Cupid's Mistake (Cupid Regency Romance) by Karen Harbaugh Read Free Book Online Page B

about in a raree show." He gave her a wicked smile.
    " You are the most detestable boy imaginable! I do not have two heads!"
    " I never said you did!"
    " Did you say something, Psyche?" Lady Hathaway called.
    Harry shot Psyche a warning look.
    "No, Mama." Psyche made herself look as innocent as possible. She sighed and sipped the tea the butler had brought in. Telling lies was becoming quite easy lately. Her mother smiled at her and returned to the conversation.
    " Really, Harry, you are provoking!" Psyche whispered. He opened his mouth to retort, but she shook her head slightly. "Now enough! What do you think of Lord Blytheland?"
    Her friend, wings motionless from concentration, stared at the marquess, then frowned. "I can't have made another mistake . . . no, there must be something wrong with him."
    " Whatever can you mean?"
    " Only look at him. He is obviously attracted to your sister, but he resists it. It is not something I like at all."
    Psyche felt uneasy. Harry could be the most amiable boy imaginable, but he took certain things quite personally, especially when it came to the way gentlemen and ladies behaved toward one another. He was staring at both Cassandra and Lord Blytheland in a most intent way, as if trying to solve a puzzle. His frown deepened.
    "Perhaps we should tell Mama that he is not really a good match for Cassandra," Psyche said. She felt a little uneasy. Harry could be very persistent if things did not go the way he wished.
    Harry shook his head. "He is a good match. I never make a mistake about such things." A brief, uncomfortable look flashed across his face, but he continued. "He is arrogant, Psyche. It's hubris, and that is always offensive to me."
    Psyche was not entirely sure what hubris was, but it was not something one did or had without getting Harry and his relatives irritated. Her uneasiness grew. She remembered the stories her father had told her about Harry 's relatives, and began to wonder if the marquess would end up turned into a tree, or chained to a rock and eaten by vultures. However, she was certain there were no vultures in England, so perhaps his punishment would not be so very severe. There were ducks, though. She tried to envision death by duck, but it did not seem very much the same as death by vulture, somehow.
    Harry made a short, angry sound, so startling Psyche out of her thoughts that she almost upset her tea. She looked at him and watched his expression grow more stormy as he gazed at Lord Blytheland.
    "He believes he is invulnerable when he truly is not. In a way, he is a little like your brother Kenneth, who pinches maids and kisses them, but never does anything else. Blytheland tells himself he does not need a wife, is not in love with your sister, and that he is looking for more than what she has to offer as either wife or lover." He looked solemnly at her.
    " Are you saying he will pinch Cassandra?" Psyche gnawed her lower lip. She had thought the marquess a very amiable sort of gentleman. She could not imagine him pinching anyone, much less her sister.
    Harry suddenly grinned. "If only he would! Then I would not need to give him the punishment he deserves for his arrogance. Your sister would give him such a set-down that he would need a shovel to dig himself out of the ground."
    " Then where is the trouble?"
    " Look at Cassandra."
    Psyche turned in her chair. Her sister 's gaze was intent on Lord Blytheland's face, drinking up his words as if they were some life-sustaining elixir.
    " Is she in love with him?"
    " Of course, though she does not know it quite yet."
    " Of course? Why is that?" Psyche looked suspiciously at him. "You didn't!"
    " No, I did not shoot any of my arrows at her!" Harry said indignantly. "Your sister doesn't need any. I shot my arrows at him . And he has such arrogance that he refuses to give in to them."
    Psyche looked at him, horrified. "You didn't !"
    " Yes I did." Harry smiled in a satisfied way. "It was when your sister and your parents