Free The Duke and I by Julia Quinn Page B

much worse. He wouldn't have believed it at thetime, but his bizarre
    encounter with Daphne Bridgerton was definitely turning out to be the evening's high point. Yes, he'd been horrified to
    discover that he'd been lusting—even briefly—after his best friend's younger sister. Yes, Nigel Berbrooke's oafish attempts at seduction had offended every one of his rakish sensibilities. And yes, Daphne had finally exasperated him beyond endurance with her indecision over whether to treat Nigel like a criminal or care for him as she would her dearest friend. But none of that—not one bit—compared to the torture that he'd been about to endure.
     
     His oh-so-clever plan of slipping into the ballroom, giving his regards to Lady Danbury, and leaving unnoticed had fallen into instant ruin. He'd taken no more than two steps into the ballroom when he'd been recognized by an old friend from Oxford, who, much to Simon's dismay, had recently married. The wife was a perfectly charming young woman, but unfortunately one with rather high social aspirations, and she had quickly determined that her road to happiness lay in her position as the one to introduce the new duke to society. And Simon, even though he fancied himself a world-weary, cynical sort, discovered that he wasn't quite rude enough to directly insult the wife of his old university friend.
     
     And so, two hours later, he'd been introduced to every unmarried lady at the ball, every mother of every unmarried lady at the ball, and, of course, every older married sister of every unmarried lady at the ball. Simon couldn't decide which set of women was the worst. The unmarried ladies were decidedly boring, the mothers were annoyingly ambitious, and the sisters— well, the sisters were so forward Simon began to wonder if he'd stumbled into a brothel. Six of them had made extremely suggestive remarks, two had slipped him notesinviting him to their boudoirs, and one had actually run her hand down his thigh.
     
     In retrospect, Daphne Bridgerton was starting to look very good, indeed.
     
     And speaking of Daphne, where the hell was she? He'd thought he'd caught a glimpse of her about an hour earlier,
    surrounded by her rather large and forbidding brothers. (Not that Simon found them individually forbidding, but he'd
    quickly decided that any man would have to be an imbecile to provoke them asa group.)
     
     But since then she seemed to have disappeared. Indeed, he thought she might have been the only unmarried female at the party to whom he hadn't been introduced.
     
     Simon wasn't particularly worried about her being bothered by Berbrooke after he'd left them in the hall. He'd delivered a solid punch to the man's jaw and had no doubt that he'd be out for several minutes. Probably longer, considering the vast quantities of alcohol Berbrooke had consumed earlier in the evening. And even if Daphne had been foolishly tender-hearted when it came to her clumsy suitor, she wasn't stupid enough to remain in the hallway with him until he woke up.
     
     Simon glanced back over to the corner where the Bridgerton brothers were gathered, looking as if they were having a grand old time. They had been accosted by almost as many young women and old mothers as Simon, but at least there seemed to be some safety in numbers. Simon noticed that the young debutantes, didn't seem to spend half as much time in the Bridgertons' company as they did in his.
     
     Simon sent an irritated scowl in their direction.
     
     Anthony, who was leaning lazily against a wall, caught the expression and smirked, raising a glass of red wine in his direction. Then he cocked his head slightly,motioning to Simon's left. Simon turned, just in time to be detained by yet another mother, this one with a trio of daughters, all of whom were dressed in monstrously fussy frocks, replete with tucks and flounces, and of course, heaps and heaps of lace.
     
     He thought of Daphne, with her simple sage green gown. Daphne, with