Free When the Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke - An American Heiress in London 01 - When the Marquess Met His Match

she knew what he’d felt as she had insulted his character and impugned his honor.
    And it wasn’t as if lingering here was a torture. Quite the contrary, for Rosalie Harlow was a pretty girl. With her honey blond hair, brown eyes, and plump cheeks, her prettiness was rather of the chocolate-box sort, and her lavish gown of pink-and-white-striped silk with its frothy white lace trimmings only served to emphasize that impression, but though she wasn’t the sort of woman he usually preferred, he could not afford to be picky, and pretty was always better than plain. Nicholas began to think this visit to Lady Featherstone hadn’t been a mistake after all.
    He was happy to remain a few more moments, but only a few. A man who wanted to intrigue a woman never arrived too soon or stayed too long. After a few words of desultory conversation, he murmured something about another engagement, conveyed his regret that he could not remain in their company all afternoon, and expressed the hope he had not made them late to luncheon. The latter comment evoked exclamations of dismay from the two women and spurred them toward the luxurious brougham parked at the curb. He followed, assisted the ladies into the carriage, and closed the door behind them.
    Rosalie immediately pulled down the window. “The third waltz, my lord?” It was meant to be a clarification, but Nicholas knew it was a hopeful reminder.
    “The third, Miss Harlow.” This assurance earned him a radiant smile and as he studied her happy countenance through the glass, he decided that Rosalie Harlow was a very pretty girl indeed. She was also charming, amiable, and obviously wealthy. And she seemed to like him, which was a pleasant contrast to the virago upstairs.
    “Walk on,” he told the driver, and he tipped his hat to Miss Harlow as the carriage pulled away from the curb. He waited on the sidewalk until the vehicle had turned the corner before he turned in the opposite direction. He took a glance at the window as he started toward the hansom cab waiting for him, but Lady Featherstone was no longer there.
    In declaring war to her this afternoon, Nicholas hadn’t dreamed his first opportunity to win a battle would come so quickly. As she had introduced him to her young friend, he’d sensed a vulnerability in her that he hadn’t seen before, a definite chink in her cool, polished armor that told him Rosalie Harlow wasn’t just an acquaintance. She was a friend.
    That thought brought with it a vague sense of disquiet, but he forced himself to shove that aside. He didn’t have time for a consideration of Lady Featherstone’s feelings, and truth be told, he wasn’t particularly inclined to do so after what she’d done to him. It wasn’t as if she’d spare him any such regard had their situations been reversed. Besides, he couldn’t eliminate every woman who might be a friend of hers. No, he would have his dance with Miss Harlow, and if she proved amenable to him and he to her, there was no reason he could see not to pursue her.
    A cough brought him out of his reverie, and Nicholas realized he was standing on the sidewalk with a hansom in front of him, and a driver up on the box who was no doubt charging him a fortune for each additional moment he lingered. Before he could give the driver a direction, however, he had to decide where to go from here.
    His most pressing need was money, and thanks to Belinda Featherstone, his options for obtaining it had dwindled considerably, so he really had only one choice left, and that was Denys. He ordered the driver to take him to his friend’s South Audley Street residence.
    Denys, unlike most of their other friends, had decided to become respectable. He wasn’t wealthy by any means, but like most bachelors of the aristocracy, he had a quarterly allowance, and he no longer strove to spend every cent before the next quarter’s allotment came in. In addition, he had full use of his father’s carriages, staff, and London