Free Confessions of a Little Black Gown by Elizabeth Boyle

had too much wine! Mr. Ryder? A Corinthian? I doubt even I could manage such a deception. Hollindrake is handsome. His cousin is…well, he certainly isn’t what one would expect from the Sterling family.”
    Tally smiled and then opened her mouth to argue the subject, but snapped it shut just as fast, realizing that in doing so, she’d have to confess her own mistake about the duke’s cousin.
    That when she’d met him, she’d thought him the most rakishly handsome man she’d ever seen.
    “Oh, yes, I do think you are onto something, Tally,” Felicity said, with far more enthusiasm. “And I am so relieved that you have finally come around. I daresay when I saw you in that dress, I bore an ill suspicion that you were…well, never mind that now. I am so glad you are willing to help.”
    “Help?” Tally sputtered. And here she’d thought she’d escaped her sister’s machinations.
    “Well, of course.” Felicity sighed, a loud aggrieved huff that suggested Tally was losing her wits. “I need you to oversee Mr. Ryder’s transformation.”
    “Felicity—”
    Her sister waved her hands, “I would do the same for you. And it is as Nanny Rana always said, ‘as two of one, we must always be of one mind so as to live in harmony.’” Felicity smiled brightly, as if that was the end of the argument.
    But Tally didn’t think their former nanny meant for Felicity’s way to be the only mind that ever mattered. Yet, before she could open her mouth to argue the point, the door opened and Hollindrake came strolling in. And much to her dismay Tally found herself looking for him .
    Oh, not the mild-mannered, dull Mr. Ryder who’d come to dinner, but the rake she swore she’d seen in the study. Was it madness to believe there was a Corinthian behind his vicarly façade?
    That didn’t mean she wasn’t shocked by the keen sense of disappointment that tugged inside her when she looked again for him and found Hollindrake was indeed alone.
    Not her heart, certainly, but somewhere inside her longed to see the man she’d spied in the study once again.
    Oh, yes, that was all well and good , she told herself. But if you found him, then what would you do?
    This was Hollindrake’s cousin…a country vicar. Hardly the sort of man she dreamed of sharing her life with.
    Best stop tempting the Fates, Thalia Langley , she told herself. Or else you’ll find yourself living in —shudder— Lincolnshire with a houseful of children and your days mapped out carrying baskets to the poor and ironing shirts, without a hope of ever venturing one foot past the next village.
    “Where is Mr. Ryder?” Felicity was asking in that very direct and so utterly unnonchalant manner of hers.
    “He went for a walk in the garden,” the duke told her. “Something about it being good for the digestion.”
    Felicity groaned. “Oh, gracious heavens. I do hope he hasn’t any ailments. Did he say he was dyspeptic?”
    Hollindrake laughed. “No, I believe it was just an excuse for some fresh air.”
    “Then you needn’t have frightened me unnecessarily,” she said, taking hold of his arm and smiling up at him.
    Hollindrake’s eyes sparkled mischievously at his wife, and then he waggled his brows at her and nodded toward the door, as if asking her to depart with him.
    Tally glanced away. Really! Sometimes, her sister and her husband were far too intimate in public. She had never thought of her sister possessing a passionate nature, but around the duke, she was quite indecent.
    “Which garden?” Felicity asked, returning with her usual single-minded determination to the problem at hand.
    “The upper terrace,” he offered.
    Felicity shot a significant glance at Tally. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
    “That wouldn’t be proper,” Tally whispered in return.
    “He’s a vicar,” Felicity shot back. “I hardly think your virtue is at risk.” She followed this with a not-so-subtle nudge in her back. “Tally, dearest, you are the only one I