Free The Bride Price by Anne Mallory Page B

not for me . I know it. You weren’t there this season, Caroline. The matches I could make weren’t good enough. The matches Father wanted me to pursue weren’t remotely interested in me. The silent, mannerly girl my mother raised just isn’t interesting to most men. Look at Father. How many mistresses has he had? I’m just surprised he doesn’t have a bastard out there competing in this tournament.” She smiled a thin smile. “Though that would remove me from the competition then.”
    Caroline swallowed. “And the earl thinks these men better than ones you could choose? Men like Deville and Bateman?”
    “He was nice to me once.”
    Caroline couldn’t credit that she could be talking about him . “Which one?”
    “Deville.”
    A tiny bit of anger that felt an awful lot like a worse emotion threaded through her. “He was likely trying to worm his way past your skirts, Sarah,” she said pragmatically, trying not to wince. It was obviously one of the man’s traits.
    “Caro!” she admonished. Her expression turned thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t rate on his scale of regard. You should see him in action at a ton event, Caro. It’s—” She shivered. “I can tell you that nearly every unmarried lady fancies him to some extent. Wishes that for just one night…”
    Caroline grimaced, the notions striking too close for comfort. “Lovely.”
    A smile cracked Sarah’s face. “Oh, of course you wouldn’t be taken in, Caro. But he veritably prowls the rooms. And he is everything that the other men are not. It makes things so simple for him. I can’t believe no one has eloped with him, though he seems as far from marriage-minded as a man could get.”
    “It sounds as if he has the ton firmly in his grasp.” Irritation ran through her at the games he obviously played. At the one he’d played with her, not that she’d been an unwilling participant, but all of a sudden there was something personally stinging about it. “Little reason for him to participate here.”
    “No. It is the opposite. He is an outsider, only occasionally invited to the best parties, and onlywhen someone is hoping for a scandal. The duke has never firmly sponsored him.”
    “But you said—”
    “Don’t ask, because I don’t understand either. It is something none of us do. But being an outsider—it just adds to his allure, don’t you see? The debutantes drop like flies. The older married women do as well. Scandal simply swirls around him.”
    Caroline muttered under her breath.
    “As much as I can joke about all of the women wanting him in their beds—” Sarah’s knowledge of the marriage state had Caroline silently cursing the earl and his steady stream of mistresses. “I—I can’t—” She looked away. “I don’t want a marriage like my parents. Mother was miserable.”
    Caroline remembered the pasty-faced woman the earl had married. The oldest daughter of a duke, she had been secured for power and property and then been disposed of at Meadowbrook.
    “Sarah—”
    “No.” She took a deep breath. “I will do my duty. Forgive me my weakness?”
    Caroline took her by the arms. “It’s not weakness. I…”
    If only she hadn’t made the mistake with Patrick…she might have been able to help Sarah in London…to prevent this fiasco of a contest from occurring. She could have begged the earl to let her go as Sarah’s companion. Could have…
    She shoved the thoughts firmly away. She had a chance to make the right decision this time, to help Sarah, and she would.
    Caroline slipped an arm around her. “Things will work out. I won’t let them work out in any way other than the best for you.”
    She’d keep her away from the likes of Sebastien Deville. Make sure that he and his kind did not win.
    “How?”
    “With magic, if need be.” She gave her a bright smile, which Sarah tentatively returned.
    Sarah turned back to the spectacle. “Oh no. There’s Lady Tevon.” Lady Tevon searched the crowd,