Free A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World by Jo Beverley

irritatingly at ease,even in command. “Clearly you haven’t inhaled tobacco smoke after a long, hard day, or you’d not discount the magic of it.”
     
    Ah, there she had him. “As it happens, I have smoked a pipe.”
     
    “The deuce you have! Did you enjoy it?”
     
    “No. It’s vile stuff.”
     
    “One has to apply oneself to liking it at first.”
     
    Georgia flipped open her fan and wafted it. “I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.”
     
    “Haven’t you discovered that some pleasures take time to appreciate?”
     
    Georgia raised her brows. “Applying oneself to the appreciation of a pipe, sir, seems much like applying oneself to the appreciation of brimstone.”
     
    The smile touched his eyes. “I’ve known people apply themselves to appreciating sea water.”
     
    She found herself smiling back. “Lud, don’t remind me! I drank some once.” She put on a shudder but then wondered if it was wise to be playful with this odd, scarred military man.
     
    “Only once?” he asked.
     
    “As I said, I don’t apply myself to tolerating the unpleasant.”
     
    “No one likes sea water, but many find potent pleasures in a pipe. That didn’t tempt you to persevere?”
     
    “I have pleasures aplenty, sir, without choking for them. Come, we must return to the house.”
     
    She turned, but he said, “Wouldn’t the ability to smoke a pipe be useful when you seek to play the manly part?”
     
    She turned back. “You refer to my attire at the race, sir? If this is your notion of polite conversation, I tell you it is sadly off.”
     
    “Then, please, dear lady, teach me better ways.”
     
    She was being challenged again, in ways she hardly understood. She’d never met such a man.
     
    “Are you truly out here because you’re uncomfortable in the company of fine ladies?”
     
    “Perhaps a little. I have no wish to disturb.”
     
    “No?” she asked pointedly.
     
    “Very well. I don’t always wish to disturb,” he amended.
     
    Georgia was aware of a strange temptation to linger out here bandying words with him, but she found the resolution to head back to the house.
     
    He fell into step beside her. “You will be my guide in there, Lady Maybury? I truly am unused to this sort of gathering.”
     
    “Very well.”
     
    “You’ll stay by my side?”
     
    “I’ll even elbow you if you commit a faux pas.”
     
    “Perhaps before?”
     
    “I’m not a mind reader, sir. You’ll have to learn by your mistakes like the rest of us.” He stopped and she turned back. “Cold feet, Lord Dracy?”
     
    “I merely wondered if you are usually so assiduous in obeying your father’s requests. I’m sure he didn’t expect you to go so far as saving my life.”
     
    “I’m sure he expected me to go as far as necessary to achieve his end.”
     
    “His end?” he asked, but he would know what she meant. She’d have her father’s purpose laid out clearly between them before he leapt to any other assumptions.
     
    “To retain Fancy Free,” she said. “Will you accept some substitute?”
     
    “Perhaps that depends on you, Lady Maybury.”
     
    “You’ll be swayed by my kindness? A strange way of deciding a stud matter, but in order to save Fancy Free, I shall do my tender best.”
     
    “You tempt me to delay my decision. How long could your kindness last?”
     
    “About two hours,” she said briskly. “My engagement is only for dinner, sir, and I don’t promise kindness even then. I am your mentor, not your comforter.”
     
    “I’dmake a better Odysseus than a Telemachus.”
     
    She’d turned toward the house again, but she swiveled back. “I don’t understand that.”
     
    “You haven’t been classically educated.”
     
    “Lud, no!”
     
    He laughed. “Such horror at the prospect. I too didn’t get the usual tutoring past twelve, but I’ve always enjoyed the stories of the
Iliad
and
Odyssey
. Mentor was Odysseus’s friend, not teacher. He was teacher to