Nothing but Trouble by Allegra Gray Read Free Book Online

bending his head toward hers and whispering silly commentary. To anyone else, there would seem nothing amiss.
    Miss Medford walked with her eyes cast down, only occasionally flicking a glance up to smile at something he said . Almost as though they shared a secret. Almost like lovers.
    They took the same exit back to the terrace and had nearly worked their way around to the front, where waiting carriages with drivers lined the street, when a turbaned woman strolling the opposite direction stopped in her tracks .
    In a surprised voice that carried clearly through the night air, she exclaimed, “Miss Charity Medford ?”
    Beside him, Charity gasped, then took off running.
     
     

 
    Chapter 3 :
    In which Charity is launched out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire.
     
    “Your Grace, I beg of you,” Lady Priscilla Medford said to her son in law, the Duke of Beaufort, as they traveled home from the Foxbeals’ ball in the duke’s luxurious carriage. “Charity listens to no one anymore, save perhaps you, as the benefactor whose generosity has propelled her popularity in the ton .”
    Alex Bainbridge, Duke of Beaufort, silently reminded himself that he loved his wife Elizabeth more than enough to put up with her less-than-ideal relatives. “Charity would be quite popular regardless of my support,” he replied. “But what would you have me do?”
    “Encourage her to marry ,” her mother pleaded. “Soon. I thought last spring’s… experience …would have taught her a much needed lesson. But instead, the girl has grown wilder than ever. I truly fear, if we do not marry her off post-haste, she will do something to render herself unmarriageable.”
    Alex didn’t bother to deny this prophesy . Truth be told, he was surprised it hadn’t happened already.
    “The other day,” Lady Medford continued, “she informed me she’s rejected six offers . Six! Surely at least one of them came from a respectable source.”
    Alex raised his brow . Indeed, all six had—but that had been last year, the Season when Charity had first made her bow. He’d quashed the many others that he’d deemed unworthy before they’d officially become offers. With Charity’s father in the grave, someone needed to look after his wife’s younger sister. Her laughing spirit and zeal for life—traits that won her the affection of everyone she knew—landed her in scrapes more often than not.
    But this Season ? Charity was still popular, to be sure, but with a different crowd. Not the sort of people amongst whom she was likely to find a loyal husband.
    “ She has my encouragement, but I can hardly force her to the altar,” he pointed out. “Nor would I wish to.”
    “Perhaps she just needs time,” Elizabeth offered .
    “You’ve turned soft since Noah was born,” he teased her, referring to their three-month old son.
    “Well,” Elizabeth argued, “Charity chose to attend Almack’s with Mary Summers tonight rather than join us. “What better place for her to go, if we are hoping to see her married and settled?”
    “ Perhaps,” he conceded. Lady Medford nodded her agreement, though the tilt of her head suggested she remained unconvinced.
    “Perhaps if you were to specifically endorse two or three young gentlemen,” Lady Medford suggested. “You could throw a party, Elizabeth, and be sure they were invited. It would still be her choice, of course…”
    Alex didn’t point out that, since the last rejection two weeks ago, no one else had come knocking. Instead he tried to reassure the women. “As you said, she is at the marriage mart this very eve. We shall all simply have to hope fortune beams upon her there.” He refrained from making any additional promises. As much as he loved Charity, he had a feeling that what his mother-in-law asked now—reining her wild daughter in and convincing her to marry—was a task nigh on impossible.
     
     
    Graeme took off after Charity as she ran from the masquerade, catching up and