The Temptation of the Night Jasmine by Lauren Willig Read Free Book Online Page A

them.
    They had tended to travel en masse, Wrothan’s lordlings, clattering into the officers’ mess in a burst of clanking spurs, gleaming silver buttons, and shouted ribaldries, well-groomed hair as burnished as their buttons, cheeks flushed with drink rather than sun. They reminded Robert of the thoroughbred horses his father used to take him to see race at Newmarket, glossy on the surface, but skittish underneath. In the midst of those animal high spirits, one would invariably find Wrothan, calm and contained, the dark kernel at the centre of the storm.
    Lord Frederick Staines had been Wrothan’s greatest coup and most devoted acolyte. His selling out of the army at the same time as Wrothan might have been coincidence – but Robert doubted it.
    Under pretence of adjusting his collar, Robert scanned the group of men under the trees. Aside from his cousin and her friend, the group consisted almost entirely of men, shrouded in many-caped greatcoats, boots shining as though they had never touched anything so mundane as earth. Between high collars and low hat brims, it was next to impossible to make out individual features. To Robert’s prejudiced eyes, they all seemed cast from the same mould: overbred, overdressed, and distinctly overrated.
    Robert strolled casually over to Charlotte. ‘I take it this is the rest of the house party?’
    She had to tip her head back to look at him, bumping her nose on the side of her hood. ‘Only those who weren’t afraid to brave the cold. The faint of heart decided to stay in and toast by the fire.’
    Despite himself, Robert’s frozen lips cracked into a smile. ‘After all these years, you still speak like a book.’
    ‘That’s because she generally has her head buried in one,’ put in her friend, with equal parts affection and scorn.
    ‘I like books,’ said Charlotte disingenuously. ‘They’re so much grander than real life.’
    ‘Certainly grander than this lot,’ snorted her friend, sounding more like the dowager duchess than the duchess herself, but she ruined the effect by raising a hand and acknowledging the enthusiastic halloos of the gentlemen, several of whom seemed quite delighted to see her. Two men broke off from the group, starting forwards in their direction, one considerably ahead of the other.
    The man in the vanguard might, just might, have been Freddy Staines. He was certainly of the same type. His coat possessed enough cloaks to garb a small Indian village and his many watch fobs jangled like a dancing girl’s bracelets as he walked. His light brown hair had been brushed into careful disarray before being topped with a high-crowned beaver hat. Rings jostled for precedence on his fingers, a signet ring bumping up against a curiously scratched ruby in an overly ornate setting.
    ‘Miss Deveraux!’ he exclaimed, before adding, as an after thought, ‘Lady Charlotte.’
    He raised his glass in a toast to the two ladies, sloshing mulled wine over the side in the process. It made a sticky trail through the mud on Robert’s boot.
    No, decided Robert. It wasn’t Staines. This man’s skin was too fair ever to have weathered an Indian summer, and the pronounced veins beginning to show along his nose suggested a prolonged course of heavy drinking with the best smuggled brandy London had to offer.
    He eyed Robert arrogantly through a slightly grimy quizzing glass. ‘And you are?’
    ‘This is Dovedale,’ Miss Deveraux said bluntly, before Robert could get a word in edgewise. ‘It’s his mistletoe you’re cutting.’
    ‘Good Gad! You’re Dovedale ?’
    If a duke fell in the forest, there was no doubt that the entire ton would hear it. The mention of his title commanded universal attention. Conversations stopped. Baskets dropped. Even the dogs ceased barking, except for one spaniel who yipped out of turn before whimpering into silence.
    Robert sketched a wave. ‘Hullo. Carry on.’
    ‘Makes me feel like I ought to curtsy,’ murmured Tommy.
    Silencing