Wicked by Cheryl Holt Read Free Book Online Page B

this house, if I waited for people to remember their manners, I’d be ninety years old before it was accomplished.” He took her hand and made a very polite, very proper bow over it. “Lucas Drake, at your service, Miss Ralston.”
    Her heart literally skipped a beat. “Lucas…Drake?”
    “Yes. Of the very lofty, very pretentious, very patronizing Sidwell Drakes. No doubt you know of us. Please say you do. If I have to tell my father, George, Lord Sidwell, that you haven’t heard of his exalted self, I can’t predict how he’ll bear up.”
    “No,” she lied. “I’m not acquainted with your family.”
    “How awful of you not to pretend.”
    “I guess I need to develop some guile.”
    “You certainly do—if you expect to swim in this ocean of sharks. You’re much too nice. You’ll be eaten alive.”
    A young lady hailed him from across the room, and he smiled at Rose again. He was such a charismatic rogue, but he was fully aware of his allure. She imagined he’d broken hearts all over the kingdom. What girl could resist such a devil?
    “The vicar has departed.” He murmured the news to Rose as if they were conspirators. “With him having left, we can start dancing.”
    “He doesn’t approve of dancing?”
    “He doesn’t approve of any frivolity, so we have to behave until he’s gone. Then the fun can begin.” He stepped away. “I promised to help move the furniture in the parlor to clear the floor. When there’s dancing, I usually play the pianoforte—I know all the bawdy songs—but you must drag me away at least once so I can be your partner.”
    “I will,” she lied again.
    His smile became even more beguiling, and he swept off. She stood, frozen in place until he vanished around the corner, then she slipped out the French windows onto the verandah and fled to the garden.
    She wasn’t sure where she was headed. Reeling with emotion, she couldn’t decide whether to be furious or humored. But why would she feel anything at all? What was Lucas Drake to her?
    Her cousin, that’s what.
    The old Lord Sidwell had been her grandfather, the man who’d disowned her mother and dumped Rose on Miss Peabody when she was four. The current Lord Sidwell was her uncle, the man who’d never contacted her, who’d never visited, who’d never invited her for a single holiday.
    Lucas Drake was so oblivious and self-centered that he didn’t note their close relation. It was outrageous. It was humiliating. It was galling.
    Had Lucas never been told about Rose’s mother who was his aunt? Had he never been told he had a cousin? If he’d been informed, had he never been apprised of Rose’s name? Did he know her name—Rose Ralston—but was so maddeningly dense that he didn’t grasp their connection?
    She was in a blind temper, marching along in the dark and angrier than she could ever recollect being. What with her having agreed to wed Mr. Oswald, she had enough on her plate. Must she deal with Lucas Drake too?
    When he’d provided his surname, she should have curtly and succinctly notified him of precisely who she was, but she’d been too stunned to speak up.
    Having discovered his identity, she would find it excruciating to socialize, and she wasn’t certain she could be civil. Rumor had it that he and Mr. Talbot were to leave shortly for London. How soon would that be?
    She rounded a corner and, to her horror, crashed into a man who was approaching from the opposite direction. She hit him so hard that she nearly knocked him down.
    “Oh, oh, pardon me,” she gasped. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
    “You’re in quite a hurry, aren’t you?”
    “I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m sorry,” she repeated.
    The man straightened, and he was rubbing his chest where her forehead had smacked into him. As she peered up into his face, she was vexed to see that it was James Talbot.
    He’d attended the supper, and they had studiously avoided each other through the entire