The Honourable Fortune Hunter (Scandalous Miss Brightwells 5)

And then there was Sir Richard’s wife, Lady Conroy, at his side, smiling at him from above her lilac lace fan, though it took him a moment to realise this was the ‘Susan’ Lizzy had spoken of—Mrs Hodge’s daughter—as he bent his head to hear what she wished to say.

“I would very much like you to ask Miss Scott to dance,” she repeated as he strained to hear her above the din. “She has stood up twice with Mr Dalgleish, and I don’t want my mama to declare that doing so a third time is tantamount to accepting a marriage proposal.”

“I’m afraid I was, in fact, just leaving the entertainment.”

Lady Conroy considered this a moment. She was clearly intent that he should dance with Lizzy, however, for she went on, “I know you were gallant enough to bring Lizzy here after rescuing her from near certain death; therefore, dancing with her is a simple act in comparison. Will you do this for me? For her? I really do want to see her whisked out of that dreadful man’s clutches.”

Theo barely hid his surprise. Of course, he wanted to dance with Lizzy, but there was his reception to consider. He didn’t want to be cut a second time. “I think Lizzy looks very happy dancing with Harry Dalgleish.” From a distance, he could see they were sharing a joke. In fact, they looked very much in charity with one another. Perhaps it would be a fine match, after all.

Except there was something about Dalgleish that stuck in his craw. Something elemental, and Theo sensed that it would not be long before he exerted the kind of control—if not tyranny—over Lizzy, that Amelia was trying to escape.

His thoughts were dragged back to the present by Lady Conroy’s gentle persistence. “Please, Mr McAlister. I don’t want Lizz

y forced to marry just for not knowing any better. Or for want of any other offers.”

He studied Lizzy a moment while he wondered at Lady Conroy’s meaning. “Very well,” he said, bowing, while suddenly the blood was thrumming in his head; and it did so, unabated, for a long moment after Lady Conroy had left, as he continued to watch Lizzy from a distance.

Her eyes were alight with humour, her hands expressive as they illustrated a story she was telling Dalgleish. Theo hadn’t expected to feel so painfully jealous. He took a step forward and spoke.

“May I have the honour of this dance?”

The outrage on Dalgleish’s face was worth it. Lizzy’s faint indecision, however, didn’t escape him. No doubt Dalgleish had been elaborating on Theo’s crimes and had painted Theo as a monster, yet he was sure he detected in Lizzy’s expression the desire to dance with him.

So, to save her the embarrassment of having to answer, he merely took her elbow and steered her away, not waiting for a response, until they were on the dance floor and she was standing beside him. Quiet and very unresponsive.

“So, you’re punishing me,” he said.

She glanced up and said frankly, “Well, you have been perfectly horrid to me. But then, after everything Mr Dalgleish says about you, and which you told me yourself, I can see you really are a perfectly horrid gentleman. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Because you couldn’t resist.” He chuckled at her outrage. “It’s true, though. You could have been more forceful in resisting me though you didn’t, despite the fact I am beyond the pale. Which means you’ll do very well with Mr Dalgleish who is equally so. Though, I would suggest, when all is said and done, that I am the better man.”

“So smug,” she said, putting her nose in the air. “And to think I nearly got taken in.”

“To think,” he repeated. “And yet here we are. So, Lizzy, did you believe everything you heard about me just now? No doubt Dalgleish gilded the lily.”

“You admitted your part without the need to hear too much of what Harry said.”

“Oh, so it’s Harry now.”

Her look was cold, and his stomach clenched. “Has he gone down on bended knee yet? Will you accept him?”

“You’re just changing the subject. Why did you run away with an innocent young girl on the eve of her marriage? You destroyed her reputation—as much as your own.”

“I didn’t run away with her.”

“That’s not what I heard. You said it yourself.”

The pair of dancers just up the line was preparing to dance energetically down the line.

“I rescued her.”

“Indeed!” scoffed Lizzy as she took his hands and they polkaed all the way down the dance floor, holding up their hands in an arch to prepare for the rest of the dancers to duck under in their progress to the top.

“So, you took it upon yourself to decide she needed rescuing?”

“I was asked. She was my sister’s friend. I’d known her for years.”

“Mr McAlister!”