The Beguilement of Lady Eustacia Cavanagh (The Cavanaughs 3)

More’s the pity. He promptly buried the thought.

The clock on the mantelpiece whirred, then chimed three times. He set aside the glass and got to his feet. “I should leave—we’ll both have meetings with others to weather later today. I’ll send a notice to the Gazette, but it won’t run until tomorrow’s edition.”

She rose and fell in beside him as he walked to the door. “Not that the ton will need a notice in a newspaper—I predict our engagement will be the principal topic of conversation over the breakfast cups throughout Mayfair and surrounds.”

He grunted and walked with her along the short corridor to the dimly lit front hall. She’d sent her staff to their beds before he and she had sought refuge in the parlor; the two of them were the only ones awake and about in the house.

They halted before the front door, and he faced her, caught her hand, and gently squeezed. “So we’re agreed—we behave as if our engagement is real, at least until July?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

He scanned her face, but the shadows cloaked her expression and made reading her eyes impossible. They were standing quite close; on impulse, he raised the hand he held to his lips and, more slowly this time, brushed a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

Because he was watching her like a hawk, he detected the slight hitch in her breathing and the way her lips fractionally parted. He definitely wasn’t the only one who felt the prod of that flaring attraction, wasn’t the only one susceptible to it.

For a second, he battled an impulse to lean closer and taste her lips, but he wasn’t sure either of them was yet ready for that—ready for what such a caress might reveal. Instead, he forced himself to smile easily and release her hand. “I’ll call later in the day.”

She nodded again. “Until later.”

She opened the door, and with a last tip of his head, he walked out. He paused on the porch and heard the door softly shut behind him. His carriage waited by the curb, his coachman nodding on the box.

He started down the steps, his mind toying with a novel notion. She’d inveigled him into performing for the ton again; she hadn’t accepted his initial dismissal and had persisted until he’d agreed.

If pushed, he might now admit that him returning to playing within the ton might, indeed, be a good thing—something that was meant to be.

So why shouldn’t he return the favor?

He had no idea why she was so set against marrying—given her age and unmarried state, it didn’t appear to be marriage to him but marriage in general she’d taken against.

She’d boldly challenged his stance of not playing for the ton—and had been proved correct.

Perhaps it was time someone—him—challenged her attitude to marrying.

He reached the carriage and opened the door, startling his coachman awake. “Home, Jenkins,” he ordered and climbed aboard and sat.

As the coach quietly rattled off, he leaned back in the shadows and pondered a fact even more unexpected than their engagement, namely,

that a large part of his mind was insisting that convincing Stacie to allow their unintentional engagement to stand was not just a good but an excellent idea.

Stacie stood in the shadows of the front hall and stared at the door she’d closed and locked. Her senses were not entirely steady; the back of her knuckles, where Frederick’s lips had brushed, still felt entrancingly warm.

She hauled in a constricted breath and slowly let it out. She wasn’t at all sure that agreeing to a four-month-long sham engagement was the wisest course, but his arguments had made sense. And he hadn’t even thought to blame her for treading on her hem and landing them in this ludicrous predicament; some gentlemen would have.

After a moment, she looked around her—recalling all the people who had been there that night, the unalloyed success of her long-anticipated first musical evening, ultimately trumped by what the ton would consider the highest triumph of all, namely her engagement to Albury.

Success upon success—and behind it lurked potential disaster.

Still, he had thought of a safe way out for both of them; despite what her panicked mind had thought, they hadn’t been trapped into unavoidable matrimony.

Her thoughts, she realized, were going around and around.

She was utterly wrung out; she needed sleep. With a sigh, she turned and started up the stairs.

Today was already a new day.

After the eventful night, Frederick breakfasted later than usual. He was still at the breakfast table, sipping coffee and glancing through The Times, when his mother, trailed by Emily, swept into the room.

“Good morning, Frederick,” his mother said as she continued to the sideboard.