The Perfect Lover (Cynster 10)

ential; the second son of a second son, he’d had to make his way in the world, and had succeeded. The confidence that gave sat like a patina over his person, over the expensive clothes and precise grooming.

Of Lord and Lady Glossup’s generation, Mr. Archer was the father of another Catherine, known to all as Kitty, who had married Lord Glossup’s eldest son, Henry. It was clear to all that Mr. Archer viewed that circumstance as affording entry into the social circles to which he aspired.

Being introduced to Simon made his gaze sharpen; he would have liked to speak for longer, but James artfully guided Simon on.

The next group included Kitty Glossup, in some respects their secondary hostess. Blond, petite but slightly plump, Kitty had a porcelain pink-and-white complexion and glowing blue eyes; her small hands flitted, her lightly rouged lips were forever in motion, either smiling or pouting or talking. She was never happier than when holding center stage; she was vain, flighty—Portia had found they had little in common, but Kitty was not so different from many others in the ton.

Kitty had been conversing with Lady Calvin and Mr. Desmond Winfield. Cynthia, Lady Calvin, was a severe but well-connected widow, a cool, levelheaded lady carefully guiding her two children—Ambrose and her daughter, Drusilla—through life. An earl’s daughter, she moved in the same circles as the Cynsters and Ashfords; she smiled regally on Simon and gave him her hand.

Mr. Winfield had arrived only a few hours before; Portia had yet to learn much of him. His outward appearance declared him a gentleman of independent means, sober and rather thoughtful. She’d gathered he’d been invited through the Archers; she wondered if he was intended for their older, as yet unmarried daughter, Winifred.

Winifred herself was in the next group James conducted Simon toward, as were Henry Glossup, James’s elder brother, Alfreda Archer, Winifred and Kitty’s mother and thus Henry’s mother-in-law, and Drusilla Calvin.

As a longtime friend of James’s, Simon had visited Glossup Hall frequently and knew Henry well; they shook hands as old acquaintances. Henry was an older, quieter, and more solid version of James, a likable sort on whose shoulders responsibility for the estate had devolved.

Alfreda Archer was effusive; Portia sensed Simon’s shields snap into place even from across the room. Mrs. Archer bore all the hallmarks of a matchmaking mama, one keen to use marriage to climb the social ladder. In contrast, Winifred was calm, greeting Simon with a gentle smile and open courtesy, nothing more.

Drusilla barely managed that. She was nearly the same age as Portia, but there the resemblance ended. Drusilla was mousy, retiring, and peculiarly severe for her age. She seemed to view herself as her mother’s companion rather than her daughter; she had, consequently, little interest in either Simon or James, and let it show.

The only others present aside from Lady Osbaldestone and Lord Netherfield, beside whom Portia sat, were Oswald Glossup, James’s younger brother, and Swanston Archer, Kitty’s younger brother. Both were of similar age and attitude; with ridiculously tight, striped waistcoats and coats with long tails, they considered themselves cocks of the walk and strutted accordingly while holding aloof from the rest of the company.

Simon acknowledged them with a curt nod and a look that hinted at disapproval.

And then he and James were approaching the sofa where Lady Osbaldestone and Lord Netherfield had stationed themselves, a little apart from the rest the better to observe and comment without restriction.

Portia rose as the two men neared—not from any sense of proper behavior but simply because she disliked being towered over, especially by two of them at once.

Lady Osbaldestone acknowledged Simon’s greeting and bow with a gleeful thump of her cane, and promptly put him in his place by inquiring, “Well, then—how’s your mother?”

Inured by long experience, likewise aware there would be no escape, he replied with commendable evenness. Lady O demanded an accounting of his younger sisters and his father; while he satisfied her rapacious curiosity, Portia exchanged a smile with James, and engaged him and his grandfather in a discussion of the prettiest walks in the locality.

Lady O eventually released Simon. He turned to Lord Netherfield with a smile and a few words, renewing their previous acquaintance. That done, Simon, now standing beside Portia, turned back to Lady O—and froze.

Portia sensed it, glanced Lady O’s way—and did the same. The basilisk gaze that had terrorized the ton for over fifty years was fixed on them.

Both of them.

They stood transfixed, both uncertain which way to move, how they had transgressed . . .

Awfully, Lady O’s brows slowly rose. “You are acquainted, are you not?”

Portia felt heat rise in her cheeks; from the corner of her eye, she noted Simon fared no better. Despite being perfectly aware of each other, neither had remembered to acknowledge the other’s presence in any socially acceptable way. She opened her lips, but he got in before her.

“Miss Ashford and I met earlier.”

If they hadn’t been standing in plain sight, she would have kicked him. His cool arrogance made it sound as if their meeting had been clandestine! In an airy tone, she explained, “Mr. Cynster was kind enough to drive me back from the village. I’d walked to the lookout.”

“Indeed?” Lady O’s black gaze held them for an instant more, then she nodded and thumped her cane on the floor. “I see!”

Before Portia could decide what she meant by that, Lady O continued, “Very well.” She pointed to her empty cup on the side table. “You may fetch me another cup of tea, sir.”

With an alacrity Portia fully understood, Simon smiled charmingly, whisked up the cup and saucer, and strolled off to where the trolley was stationed at Lady Glossup’s side. James was dispatched to perform the same service for his grandfather. Portia seized the moment to excuse herself and drift across the room to Winifred Archer and Drusilla Calvin—the guests she reasoned Simon was least likely to join.

She might have vowed to consider every eligible gentleman present; that didn’t mean she had to stand beside any of them while she did so.

Especially not beside Simon.

Especially not with Lady O looking on.