Free The Seduction by Laura Lee Guhrke Page B

her room, then she had taken a carriage to Lady Rathgate's villa to spend the day. Lady Kettering and the Duchess of Arbuthnot had accompanied her. Later, Margaret had sent a note saying they would be staying there for tea, as Lady Rathgate had insisted on it. He could have called on Lady Rathgate , of course, but he was not going to chase after Margaret, playing the lovesick schoolboy. For one thing, he wasn't lovesick, and for another, acting like it wasn't going to gain him anything.
    It did not surprise Trevor that she was avoiding him. In fact, he'd expected this, and he chose to turn her absence to his advantage. He politely declined Henry and Edward's invitation to help them dig up Roman pottery, and four o'clock found him seated on a velvet settee in the drawing room with the ladies who had not gone to Lady Rathgate's . He was obtaining much needed information about Margaret, along with his tea and crumpets.
    "Of course," Agnes Ellerby was saying, "Maggie is very modern, and has modern views. Very admirable, I think."
    "Posh," Lady Lytton said, and gave her daughter a disapproving frown. "Agnes, dear, don't take any foolish notions into your head about these modern views. It won't do. Margaret is an American." She waved a hand in the air and added, "Suffragettes, the vote, and all that sort of thing. Not at all appropriate."
    Trevor took a swallow of tea. "Miss Van Alden is a suffragette?"
    Agnes giggled. "No, no. She doesn't hand out pamphlets and make speeches, if that is what you mean. But she is very outspoken and does have a taste for adventure. She comes very close to the edge of what is considered proper."
    Trevor thought of Margaret's encounter with Roger in the garden, an image that always made him want to smile. "Really? In what way?"
    Agnes brushed back a wisp of her dark hair and leaned forward, clearly willing to engage in gossip. "She went into the card room at Lady Longford's rout last autumn and played whist with Lord Neville, Lord Caverton , and Lord Edgeware . She even placed a few wagers. It caused quite a sensation."
    "As well it should." Lady Lytton shook her head with such agitation that Trevor thought the stuffed partridge on her hat was going to take flight. "She was smoking cigars with the gentlemen in that card room, so they say. But what else can you expect from an American? Bold girls, all of them. They come over here with their fast ways and their gushing manners to marry our young gentlemen, stealing them away from our own English girls. It's frightful."
    "Mama, that's not fair," Agnes protested. "Margaret doesn't gush, and she hasn't married one of our gentlemen. Quite the opposite. She says she'll never marry an Englishman."
    "Well, of course she won't," the countess answered. "No gentleman would marry a girl who smokes cigars."
    "Lord Hymes offered for her after the card room incident, Mama. I think you are being unfair."
    Lady Lytton gave a rather unladylike snort of displeasure. "That will be enough, Agnes. Margaret goes horseback riding alone, she makes the most outrageous comments, and she constantly addresses peers incorrectly because she can't be bothered to learn the rules of the peerage. Also, she defies her own father at every opportunity. No gentleman could possibly want a wife who would embarrass him and is so strong- willed that he could not control her. She's pretty enough, I suppose. Although she certainly doesn't have the figure to carry off those Worth gowns of hers," Lady Lytton added. "She's much too chubby."
    Trevor felt a spark of irritation at the countess's spiteful words. He thought of Margaret's luscious shape and had to refrain from giving Lady Lytton a man's viewpoint on the subject.
    "I still find her rather daring," Agnes added wistfully.
    "But isn't daring rather inappropriate in a woman?" Sally turned to Trevor, her blue eyes wide. "Lord Ashton, what is your view?"
    Sally was a slender, fair girl with a bland, chocolate- box sort of prettiness that left