The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke (2 page)

“Perhaps even your life,” Greer added. “He’s got a recklessness in him that borders on madness. And when he does deign to dance, it is only to seduce. That is how his affair with Lady Waterstone began,

you know.”

Ava smiled with surprise. “You s eem to be uncommonly well informed about him, Greer.”

“I’ve overheard quite a lot about him, and none of it good,” she said with a shrug. “Have your affair with

Harrison, Ava, for he’s every bit as handsome. Really…every bit,” she said wistfully.

The three young women looked at Harrison for a moment. With his dark hair and clear blue eyes, he was quite handsome —but Ava’s gaze slid back to Middleton, who was smiling alluringly at a woman near

him.

She could imagine he seduced women all the time , which was, frankly, part of his allure.

But she was not

so foolish that she didn’t know Middleton was just a dream to mere mortals such as themselves. While

on paper their standing in society was quite respectable —their late father had been an earl—their real

social standing did not meet the standards that would be expected for a future duke.

Middleton’s title and income —not to mention his fine looks and charming manner —were such that he could attract any

woman he desired. Surely all women desired him —the words he uttered in the course of his casual flirtations were legendary, known to most women through the excited whispers in ladies’ retiring rooms about Mayfair.

Ava had no expectation of ever being noticed by a man of his stature, much less engaged in any sort of

affair. Nevertheless, she found the fantasy delightful. “Then perhaps I shall just marry him,” she said gaily, startling her sister and cousin. “Why shouldn’t I?” she said to their twin expressions of shock. “I am the daughter of an earl, and I ’m at least as desirable as Lady Elizabeth.”

The three of them glanced to their left, where Lady Elizabeth, wearing a drab yellow gown, was holding court with a coterie of debutantes who flocked around her like so many geese. Unfortunately, she stood next to Miss Grace Holcomb, the daughter of a very wealthy merchant who had just arrived in London, from as far away as Leeds. Miss Holcomb, an amiable young woman by all accounts, was quite eager to take her place in a society that valued birthright as much a s fortune, and had made the grave mistake of attaching herself to the humorless Lady Elizabeth. Perhaps as a testament to her wealth, Miss Holcomb was wearing a very bright rose -colored gown and lots of glittering jewelry. Elizabeth faded quite from

sight next to Miss Holcomb, a situation Ava was certain Elizabeth would remedy in short order. “Well, then?” Ava asked. “Am I not at least as desirable?”

“Obviously, you exceed her in looks and bearing,” Greer said thoughtfully, receiving a small but grateful nod of acknowledgment from Ava, for Elizabeth did indeed have a rather spectacular nose, “but

everyone expects her to be the Season’s favorite. And you, dearest, have been out for three years now and remain quite unmarried.” She wiggled three gloved fingers at Ava to press home her point.

Ava grabbed those fingers and squeezed playfully. “Not from a lack of opportunity,” she said. “I’ve had more than my fair share of offers, just like you, dearest.”

She did not look at Phoebe, who’d not had an offer since h er coming out last year—the poor dear was painfully shy around gentlemen. Greer, on the other hand, was so clever that gentlemen always sought her partnership in parlor games. And Ava —well, Ava was quite happy to enjoy the courtly attentions of a

variety of gentlemen, and in fact, encouraged it. “I happen to enjoy being unmarried. Life is far more

exciting with the attention of many handsome men and I suspect exceedingly dull with the attention of only one.”

“Then you and Lord Middleton must be very much alike,” Phoebe opined. Greer laughed roundly at that, and Ava inadvertently glanced at the entrance of the ballroom again.

Unfortunately, her fantasy had disappeared along with Harrison into the crowd. Worse, Sir Garrett was closing in on her, striding as

quickly as his corseted girth would allow. “Oh how divine,” Greer said cheerfully.

“Now you may enjoy the attention of Sir Garrett.”

Ava groaned; Sir Garrett was a very large and gregarious man with thi ck lips and a tuft of hair on the

crown of his head. He had, over the course of two Seasons, developed great affection for her. Lately, he

’d begun to make a nuisance of himself —he sought her out at every opportunity and had begun to monopolize her at ever y event.

Yet Ava took pity on the man. He’d never married and seemed to be rather lonely. She could hardly

deny him a dance now and again, but the poor thing was rather thick when it came to her gentle rebuffs.

He did not seem to understand that agreeing to dance with him was her way of being polite.

As he arrived at her side, Ava heard Phoebe giggle and felt her elbow at her waist, yet she smiled graciously as Sir Garrett reached for her hand. “Lady Ava,” he said, bending over it.

“Sir Garrett, what a pleasure,” she said, dipping into a curtsy.

He grinned broadly, bumped the back of her hand with his lips, then turned his grin to Phoebe and Greer

as Ava pulled her hand free of his bearlike grasp.

“If I may be so bold,” he said, turning his attention to Ava once more, “I would remark that you are by

far the fairest of all the many ladies in attendance tonight,” he said, sweeping his arm wide to indicate all

the ladies, and obviously forgetting Greer and Phoebe. Ava reminded him with a small inclination of her head.

Sir Garrett instantly realized his faux pas; his florid face flushed even more. “That is to say…the three of you, ah…Fairchilds, all of you…are quite…fair,” he stammered, turning hopelessly redder.

Phoebe and Greer smiled demurely and thanked him for his kind words, as they had on at least two previous occasions.

He removed a kerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead, his gaze on Ava again. “Miss

Fairchild, would you do me the honor of sta nding up with me on the next dance?” he asked, dabbing at

his temple. “I believe it will be a quadrille, and I assure you, I have endeavored to learn the steps in the correct sequence so there will not be another incident as you had the misfortune to endure at the Beltrose ball.”

The misfortune being that Sir Garrett had mashed her poor toes quite flat on a quadrille.

But Ava felt that

old tug of sorrow for the hapless knight and smiled. At least she would get the dance over and done with. “I’d be delighte d, sir.”

His face lit up with his pleasure. “Oh!” he exclaimed, and clapped an arm across his barrel chest, the kerchief waving like a little flag between his fingers, “you do me such honor, Lady Ava!” He quickly

stuffed the kerchief in his pocket and offered his hand, broad palm up.

Ava reluctantly slipped her hand into the paw he offered and shot a look of helplessness at Phoebe and

Greer as Sir Garrett marched her toward the dance floor.

On the opposite side of the ballroom, Harrison had kicked Jared onto the dance floor so that he might have a moment with a young woman who seemed more interested in Jared than him. Jared had obliged Harrison’s interest in the woman by asking Mrs. Honeycutt, a woman whose personal company he had enjoyed for three full weeks one summer while her husband was in Scotland, to stand up with him for a quadrille. He preferred the quadrille for old lovers, as the dance was performed with four in a square,

which meant there was really no place with sufficient privacy to ta lk about hurt feelings over old news, as women were wont to do.

A waltz, on the other hand, was a very private dance and lent itself to the whispering of amorous suggestions to women he had not yet had the pleasure of knowing.

Mrs. Honeycutt was determin ed, however, to tell him what she thought. “I have missed you,” she whispered as he took her arm and twirled her around. Jared said nothing, just smiled, let her go, and moved around the square to Lady Williamson. But when he turned to face Mrs. Honeycutt again, she looked at him like a sad little puppy that was not permitted to go abroad with its master.

Jared smiled charmingly, bowed his head, and stepped forward, took her hands in his, went round, and

let her go. And when he stepped back to his position, he collided hard with someone at his back. “Oh dear!” Lady Williamson exclaimed, looking over his shoulder.

Jared quickly pivoted about; the person who had collided with him was an attractive young woman with dark blond hair and startlingly pale green eyes. She was, unfortunately, in the hands of Sir Garrett.

“I do beg your pardon, my lord,” Garrett blustered, and groped awkwardly for the hands of his dance partner as a bead of perspiration ran down his temple.

The woman glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Jared in a funny way, as if she was perhaps a bit mortified, but far more amused to have been swung so violently into him.

And if he wasn’t mistaken, she gave him an apologetic shrug of her should ers before turning her full attention to Sir Garrett again.

As well she should have. Her very life was at stake.

Jared turned back to his square and fell easily into step once again. But as he passed around the circle,

he caught the eye of the woman agai n. She smiled fully at him, and it struck him that there was no vanity

or guile—or perhaps more important, no avarice —in that smile. So many women looked at him with the gleam of want in their eyes.

But this one had green eyes full of laughter, and he rea lized, watching her be manhandled by Garrett again, that she was not attempting to gain his attention as he might have expected, but was genuinely amused by the clumsy dancing she was being forced to endure.

That, he thought, was refreshingly different. H e knew far too many members of the fairer sex who would have been quite appalled by Garrett’s handling and would have said as much. The man was a war

veteran and fiercely loyal to the crown, and what he lacked in social finesse he made up tenfold in courage. Jared respected the woman’s ability to see beyond her partner’s bumbling dance.

He had no notion of who this woman was, but he was mildly intrigued.

When he came around to the side where he might see her again, Sir Garrett’s body shielded her from view, and he did not have occasion to catch sight of her again on the dance floor, and for that he was sorry.

S ome time later, at the back of the ballroom, partially hidden by a massive palm, Ava, Phoebe, and

Greer frowned at the slipper Ava held in her hand.

“It’s hopelessly broken,” Phoebe declared, flicking the heel with her finger. The offending piece clung to

the rest of the shoe by an alarmingly small sliver of silk. “And I worked so hard to bead it,” she added with a bit of a pout.

What Phoebe lacked in self -confidence she made up in creative endeavors. She was a master at taking their purchased gowns and shoes and accoutrements and enhancing them with embroidery and beading

to make them truly original. She had beaded the slippers Ava was wearing over a fortnight this winter, painstakingly creating tiny suns that matched the dark gold embroidery she’d done on the blue silk gown Ava was wearing. She’d also strung small, glittering beads together that the three of them wore wrapped in their hair.

“Clumsy Sir Garrett,” Ava sighed. “He hadn’t the slightest notion of the steps, and he moved forward instead of backward as he ought to have done, and pushed me right off the edge of the dance floor.”

“Poor man,” Greer said. “To be so hopelessly besotted with a woman who shall not have him.”

“Of course I shall not have him,” Ava muttered as she studied her shoe. “If he were to offer, I’d politely decline and suggest he set his sights on Miss Holcomb. She would be delighted to receive an offer from a knight.”

“Aunt Cassandra said you really must begin to consider all serious offers,” Greer reminded her.

Phoebe and Ava stopped in their examination of the slipper and looked at Greer. Greer raised a brow.

“Did she indeed? And pray tell, what did she say of you?” Ava asked. “You are only a year younger than me, and you’ve had one serious offer this young Season that you refused.”

“My circumstance is quite different from yours,” Greer said calmly. “I cannot possibly consent to marry a man who will not read as much as a newspaper, and Lord Winston, by his own admission, does not

enjoy reading at all. In fact, he admitted quite plainly that he believes books are a frivolous expense.”

“There, you see?” Ava asked as she slipped her foot into the offending shoe. “You have made my point.

We are not bound to accept offers from gentlemen we cannot abide every day for the rest of our lives. It

is the same reason I cannot accept Sir Garrett’s offer.”

“No…but Lord Downey might, ” Greer suggested, referring to her aunt Cassandra’s current husband, Ava and Phoebe’s stepfather.

Ava frowned at her cousin. “Fortunately, Mother is not bound to agree with Lord Downey’s

preferences. If Mother wasn’t feeling unwell and was in attendance tonight, she would remind you that

she would never marry me away to Sir Garrett, as a match with him would be ‘neither convenient nor inspired,’ ” she said, mimicking her mother.

Greer smiled—Lady Downey had told them many times that marriage was strictly a matter of

convenience and fortune, and rarely inspired.

Privately, Ava thought her mother’s second marriage to Lord Downey was neither very convenient nor inspired, and really did no t see the allure of such an arrangement at all. At two and twenty, Ava was one

of the oldest unmarried women among the Quality still considered to be marriageable, and yet she saw no reason to rush into a match —her mother’s fortune was more than enough to keep them all quite happy.

Why shouldn’t one hope for compatibility and affection above fortune? What purpose was there in a marriage of convenience if a young lady already had a suitable fortune to provide for her? Ava preferred