Accidentally in Love by Claudia Dain Read Free Book Online Page B

been,” Emeline answered, staring him down. “Yet.”
    “I was about to,” Eleanor said. “Shall I introduce you both?”
    “Lord Raithby and my son are well acquainted,” Mrs. Culley said, preening a bit. The feathers at her crown only added to the impression. “They were at school together.”
    “Is that so?” Emeline said. “Then I would dearly love to be introduced to Lord Raithby, Mr. Culley. Would you be so kind?”
    He did it. He did not look pleased to do it, but he did it. Emeline almost laughed to see him so discomposed. Anything was better than the cool and distant composure he always displayed around her.
    Lord Raithby did have quite an elegant looking scar. Emeline would not have thought that she would ever have found a facial scar to be even remotely attractive, yet it was and he was. Very attractive. She must be becoming more the Town sophisticate by the minute.
    Lord Raithby had very dark hair and very dark blue eyes; he was lean and very manly in appearance, very much like Kit, yet they did not look similar in any real measure of the word. Lord Raithby, even as the introductions were being made, gave her the immediate impression of a predatory cat, coiled and still and watchful. Kit was a Greek god and Greek gods, of the sea or of the sky were never still and never watchfully coiled. Greek gods burst upon the scene and caused havoc, which is exactly what Kit had done in her life.
    It was most inconvenient that she loved him for it.
    “You are very prompt upon your word, Culley,” Lord Raithby said, pulling Emeline’s wandering thoughts back to the present conversation.
    “I must ask,” Eleanor said, “what word and upon what topic, Lord Raithby?”
    “Nothing of interest,” Kit said, which was so very impolite of him. His Town polish certainly appeared to need work.
    “I’m sure that, if Lord Raithby thought it worth mentioning,” Mrs. Culley said, interfering so gloriously, “it would be of great interest to all of us.”
    Eleanor looked expectantly at Raithby. Raithby looked at Kit. Kit looked at the floor.
    “It was only that Culley spoke so highly you, Miss Harlow, that I begged an introduction just this afternoon,” Raithby said.
    A wild mix of emotions assaulted Emeline in a confusing swirl of energy. Kit had spoken well of her? Lovely. Kit had spoken well of her to Raithby? Why? In an attempt to hand her off to him? Was he playing at matchmaking? Was he, he who spoke so highly of her, ready to throw her into Raithby’s outstretched hands?
    Emeline looked at Raithby. He did not look back at her with anything she recognized as being avid interest, or even mild interest. His hands did not appear to be outstretched.
    “I hope I do not disappoint, Lord Raithby,” she said.
    “Hardly that. The opposite, in fact,” he said.
    “Lord Raithby, you are too kind,” Emeline said.
    Kit fidgeted. Mrs. Culley looked pleased. Eleanor grinned.
    Emeline was not at all sure she what she was doing, but she certainly seemed to be doing it well.
    “I’m afraid that you have me at a disadvantage, Lord Raithby,” Emeline said, “in that Mr. Culley has told me nothing of you. Then again, he has never spoken at length about his time at school. Was he very studious?”
    “I was not sent down,” Kit said, looking quite thunderously at her.
    “He was as studious as the rest of us,” Raithby said.
    “Not at all, then?” Emeline said with an understanding and sympathetic smile.
    “Christopher has never given either me or his instructors any cause for concern,” Mrs. Culley said.
    “But of course,” Emeline said. “He would hardly do that, would he?”
    Emeline tried to school her features to polite solicitude. She was not at all certain she succeeded.
    “You sound a far better son than I have been a daughter,” Eleanor said. “Both my father and my tutors are exasperated with me.”
    Eleanor did not sound the least bit concerned about it. Eleanor Kirkland, as far as Emeline could tell,