Free The Luck of the Devil by Bárbara Metzger Page B

in London. You'd like that, puss."
    At least he wasn't promising to incarcerate her in some silly girls' school until she reached her majority—almost ten years away! "But what about Woody?"
    "The next time you see Heywood, you'll be such a grand lady you won't recognize your old friends."
    "I would never forget Woody. We are Pledged."
    Carey leaned back against the squabs and pulled his hat over his eyes. "You'll see, poppet. Pretty soon you'll have suitors falling at your feet like autumn leaves. You'll wonder what you ever saw in your freckled Romeo."
    "That's hateful, Harmon Carrisbrooke Delverson, and you have no tender emotions. I wouldn't repudiate my love for Woody if you tore my tongue out, if you kept me in the darkest dungeon and fed me moldy bread and water with insects floating in it, if—"
    "If I tore up all of your Minerva Press novels. Go to sleep, poppet, you'll need to save your energy to put on a good act for the Misses Snead. I wrote them I was bringing a young lady to their school."
     
    Carey had one more chore to complete before rejoining the army. Lord Clyme, honorable gentleman that he was, had charged Captain Delverson to inform young Wimberly about the wedding. The earl did not want his heir reading the announcement and thinking he was being cut out of the inheritance. The land was entailed, of course, but Donald wanted no more rancor in the family than need be, for Emonda's sake later.
    Delverson did not resent this final task at all, even if it kept him from his men and accurate news of the battles for another few days. As he rode to London Carey wondered if Miss Wimberly was the empty-headed society belle her uncle made her out to be, or if she still had that tender look in her eyes and the calm good sense he admired. He told the driver to pick up the pace, curiously anxious to find out.

Chapter Nine
    « ^ »
    I begin to think no woman will ever catch Gabriel's eye."
    "He danced twice with the Winthrop chit last week."
    "Yes, but that was because the forward miss cornered him in the orangery. It was either dance with her or chance being found alone with her. For all his absentmindedness, my brother is too downy a bird to be trapped that way."
    "Or your way, it seems."
    "What, would you have him forced into marriage with some scheming girl? No, we simply have not found the right bait."
    Miss Grimble frowned but went back to studying the on dits columns and her lists. "Miss Parks seems an accommodating female. She comes to dinner Tuesday next with her brother. Perhaps she will do."
    "Perhaps if she lost a stone and dressed in anything but yellow and did not agree with whatever anyone said. And the brother is as big a bore, although Gabe seems to feel his last speech to the Lords was well received. I am not looking forward to the dinner."
    Even Miss Grimble was discouraged by now, after the hordes of women Rowanne had cast in Lord Wimberly's path and the scores of gentlemen Miss Grimble had earmarked for her
protégée. It seemed to that strong-willed woman that she had met her match; the Wimberlys were the fussiest pair alive. Either that or they were determined to stay unwed. Fools, the duenna thought, knowing how depressing it was to have naught but one's memoirs for company.
    Rowanne did not appear cast down at her single state. She seemed quite satisfied in fact, sitting at her work table with scissors and glue pot, attempting to create tiny flower arrangements out of scraps of silk and green-dyed feathers. She had her brother's looking glass propped up in front of her, and bits of feather clinging to her simple blue round gown. Multicolored silk threads stuck to her fingers and in her hair when she pushed a wayward curl out of her eyes. Rowanne would be content if it were not for her desire to see Gabe settled before he grew into a reclusive old woman-hater like their uncle.
    "What are the prospects for tonight?" she asked her companion in the search.
    "We go to the Worthingtons' ball, for