Free Belle of the ball by Donna Lea Simpson

fiddling with her fan. "That is the Earl of Oakmont, I believe, of whom you speak. I had not heard that he was on his deathbed. Poor man."
    "Oldest peer livin' it's said. Too damned old, if you ask me. Outlived everyone else. My da, now he died at a sensible age. Sixty-eight, he was. That were thirty years ago.
    "Really," Arabella said, faintly. Thirty years ago. And Lord Pelimore would not have been a young man even then.
    "Oakmont's great-newie's come forward, like I said. Been in India all this time, I hear Nabob, now; rich in his own right and brown as a nut, so they say."

    "Someone has seen the Oakmont heir?" Arabella said.
    "Lady Jacobs had it from some fella who knew some other fella what was in the solicitor's office what handles old Lord Oakmont's estate. Guess they're doin' all the checks ta make sure the fella is who he says he is. Disappeared for some years, doncha know. Can't be lax about that kind of thing. Primogeniture, an' all that. Rights of inheritance—mighty important. Which brings me back around to my own dilemma, you see—"
    "Is the nephew an older man, have you heard?" Arabella asked, gripping her fan tightly, not wanting to hear, yet, about his dilemma. Perhaps this nut brown Croesus, Oakmont's heir, would be not past middle age and on the lookout for a wife. Perhaps there was still time to find a more acceptable husband—more acceptable to her stomach if not to her purse. She felt quite queasy at having to entertain a proposal from the gentleman beside her. Her cousin. True, had explained a little about the intimacy of the marriage bed, and the thought of lying with this old man and allowing such familiarities was repulsive to her. She would have to submit to it, she supposed, and yet . . . and yet—
    "Can't be too old," Lord Pelimore said. "Not like me."
    Arabella, caught off guard by his unusual self-deprecation, relied on her social instincts at that moment, and burst out, "Oh, but. Lord Pelimore, you are not old! Why, you cannot be a day over . . . over forty, surely!"
    She heard a snort of disbelief, and from behind the pillar strolled Mr. Marcus Westhaven, looking very much at his ease and as handsome as ever in unrelieved black.

    Six
    "What do you want, young man? Private conversation, doncha know?" Pelimore's voice was querulous as he glared at Westhaven, who lounged against the pillar as if he had nothing better to do.
    He had heard that ridiculous piece of flattery; Arabella could see it in the merriment in his gray eyes. The reluctant joy she felt at his presence was tempered by the knowledge that he must think her a mercenary flirt. After all, it must be obvious to anyone who happened to observe what was going on between her and the baron; everyone knew he was on the lookout for a wife. But what did she care what Mr. Westhaven thought? He was nothing to her. She tossed her head haughtily.
    "Lord Pelimore, may I present Mr Marcus Westhaven?"
    "Westhaven, Westhaven ... I know I have heard that name lately, but where?" Pelimore, his thick eyebrows beetling over his dark eyes, stared up at Westhaven.
    "I am sure I do not know, sir," he replied, politely. He turned his smoky gaze toward Arabella and bowed low. "This dance is just ending. Miss Swinley."
    His voice was rich and low, and she felt a thrill shiver through her down to the toes of her elegant silver slippers.
    "May I see your dance card?" he asked, holding her gaze with his.

    Arabella flushed and hid it in the folds of her dress. She had implied to Lord Pelimore that it was quite full, when in fact it was almost empty. She felt the humiliation of that sharply, especially now, with Marcus West-haven. "I ... I must have lost it somewhere."
    "Why no, I think it is still on your wrist, along with your fan. I see it peeping out of the skirt of your elegant gown." Westhaven leaned over and plucked it out of the folds of her lavender dress, pulling her wrist as an unwilling hostage, encircled as it was by the ribbon attaching the