Free The Luckiest Lady In London by Sherry Thomas Page B

smiles upon their return. “I could see that it was an intense and intensely interesting conversation between the two of you.”
    “Miss Cantwell was fascinated by the house parties I give,” Lord Wrenworth said smoothly. “She didn’t realize gentlemen without wives or sisters entertained, both grandly and respectably.”
    Lady Balfour pounced. “Well, then, it behooves you to issue an invitation to Miss Cantwell. You cannot dangle such a lure before a young lady and then deny her the experience.”
    Louisa sighed inwardly as Lord Wrenworth said, with much innocence, “Oh, I do not intend to deprive Miss Cantwell of the experience at all. But she has declared that she intends to head back home at the end of the Season and recuperate for a good long while, without setting foot beyond her front door.”
    “Bosh, Louisa. I know you miss your family, but one should never pass upon a chance to enjoy the master of Huntington’s hospitality, if one at all could.”
    “Indeed. My hospitality is the stuff of legends,” said Lord Wrenworth with a seemingly guileless glance Louisa’s way. “But the end of the Season is still far away and there is plenty of time for Miss Cantwell to change her mind.”
    “And change her mind she will,” Lady Balfour said gruffly.
    “I am sure you will prove prescient, my lady.” He bowed. “Good day, Lady Balfour. And good day, Miss Cantwell.”
    I t was not until Louisa was back in her room at Lady Balfour’s town house, flipping uselessly through her notebook, that the enormity of what Lord Wrenworth had proposed fully struck her.
    The man was playing with dynamite. And should things go awry, he had just as much to lose as she did. No, more.
    He was the one with income in excess of two hundred thousand pounds a year. He was the one with the pristine, lofty reputation. And he was the one who had skillfully avoided the entanglement of eligible young ladies all these years.
    If they were discovered, he would have no choice but to marry her.
    The very idea of it emptied the air from her lungs. For a man who was neither impulsive nor stupid, this kind of recklessness was nothing short of stunning.
    And stunningly telling.
    Until this moment, she’d had no idea what he felt toward her, besides an inclination to toy with her for his own amusement. But now she could safely assume that he not only wanted her, but wanted her with an intensity that matched the fervidness of what she felt for him.
    It was . . .
    She rose from the desk and walked about aimlessly in her room, until she found herself at the edge of her bed. She sat down again, holding on to the bedpost.
    It was . . . reassuring.
    Of course, it was also immoral, depraved, egregious, abhorrent, appalling—and all the other synonyms one could find for absolutely dreadful.
    But at least she knew now the madness that had descended on her had not spared him.
    Not entirely, in any case.

CHAPTER 5
    F elix felt exposed.
    The strange sensation crept upon him almost as soon as he left the picnic. With every passing hour it intensified, growing stronger and more undismissable. By bedtime he was literally uncomfortable in his own skin.
    The nearest parallel in his experience had been as a child, after having offered a carefully prepared present to one or both of his parents, waiting those terrible minutes to see whether his father would pick it up and whether his mother would, this once, after all her theatrical cooing, take it with her to her room or again leave it behind in the tea parlor, to be cleared away the next time the maids came through.
    But the comparison was ridiculous. He had not offered Miss Cantwell a gift. His proposition was a monstrosity, an affront to decency, an incendiary missile catapulted inside the very walls of her castle.
    How could he, then, the one on the offensive, fall prey to feelings of vulnerability?
    Because you have not been so much yourself in a long time. Because you have let her see more of you than