Free The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne by Jayne Fresina Page B

right about both his statement and his previous guess.
    “And with your scandalous behavior, who else would have you?” he added, firm-lipped, struggling not to laugh at her expression. “I, of course, am accustomed to the sharp cuts of your tongue. There is no part of me you’ve yet to wound. That makes me immune.”
    “ Me wound you ?”
    “Of course. Do you deny—?”
    “I don’t want to marry,” she snapped. “I like my life the way it is, unfettered. I can’t imagine making room for a man now.”
    “What about the count? Do you make no room for him?”
    A quick little swallow fluttered in her slender neck. “He is free to come and go as he pleases. As am I. A husband is a permanent inconvenience. I’d much rather see a man occasionally, when he’s in a good mood. Then, if he’s sick with a cold and miserable, I can send him home again with a friendly word of caution to stay away from drafts, and he is no longer my responsibility.”
    She had a sharply satirical eye, and if he wasn’t very much mistaken, that was a wry curve pulling on the left corner of her mouth. She kept winding it back again, determined to be cross with him, but the half smile was equally determined to unwind, darkly entertained at his expense. He’d meant only to tease her with his abrupt proposal of marriage, knowing how she had an aversion to longer attachments—that string of brief engagements, entered into and abandoned with equal haste, was evidence enough. But now that he’d begun to discuss the thought aloud with her, it actually began to seem…feasible.
    Perhaps it was the heat of the room, the headiness of her perfume, the mischief in her funny half smile.
    Hmmm. Her smile. He’d seen it many times over the term of their unfortunate acquaintance, but there was something about it tonight. Something that poked an insistent finger at his memory.
    She had very nice lips. They were the sort of lips that kept a man looking at them, wondering how they tasted.
    “There are at least half-a-dozen women here tonight far more suitable than me,” those naughty lips assured him firmly.
    “Oh?”
    “Lady Southwold. Was that not she just now?”
    “Yes, it was she, and no, I’m not going to marry her.”
    “Why not?”
    “You said yourself that she’s a faithless hussy. Making overtures to your lover. Is that not what you told me?”
    Her lashes lifted, and he basked in the warmth of her gaze again. “Yes.”
    “Then she’s not right for me.” He let his hand slide a half inch lower down her spine. If she noticed, she kept it to herself. He spread his fingers over the butter-soft muslin, already feeling a sense of possessiveness. In all the years of their acquaintance, he didn’t recall her eyes being that color. Where had she kept those eyes all these years? Had she stashed them away deliberately?
    Eventually she tore their beauty away and surveyed the room over his shoulder. “That woman, over there by the punch bowl. Miss Clarke, I believe is her name. Have you met her?”
    “No.” He hadn’t even looked, too busy trying to think, searching his memory. What were those lips and eyes trying to tell him that she was not saying?
    “I hear she’s a very good sort and would never give you any trouble.”
    He finally followed her gaze. “Too tall and thin. And nervous.”
    “Nervous? If you’ve never met her, how can you possibly—?”
    “She plucks her eyebrows almost out of existence, and her clavicle is so evident I can only assume that if she eats at all, food never has a chance to cling to her bones.”
    She sighed. “And there is the very pretty Miss Wilson, talking to her mama. There, by the plinth with the large Grecian urn.”
    “Grecian urn? Is that what it is? I thought it was some sort of coffeepot.”
    “Pay attention, Hartley! The young lady beside it…”
    “ Plinth ,” he muttered. “Isn’t that a splendid word? Plinth.”
    “James Hartley, we are talking about Miss Jane Wilson.”
    He