A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior by Suzanne Enoch Read Free Book Online Page B

For heaven’s sake, she had literally penned a booklet on the subject. And so she also knew when a lady could—albeit delicately—allow her displeasure to be known. The fact that she’d rarely ever done so before didn’t even signify. “Whatever your opinion of him, Alexander, I have agreed to dance with Colonel James, just as I’ve agreed to dance with you. If I decline one, I shall have to decline them all.”
    He blew out his breath. “I see. I’m going to fetch myself a drink, then, and desist from any further arguments with beautiful women. I’ll be back for my dance.” Bending down, he collected her hand and drew it up to kiss her knuckles.
    While she took a moment to settle her thoughts, he strolled back into the crowd. Yes, he’d done the proper thing by leaving, but it wasn’t very…satisfying. “Coward,” she muttered, then turned around—and stopped abruptly. “Colonel.”
    Bartholomew James stood directly in front of her, close enough to touch. The way her heart jumped, she almost felt as though she had been touched. For a long moment he gazed down at her in silence, his whiskey-colored eyes seeming to see straight through her skin and into her soul.
    “Is there something you require?” she finally demanded, folding her arms across her chest and lifting her chin to reduce the difference in their heights.
    “You have no idea what I require.”
    “Which is why I asked.”
    His mouth pinched at one corner, then relaxed again. “I want my dance now.” He turned on his heel. “Out in the garden.”
    “I am not going out into the garden with you,” she returned, keeping her expression easy despite the sudden rush of her heartbeat.
    “Coward,” he said over his shoulder, in the exact same tone she’d used against Montrose.
    Oh, he was aggravating. Blowing out her breath, she tromped after him. “Very well. I imagine I can outrun you,” she said stiffly.
    “I imagine you can.”
    “You know I actually have a partner for this dance.”
    “Then go dance. I’m going out to the garden.”
    She saw Elliot Pender making his way toward her, and she smiled at him. “I cannot be impolite, Colonel. It’s not seem—”
    Colonel James was halfway across the room and out of earshot already, despite his game leg. Damnation. If she stayed and danced, he would still call her a coward, even when she had a perfectly legitimate reason for remaining behind.
    “Tess,” Elliot said with a bow as he reached her. “Our country dance?”
    “Elliot, I’ve a pebble or something in my shoe.” She made a show of shaking her right foot. “Would you give me the country dance after the waltz in place of this one?”
    “I…Certainly. I’ll just go find—”
    “Oh, thank you,” she interrupted, and hurried away.
    She felt a bit silly following behind a badly limping man who hadn’t even checked to see whether she was still there. If it would keep him from calling her a coward again, however, she would tolerate it.
    The colonel shouldered open one of the full-length windows and rather ungracefully stepped out into the Haramund House garden. Torches lined the curvingstone pathway, dimmer than the bright chandelier light inside, but still nearly enough to read by.
    “Are we going to march all the way around the house?” she asked. “Because I didn’t wear my walking shoes. And I told Mr. Pender I’ve a pebble in one of my slippers.”
    He stopped, his back still to her. “Montrose is courting you.”
    “Yes, he is.”
    “Then why in God’s name did you…flirt with me yesterday?”
    Theresa opened her mouth to retort that she hadn’t been flirting with him at all. The breath of vulnerability in his hard voice, though, stopped her. She had the sudden impression that no one had flirted with him in some time. And of course she’d been flirting with him. She might not have called it that at the time, but as she stood behind him now, alone in the garden, it was obvious. She wouldn’t have come out