Free Like No Other Lover by Julie Anne Long Page A

him.
    Lord Milthorpe did looked puzzled by her sudden and dramatic color change; his unruly brows dove.
    Cynthia studied the fetlocks of the horse in the painting, rendered in delicate, affectionate precision, and willed her face to cool.
    When she glanced up again, Milthorpe’s mouth had parted a little again, as though he meant to speak. It stayed that way, like a transom opened to admit air. He closed it again. He leaned forward, toward her, and opened it again. Then closed it again.
    Oh, for heaven’s sake.
    She rescued him. She closed the distance between them in a few steps. Startled, he made as if to stand, but she gestured him back into his chair with a “please don’t bother!” little wave, and settled into the spindly chair next to him.
    “I wondered, Lord Milthorpe,” she said in a voice scarcely more than a whisper, “if I might trouble you for an opinion.”
    When she sat, he turned his head away from her. As if to look directly at her would singe his retinas. He seemed to be quivering the slightest bit.
    “Of house parties?” He said finally, with such grimly humorous fatalism and disregard for the niceties usually considered necessary to the occasion that Cynthia began to like him.
    She covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers to disguise a smile. “Oh! Do you find house parties…” She wrinkled her nose a little. “… tedious ?” Her voice was a mischievous hush, the last word a whisper, an invitation to confidences. She leaned toward him; her bosom, at that angle, issued an invitation to ogle.
    He bravely returned his eyes to her. His gaze bounced immediately to the pale generous swell of her breasts and was flung instantly back up into her face.
    It was his turn to blotch beneath his ruddiness.
    “Not any longer.” The words were graceless but delivered with a crooked smile. It made his meaning unmistakable and the moment triumphant:
    Lord Milthorpe was officially flirting .
    “ I find house parties tolerable, as well. Now, that is.” Her eyes twinkled up at him.
    Lord Milthorpe’s smile vanished. He looked stricken and bewitched.
    “But of all the people present,” she added pragmatically, “I thought you might be able to advise me best on a particular matter. I hope you don’t mind if I beg a bit of practical advice from you, sir.”
    “I should be delighted to be of any assistance in any regard, Miss Brightly,” he said with quiet fervor. His eyes crept downward again to her snowy bosom; he tugged them back up to her face again, like a dog on a lead.
    “Well, it’s this, sir. I thought I might like to have a…well, I’d like to have a dog. And you struck me as the sort of gentleman who knows the country and knows dogs and might be able to suggest what sort of dog a girl such as myself should have.”
    Lord Milthorpe’s narrow blue eyes flew open wide. Then he cast a brief look skyward, perhaps issuing a silent thanks for an answered prayer, sighed happily, and committed his buttocks emphatically to the chair by scooting back to claim the entire seat. The chair gave a long and frightened groan. Milthorpe didn’t seem to notice.
    “A dog? Are you a country girl, then, Miss Brightly? Forgive me for saying so, but your manners are so fine and your skin so fair you look as though you’ve never set foot on the downs before or held a gun or a bow and arrow. Do you shoot?”
    A throat was cleared near the window. She knew who it was even before she turned.
    It seemed Miles Redmond had managed to separate Lady Georgina—she of the staggering fortune, shy smile, appropriate pedigree, and cornsilk worn in a plait around the top of her head like an accursed halo—from the other women, and maneuver her into the window, his head bent over hers attentively. Lady Georgina was animated, white hands fluttering in front of her, little pink mouth moving rapidly. Everything about Miles Redmond’s posture implied solicitous attention. Cynthia knew how Lady Georgina must be feeling: