Free Tempted by a Lady’s Smile by Christi Caldwell Page A

why should it matter either way?
    Casting a regretful look back, Westfield held out his elbow for his sister. The pair stopped at the door. “Changed your mind about joining the fun ?” The dry humor in that last word earned him an elbow in the side.
    “On the contrary,” he replied automatically. “I am quite looking forward to it.” It was hard to say who was more shocked by that concession; Richard himself, or Westfield who eyed him, mouth agape.
    “Splendid,” Lady Beatrice said with a cheerful smile. “Come along, then. I promised Gemma I would not leave her to her own devices.”
    There was a complete selfishness in accepting an invite and removing himself from all the respective and respectable events planned for the week. That is what he told himself as he fell into step behind Westfield and his sister. How else was there to account for the willingness and, more, desire to attend an infernal recital with marriageable misses in the market for a husband?
    “…Do be nice to her,” Lady Beatrice was saying to her brother.
    With no doubt about the identity of the “her” in question, Richard carefully attended the discourse.
    “Have I ever been anything but nice to the lady?” Westfield’s dry whisper earned another nudge from his sister.
    “Behave. You know the ton is cruel to her.”
    Westfield’s hushed response was lost to him and his gut clenched. He’d long despised the world of Polite Society. Theirs was a glittering falseness where titles reigned supreme and worth was decided by one’s possession of or linkage to those titles. As a viscount’s second son, he’d been spared the disdain Lady Beatrice spoke of but he had, by his birthright as spare to the heir, known that disinterest. In truth, he’d quite welcomed that imposed distance presented by Society. For Gemma, however, she’d been received with cruelty; jeered and mocked, even with her rank as viscount’s daughter. No doubt, the ton preferring ladies who prattled about the weather and Society events failed to see Gemma Reed as an original with a keen wit.
    And he found himself despising those pompous lords and ladies for having treated her so through the years, and equally hating himself for having mocked her since their first exchange. He came to a slow stop and stared blankly down the hall. Through his actions, he’d neatly placed himself alongside those who’d been cruel to her. He curled his hands into tight fists. What a horrible, humbling moment.
    “Jonas?”
    Richard started and looked to where Westfield and Lady Beatrice stood outside of the recital hall. A dull flush climbed his neck and he hastily made his way to the room.
    “I thought you’d changed your mind, after all,” Westfield said with a grin.
    He inclined his head. “I am going to occupy a row at the back of the room.”
    Before Westfield could reply, Lady Beatrice fixed a firm stare on her brother. “Blast, we are too late. Gemma is already seated. You are decidedly not leaving me to be on display in this room.”
    He chucked her under the chin. “Never.”
    As brother and sister made their way into the room, Richard passed his gaze over the neatly arranged chairs. Most of the guests had already assembled and now sat in their perfect rows, with heads craned back. They gawked with a shameful notice at the duke’s offspring, the way powerful lords surveyed the horseflesh in Richard’s stables. All gazes were trained on the pair, except one particular bent head.
    Gemma occupied the last seat in her row, speaking with a blond gentleman, near in age to Richard. Through their discourse, she periodically nodded and said something back that earned a chuckle. The easy familiarity between them spoke of a close, sibling relationship.
    Richard walked behind the duke’s children, who claimed shell-backed chairs in the first row beside the pale Duke of Somerset. The man’s drawn features and the pain in his blue eyes hinted at the effects of his wasting illness. A