Instead, she surprised him. Her eyes fearlessly meeting his, her gaze as ever direct and uncompromising, she drew breath and evenly said, “My reason is simple enough, my lord. I’ve heard of your reputation, I know it to be well deserved, and I have no wish whatever to feature as another of your conquests, intentional or otherwise.”
For two revolutions, he held her gaze. Then, his eyes narrowing, he softly said, “I wasn’t aware you stood in any danger of falling at my feet, Miss Buckleberry. Was I mistaken?”
The flare of temper that lit her eyes turned them a deeper violet. Her chin rose a notch, but her voice was cool as she replied, “What an exceedingly arrogant presumption, my lord.”
The music ceased. Their feet slowed of their own accord. But Kit, lost in the tangle of whatever this was between them, didn’t immediately let her go.
Her chin set, and she stepped back, tugging her fingers from his grasp and forcing him to lower his arms.
She drew herself up, icicles positively dripping from her as she inclined her head to him. “Good day, my lord.”
Kit stood unmoving and watched her walk—with outward serenity—away from him.
During the rest of the wedding breakfast, he didn’t get another chance to approach her—not that he tried. He knew quite well what his reputation in society was, but was it his fault that young ladies dreamed and fantasized about things he never even spoke of, much
less promised?
He could, of course, have informed her that his intentional conquests were always thoroughly aware that marriage was not on offer; aside from all else, his intentional conquests were invariably already wed.
By her own admission, they hadn’t previously met, so what the devil had she been about, flinging his reputation in his face like that? She’d pokered up on him before he’d so much as smiled at her.
Miss Buckleberry, he concluded, was touched in her upper works.
He waltzed with Felicia, who he found delightful, warm, and easy to talk with—nothing like her closest friend. Relaxing—he wasn’t losing his touch—he told Felicia several stories of Rand’s exploits when they’d been children, just to keep his brother on his toes.
Mary and Stacie both claimed him for waltzes, then he set himself to beguile Flora into taking a slow turn with him.
By the time the sun started to slide down the western sky and the guests drifted toward the forecourt, where the carriages were waiting, he’d largely managed to blot Miss Buckleberry from his mind.
The first to depart were the newly-weds. Rand had told Kit that he and Felicia were going to spend the next months in the house they’d recently bought near the village of Wickham Heath, roughly midway between the Abbey and Throgmorton Hall.
Kit had promised to call in after his stay at the Abbey.
The entire company of guests and all the household gathered to wave Rand and Felicia off. Then came the usual fuss as the party bound for the Abbey sorted themselves into carriages and tendered thanks and farewells.
Just before he climbed into his curricle, Kit glanced around, but Miss Buckleberry was no longer in the forecourt.
Deciding that was probably just as well—he had no idea what he would have said to her if she’d been there—he climbed up, took the reins, and, with Godfrey once more beside him and Smiggs up behind, he gave the bays the office, and the curricle rolled smoothly down the drive.
Just before they were engulfed by the woods lining the drive, Kit glanced back at the house.
His gaze went directly to a window on the first floor—to the golden-haired lady standing there, watching him drive away.
His gut tightened. Premonition swept over him.
Shrugging off the sensation, he faced forward and set the horses to a faster pace.
Miss Sylvia Buckleberry was the sort of irritating, judgmental female he might, in other circumstances, have been tempted to subtly pursue, purely to rattle her in payment for her hoity dismissal, but the reality was that he would, very likely, never set eyes on her again.
THE END