Serena

* * *

Freddy stood in his black velvet finery in anxious, desperate, childish anticipation of Serena’s arrival. Suddenly a look of severe consternation took over his face, and it was as if all pleasure in the evening ahead was momentarily suspended.

His uncle stood back and eyed him thoughtfully. Curious, Daniel Pendleton thought as he approached his nephew and said, “Waiting for Serena’s arrival, I take it?”

“Yes, but she has arrived, with them!” he wailed.

“With them?” His lordship’s expression was thoughtful as he looked to see what his nephew was talking about.

“The reverend, who you must know is a fool. I am not concerned about him, for he is, after all, a man of the cloth and probably doesn’t even know how to woo a woman, especially one as independent as Serena.” He shook his head. “It is the other … that dashed fellow, Warren Beverly.” He sighed and added, “Uncle, you will never credit it, but I daresay he is perhaps even older than you are and is forever dangling after her. Why, I think he is nearly thirty … a veritable ancient.”

“I am nearly thirty,” His uncle amusedly offered.

“Well, yes, but you aren’t chasing about trying to win Serena’s hand, and though he may be old, he is a bruising rider to hounds, a notable whip, and the ladies seem to like him. I have watched him, and he is a most accomplished flirt. Dash it, Uncle, I do hope she isn’t taken in by him. Half the ladies in the New Forest are after him … and look

how he holds her arm, as though she already belongs to him. I have a notion to plant him a facer!”

Freddy had the look of a man about to do just that, but his uncle assuaged him by saying, “I doubt that would help. Serena would not like a scene enacted, would she?”

“No, I suppose you are in the right of it,” Freddy agreed, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side.

Lord Pendleton watched Serena’s entrance with both the reverend and Warren Beverly at her side.

Looking at her nearly made him gasp.

He physically felt the air pulled out of his lungs. He felt it being extracted from his throat, and he was left breathless. She was ravishing. Everything about her, from her golden hair to her glittering dark eyes, to her full, enticing breasts and her small waist. Damn, bloody damn! She was stunning!

He watched with narrowed eyes as Warren hovered possessively near. He could see the man was something of a rake. He managed to stand protectively with Serena while casting his eyes about and flirting with half a dozen women.

His lordship watched the lady in question as she gave both gentlemen a wave of her fingers because a group of young women, evidently her friends, had come to surround her and take her off.

Freddy tried to get her attention but was unsuccessful and turned a sullen face as he downed his glass of champagne.

His uncle wondered at Serena’s behavior towards Freddy, which seemed nonchalant and disinterested. How did she mean to secure her position with him if she did not allow him some attention?

“Well, at least she is out of their clutches for the moment,” Freddy pronounced dramatically.

“You mean … she is with her female friends and not the reverend or Warren?” he returned lightly. He had to be careful with Freddy. He did not wish to be too pointed in anything to do with Serena.

“Aye.” He shrugged. “Not that I should worry. They are both too old for her, don’t you think, Uncle?”

“No, I don’t think that at all,” his uncle answered.

This appeared to surprise Freddy. “Don’t you?”

“No, as I understand it, Serena is, what … three and twenty? I think she should be looking at someone mature enough to care for her,” Lord Pendleton told his nephew pointedly.

Freddy frowned darkly. “If you mean to be disagreeable, Uncle Danny, I might as well take myself off.”

“Disagreeable be damned.” His uncle chuckled. “I’ve done my bit for your mother. You won’t return to school—so be it. There is only one thing we now can do.”

“And what is that?” Freddy asked suspiciously.

“You want Serena Moorely—well then, my lad, have at her. Or don’t you mean to make a push to dance with the lady?”

Freddy’s face brightened, and he was moved to exclaim, “Knew you would help me in the end. You’ve always been a right’un.”

His lordship watched his nephew rush off in pursuit of the lady and couldn’t help but grin at the zeal Freddy showed as he worked his way into the group of ladies with whom Serena was in deep conversation.