Free One Tempting Proposal by Christy Carlyle

they’d decided to accompany Kitty onto a balcony so that she could drain all of the enjoyment from their evening. The music filtering out from the ballroom had reached a lull, a brief respite before the musicians would play the next waltz. The duke would come looking for his sister, or perhaps for Kitty herself to claim his dance. And Wellesley might search out Annabel. The man couldn’t see that the girl was besotted with him, but he was hawkishly protective of her in a brotherly way.
    â€œThough I admit to having doubts before, I now appreciate the appeal of a grand ball, and I intend to enjoy every minute of this one,” Lady Philippa announced. Her lip quivered and Kitty feared she’d have to explain to the most daunting man she’d ever met why she’d caused his sister to cry, but then the young woman pursed her lips, turned, and stomped toward the doors, wrenching one open before calling to Miss Benson.
    â€œAre you coming, Annabel?”
    Annabel nodded at Lady Philippa before turning back to Kitty. “You should come too, Kitty. It’s freezing out here.” Kitty heard a hint of Annabel’s usual warmth in her tone. It was the opening she needed to swallow her pride.
    â€œForgive me, Annabel.”
    They were the wrong words to say. A tear welled up, glittering in the moonlight, and Annabel blinked her eyes a moment to set it on its path down her wind-­rouged cheek. “Of course I do. Thank you for an invitation to the ball.”
    The words were still too polite for Kitty’s taste.
    â€œIt’s not your fault he doesn’t notice me, Kitty. You can’t make Rob see me, or force him to dance with me.”
    As Kitty watched Annabel follow Lady Philippa back into the ballroom, a scented swell of warm air rushed through the doors to surround her, to lure her back into the fray.
    It truly had turned bitterly cold, and Kitty wrapped her arms around herself as she considered Annabel’s plight.
    Kitty acknowledged that she might not possess the power to make a man recognize a woman’s love for him, but this was her father’s home and her mother’s meticulously planned ball. Surely, she did have the ability to force one silly man to dance with one terribly smitten girl.
    T H E R E W A S N O hope for it. He’d have beg off. It’d been bad enough treading on the Moreland girl’s feet. He couldn’t hobble a marquess’s daughter at the first grand ball of the season, especially when Oliver was determined to marry the woman’s sister.
    And judging by what he’d seen of the Marquess of Clayborne, Seb didn’t envy Ollie the task of convincing the nobleman of anything. Every time Seb thought he caught a bit of pleasure in the marquess’s expression, the man’s face turned hard in the next instant and he glared at his guests as if wishing them all anywhere but in his ballroom.
    Seb was beginning to wish he were anywhere else too. The musicians had struck up again, and ­couples paired off and took their places in the center of the ballroom for the second waltz. Oliver and Hattie were among the dancers, standing much too close to one another, cocooned in the bliss of young love and oblivious to anything as unromantic as propriety or those rules of etiquette of which Lady Katherine seemed so fond.
    Then he saw Pippa and Miss Benson enter the ballroom. Their mouths had gone pale and they chafed their hands and upper arms as if to ward off a chill. Worse, they were unaccompanied. Had they truly followed their host’s daughter onto the balcony only to leave her out in the cold on her own? And why was he so concerned with the woman’s whereabouts? The next time he saw her, he’d have to manage a waltz without trouncing on her toes.
    Seb made his way toward his sister, wending past Lady Katherine’s group of friends, ignoring stares and trying not to bristle at the sense of being stripped bare as they assessed