Free The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) by Anne Gracíe

warming up, Lady Elizabeth observed. Flynn responded that, having lived a good part of the last ten years in tropical climes, he didn’t yet find it warm.
    Lady Elizabeth found nothing to add to that topic, not even a question about where he’d been, or what it had been like living in foreign climes.
    Talk turned to the Season. “Are you planning to attend the masquerade ball next week, Mr. Flynn?”
    “I am indeed. Lookin’ forward to it. And I’ll be wearin’ a proper costume, not just a domino that some fellows—me friend Lord Davenham, for one—consider proper wear to a masquerade.”
    She didn’t respond—was it shyness, nerves or lack of interest?—so he said, “What costume are you plannin’ to wear, Lady Elizabeth?”
    “Oh, that would be telling.” But it was the closest he’d seen to a smile on her face, so he pursued that line of conversation.
    They were still talking about costumes she had seen—or worn, he wasn’t sure—at other masquerades as they swept through the wrought iron gates of the park.
    “The spring flowers are starting to bloom,” Lady Elizabeth observed. “Spring is such a happy season, is it not. And after the cold of the last year . . . “
    At least the girl was trying. Flynn tried to think of something to say, so he asked her to tell him the names of all the flowers they could see, claiming he only knew about tropical blooms, which was a lie.
    He knew nothing about flowers at all. Could name a rose. And a daisy. And a daffodil. He spotted one about to bloom and they admired it for a few minutes. Daffodils were, apparently, happy flowers.
    They moved on. This kind of talk was getting him nowhere. What would he be able to tell Daisy—or anyoneelse—if she—or they—asked him what Lady Elizabeth was like? That she thought flowers and seasons were happy? And that she liked dressing up.
    Time to be blunt.
    “Has your father spoken to you about me, Lady Elizabeth?”
    In the rear, the maid sniffed.
    He felt rather than saw Lady Elizabeth’s cautious sidelong glance. “Yes.”
    “So, you’re clear about me intentions?”
    She made a small sound in her throat and nodded.
    “And you’re happy to be courted—I’m not asking for an answer to the bigger question, mind—just that you’re willin’ to get to know me a bit better. With a view to—” He paused, considering the possibility of a breach-of-promise case, and demurred. “A view to seein’ what might come of it.”
    There was a short silence. And a sniff from the back seat.
    “Lady Elizabeth?” he prompted. “If you’re not keen to go forward with this, now is the time to say so, before we’ve got in any deeper, and while there is nobody here to witness what you tell me.”
    From behind there came another meaningful sniff. Flynn recognized the Language of Sniffs, beloved of his valet. He added, “Unless your maid is a spy for your father, that is.”
    He heard an indignant gasp from behind. “Muir is my own maid,” Lady Elizabeth said hastily. “She was my nurse and has been with me since I was a babe.”
    “And she don’t tell tales on her lady, neither,” came a grim voice from behind. Sniff.
    Flynn smiled. “That’s grand, then, so, what’s your answer, Lady Elizabeth? Are you happy for me to continue with this court—with us visiting and going for drives and such until we both know our minds. Because if you don’t want it, say so now. I won’t hold it against you and I won’t tell a soul. I prefer straight dealing.”
    She took her time answering. Considering how to say it, no doubt.
    “Papa has made my duty clear to me, and I am willingto . . . to go forward with this acquaintanceship,” she said at last.
    That told him. She was
willing
. Flynn was her
duty
. Flynn, with the moneybags to drag her father out of the debt he’d mired his family in.
    Gambling, horses and women—that’s what Flynn’s investigations had shown Lord Compton had frittered a fortune away on. Flynn had