Free One Naughty Night2 by Laurel McKee Page A

curiosities, but they were never truly friends.
    Such as her and Aidan Huntington.
Lord
Aidan. The gulf between them was wide and dark, lined with jagged rocks and high walls. She could stand on the edge and look across at him, call to him, but she could not cross.
    Maybe he knew the chasm as well, and that was why he had not talked to her when he came to the theater.
    Then she glimpsed his name toward the bottom of the page, in smudged black print. She closed her eyes and opened them again, sure she was imagining things since her thoughts were so intently on him. But it was still there:
Lord Aidan Huntington, younger son of the Duke of Carston—
Lily opened the page and read further—
was seen dancing with the beauteous Lady HL, daughter of the Earl of D and the diamond of the season. Is a betrothal in the air? Will two of England’s oldest families be momentously united? And will Lord A’s elder brother be next? He has not been seen in London for many a month…
    Lady HL. Lily flipped the paper closed and reached for her tea. It had to be Lady Henrietta Lindley. Of course he would be linked with the “diamond” daughter of an earl. She would expect no less. But still the thought stung, the vision of him dancing with a white-clad deb. Kissing her, touching her, telling her all the things he wanted to do with her, as he had with Lily in her office. The chasm didn’t seem so wide between them then.
    Her cup clattered in its saucer.
    “Lily?” Isabel said. “Was there something disturbing in the paper after all?”
    “Not at all,” Lily answered in a strangled voice as she dabbed at the spot of tea on the tablecloth.
    “Let me see,” Dominic said, and snatched the paper away from her before she could protest. He flipped through the pages until he came to the one she had been reading.
    He scanned the gossip columns until suddenly he scowled, and his eyes became darker than the hungover shadows on his face.
    “Lord Aidan Huntington,” Dominic said, and threw the paper back at her. “Does it upset you that he’s practically betrothed, then, Lily? Were his attentions at the club last week not enough? Or when he appeared at the theater?”
    “Don’t be stupid, Dominic,” she cried, and threw the paper right back at his head. It bounced off and scattered on the rug. “He was hardly paying me attentions last week, and he did not even talk to me at the theater. I was showing him the club, as he said his cousin was an investor.
You
would have tossed him out and caused a scene on our first night in business. At least I know how to control myself.”
    “Control yourself?” Dominic thundered. “You disappeared with him for an hour!”
    “An hour?” Brendan said, his scowl matching Dominic’s. “What were you doing with him, Lily?”
    Lily felt her face turn uncomfortably warm, and she turned away to fuss with her napkin as Isabel looked on, wide-eyed, and James smirked. “That’s hardly any of your business, is it? I am a grown woman, a widow. And where did you and that red-haired hussy Louisa Carstairs go off to, Dominic?”
    “Damn it all, Lily!” Dominic burst out.
    “Language, Dominic,” Katherine said, quelling their argument with the sound of her quiet voice. “I won’t have such talk at my table.”
    “Sorry, Mama,” Dominic muttered.
    Katherine tapped her fingers on the table and examined Lily thoughtfully. “Aidan Huntington? The son of the Duke of Carston? He was at your club?”
    “And being very attentive to Lily,” Dominic said.
    “No more than he would have been to any other hostess,” said Lily.
    “Was he the one who sent the flowers?” Katherine asked.
    “He sent flowers?” Dominic exploded, only to sit back at a look from his mother.
    “Violets,” said Isabel. “They were beautiful. Oh, Lily, was it him? Is he as handsome as they say? Did he dance with you at the club?” Isabel cared nothing at all for the past between the St. Claires and the Huntingtons—she was too