Free A Valentine Wedding by Jane Feather Page B

is that, Sketchley?” Alasdair inquired with a raised eyebrow and a voice with an edge that would cut steel.
    Viscount Sketchley blushed beneath his paint. It produced a rather interesting color scheme, Alasdair thought. “Oh, no reason … no reason at all.”
    Alasdair inclined his head in mocking acceptance and continued with his play. There was a short awkward silence, then the duke of Bedford, who held the bank, declared, “Rich as Croesus she is now, I hear.”
    Alasdair again acknowledged this with an indifferent nod.
    “If she still has her looks—” continued the duke.
    “Oh, believe me, she has,” Alasdair interrupted, laying his cards upon the table. “My hand, gentlemen.”
    “I keep promising myself I’ll not play at your table, Alasdair, and then I forget how damned lucky youare,” Lord Alveston complained, throwing down his own cards in disgust.
    “Oh, it’s not luck, George,” Alasdair said with a laugh. “Can you not recognize pure skill when you see it?”
    “So, is she hangin’ out for a husband?” the duke persisted.
    “What unattached woman is not, Duke?” asked Lord Sketchley with a little titter.
    “You’re not still in the lists, Alasdair?” Alveston asked bluntly.
    Alasdair was relieved to have the question at last brought into the open. Once it was dealt with, categorically denied, he hoped the past would be allowed to die. “No, I am not. Emma and I agreed that we would not suit. Nothing has changed. Do you deal, Duke?”
    The duke picked up the fresh pack placed at his elbow by a groom-porter and shuffled deftly. “So the field’s wide open, then?”
    “As far as I know,” Alasdair agreed.
    “And you’ve no say in the matter?” Sketchley inquired closely.
    “None whatsoever.” Alasdair made his bet and changed the subject, wondering uneasily just how far Emma was prepared to go with her challenge. Surely not far enough to take such a painted fop as Sketchley for a husband.
Or lover?
He glanced across the table with a violent surge of revulsion at the image of that simpering fool’s hands on Emma’s glorious body. No, it was not possible that she would be so lost to sanity.
    His eyes swept the salon, brightly lit by chandeliers whose crystal drops threw back the light of their myriad candles. Was there a man in this room whom he could tolerate in Emma’s bed? The answer was immediatelyapparent. It seemed he was suffering from a virulent case of dog in the manger.
    “But I daresay your opinion would weigh with Lady Emma?” the duke suggested. “Being her trustee and such a good friend of her brother’s. If you spoke up for a man …”
    “Lady Emma has a mind of her own,” Alasdair stated flatly.
    Paul Denis played carefully, as befitted a man who was not too plump in the pocket. His émigré status was well understood, and a wealthy émigré was a rarity. He offered no comment on the subject of Emma Beaumont, and his silence went unremarked. He could not after all be expected to contribute to a conversation concerning people he didn’t know. And no one would guess the rapid calculations clicking behind his smooth olive-skinned forehead. If Lady Emma Beaumont was to be besieged by suitors, he could join their ranks without comment.
    “Do you return to Albermarle Street, Lord Alasdair?” he inquired as the table broke up in the early hours. “May I walk home with you?”
    “By all means.” Alasdair took a glass of iced champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. “Give me half an hour. There are some people I haven’t spoken to this evening.” Glass in hand, he circled the room, making certain that everyone there understood that Alasdair Chase was not holding a candle for Emma Beaumont. That the mortification of three years ago was forgotten. Then he went in search of Paul Denis, who was sitting in the bow window that looked out on darkened St. James’s Street, perusing a periodical.
    “I hope you won’t consider it impertinent if I ask for your