Free Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh Page A

earth to compare with Hardford and its environs for beauty, natural and otherwise.
    Those words
and otherwise
were spoken, as if by chance, while his eyes rested upon Mrs. Payne, wife of the retired Admiral Payne. Mrs. Payne, whose mood usually hovered on the edge of sourness, when it did not spill quite over into it, inclined her head in gracious acceptance of the implied compliment.
    The Reverend Boodle, though, was the first to arrive with Mrs. Boodle and their elder two daughters. The admiral and his wife came next, and they were soon followed by the Misses Kramer, middle-aged daughters of a deceased former vicar, with their elderly mother. Those three ladies could not admit to the social faux pas of calling upon a single gentleman, of course. They had come, the elder Miss Kramer explained, to visit dear Lady Lavinia and Lady Barclay and Mrs. Ferby, and what a surprise it was to discover that his lordship was in residence. They could only hope he did not think them very forward indeed to have intruded all unwittingly thus upon him. His lordship, of course, responded with the predictable reassurances and soon had the three ladies quite forgetting that they had come to see Aunt Lavinia.
    Imogen would undoubtedly have been amused by it all if she had not taken the man so much in dislike. Though actually, she thought, these visits were probably akin to excruciating torture for him and were therefore no less than he deserved. She met his glance as the malicious thought flashed through her mind and knew from the infinitesimal lift of his eyebrows that she was right.
    As the Reverend Boodle and his female entourage were leaving after a correct half hour, Mr. Wenzel drove up in the gig with Tilly. Imogen greeted the latter with a brief hug and sat beside her in the drawing room. But even Tilly was not immune to the earl’s charm. She leaned toward Imogen after a few minutes and murmured beneath the sound of the general conversation.
    “One has to admit, Imogen,” she said, “that he is a perfectly gorgeous specimen of manhood.”
    But her eyes were twinkling as she said it, and the two of them exchanged a brief smirk.
    Mr. Soames, the elderly physician, came with his much younger second wife and his three daughters and one son of that second marriage. Mr. Alton arrived last with his son, a gangly youth who had been wrestling with facial pimples for the last year or so, poor boy. He was soon in the throes of a serious case of hero worship, having been complimented by his lordship on the knot of his cravat, which looked like a perfectly ordinary knot to Imogen.
    She gave the earl a penetrating look. She really did not want to believe that he was
kind
. He had not paid any compliment to Mr. Edward Soames, a good-looking young man who had been affecting the appearance and manners of a dandy since making a brief visit to London last spring to stay with one of his older half sisters.
    By the time the last of the visitors had taken their leave, the four residents were left in possession of a number of invitations—to a dinner party, to an evening of cards, to an informal musical evening, to a picnic on the beach, weather permitting, of course, for the eighteenth birthday of Miss Ruth Boodle, though that would not be until the end of May. They had also been informed by each wave of callers that the next dance in the assembly rooms above the village inn was to be held five evenings hence, and it was to be hoped the Earl of Hardford would condescend to grace it with his presence—as well as the ladies, of course.
    Wild horses could not keep him away, the earl had assured everyone. He had solicited a set with the eldest Boodle daughter, the eldest Miss Soames, and Mrs. Payne. The elder Miss Kramer meanwhile had promised herself a comfortable coze with Aunt Lavinia and Cousin Adelaide while the young people danced. And Mr. Wenzel and Mr. Alton had each reserved a set of dances with Imogen.
    “Well,” Aunt Lavinia said when everyone