddle, as they say, and you’re in want of a fellow to show you the bridal path, as it were.”
Equestrian analogies never led anywhere decent. Charlotte escaped Neederby’s grasp by twisting her arm, a move her cousins had shown her more than ten years ago.
“I’m famished, your lordship, though I’d enjoy a morning hack in proper company someday next spring, if you happen to be back in London. At present, we can return to the buffet, or I’ll leave you here to admire the view.”
Either way, the gossips would add to their store of ammunition. Charlotte had taken too long on this ramble with his lordship, or she’d returned to the party without his escort, both choices unacceptable for a lady.
As the only remaining unmarried Windham, Charlotte had earned the enmity of every wallflower, failed debutante, matchmaker, or fortune hunter in Mayfair. The little season brought the wilted and the wounded out in quantity, while Charlotte—who considered herself neither—longed to retire to the country on the next available coach.
Neederby moved more quickly than he reasoned, and thus Charlotte found herself between him and the railing.
“When anybody’s looking,” he said, “you’re all haughty airs and tidy bows, but I know what you fast girls really want. Married to me, you’d be more than content.”
Married to him, Charlotte would be a candidate for Bedlam. “I need breakfast, you buffoon, and I haven’t been a girl for years. Get away from me.”
Charlotte also needed room to drive her knee into his jewelbox, and she needed to breathe.
Neederby took a step closer, and Charlotte backed up until the railing was all that prevented her from falling into the torrent below. Her vision began to dim at the edges and the roaring in her ears merged with the noise of the river.
Not now. Please, not here, not now, not with the biggest nincompoop in all of nincompoopdom strutting and spouting marital ambitions at my side.
The thought had barely formed when Neederby was abruptly dragged three feet to the right.
“Sherbourne,” his lordship squawked. “Devilish bad taste to interrupt a man when he’s paying his addresses.”
Lucas Sherbourne was tall, blond, solidly built, and at that moment, a pathetically welcome sight.
“If that’s your idea of paying your addresses,” Sherbourne said, “then I’d like to introduce you to my version of target practice at dawn.”
About the Author
Grace Burrowes grew up in central Pennsylvania and is the sixth out of seven children. She discovered romance novels when in junior high (back when there was such a thing), and has been reading them voraciously ever since. Grace has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a bachelor of music in music history (both from the Pennsylvania State University); a master’s degree in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University; and a juris doctor from the National Law Center at the George Washington University.
Grace writes Georgian, Regency, Scottish Victorian, and contemporary romances in both novella and novel lengths. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, and enjoys giving workshops and speaking at writers’ conferences. She also loves to hear from her readers, and can be reached through her website, graceburrowes.com.
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No Other Duke Will Do (Windham Brides) Page 31
