Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online Page A

an arm through his and smiling graciously. “But may I draw you away for a moment? Lady Sarah Buchan has a question she wishes to ask you, but she is too shy to approach you herself.”
    She led him away in the direction of Lady Sarah, who darted a look of pure venom at Christine before dipping into a deep curtsy and simpering prettily at the approaching duke.
    Gracious heaven, Christine thought, that wager! Did the child seriously believe that she was already scheming to win it? But if the girl did, she was apparently not the only one. Harriet King came to stand before Christine’s chair.
    “A word of friendly advice, Mrs. Derrick,” she said kindly. “You may be able to lure the Duke of Bewcastle to your corner once by smiling invitingly at him and neglecting to look modestly away again, but you are going to need a far more active plan if you are to keep him in conversation for a whole hour.”
    Well, gracious heaven, Christine thought again, and laughed out loud.
    “I am sure you are right,” she said. “I will have to think of something
really
enticing.”
    But instead of sharing the joke, the girl turned away, her kind deed accomplished.
    Christine began to feel a premonition that spending two weeks unobtrusively in a corner might not prove as practicable as she had hoped. She had already drawn as much attention to herself there as she would if she had been standing in the middle of the room waving a banner. Of course, she had never been one to fade into any background—that had been half the trouble during her marriage. She was just too sociable by nature.
    Those eyes! she thought suddenly. She had discovered during her brief conversation with the duke that they were pure silver. They were the most extraordinary eyes she had ever seen. They were hard and cold and quite opaque. One’s own glance seemed to bounce right off them instead of penetrating through to the person within. She had been given the distinct impression either that there
was
no person within but only the hard, arrogant shell of an aristocrat or that the person within was kept well guarded and out of sight to the casual observer.
    Either way they were rather disturbing eyes since, though they could not be seen into, they certainly seemed to possess extraordinary power to see right through one’s head to the hair on the back of it. Seeing them from close range and
feeling
them penetrate her skull had more than confirmed her initial impression that he would be a dangerous man to provoke.
Had
she provoked him? No more than a slightly troublesome gnat buzzing by his ear, she supposed—or flying into his eye.
    She sighed and finished off her fairy cake. She was licking her fingers when Justin arrived in her corner. She jumped gladly to her feet, and they hugged each other warmly.
    “Justin!” she cried. “It has been forever.”
    “
And
a day,” he agreed, grinning at her. “It was Easter, actually. I like your hair short. You look prettier than ever. You have just been making the acquaintance of the great man, I see. I’ll wager Mel had a few sleepless nights after she discovered that Hector had invited him here.”
    “And then she came to Hyacinth Cottage to persuade me to come too so that the numbers would be even again,” Christine said, grimacing. “And you know what Melanie is like when she has her mind set upon something. I did not stand a chance.”
    “Poor Chrissie!” He laughed at her. “And lucky me.”
    Christine relaxed for the first time all day, it seemed.
     
    “C HRISTINE WAS MARRIED to my poor cousin Oscar,” Lady Renable explained to Wulfric. “Perhaps you knew him? He was Viscount Elrick’s younger brother. He was charming and well loved. His death was a tragedy, especially for Christine, who was forced to return to her mother’s house in the village here. She was the daughter of the village schoolmaster when Oscar married her. She did brilliantly for herself. But, alas, it did not last, and now I feel