Free In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) by Maggie Robinson

shut, rising in Charles’s estimation. In a minute of conversation, she’d been portrayed as thoughtless and heedless, a liar and a hoyden, all by people who allegedly had her best interests at heart.
    “Louisa’s free spirit is what first attracted me to her,” Charles said, earning a grateful squeeze to his arm. “There is no one like her.”
    “Spoken like a man besotted with his wife! See, I told you, Grace, all would be well. You raised her right.”
    “I did try.” Grace Westlake gave a world-weary sigh, as if to say she wasn’t sure her efforts had been successful. “Max, dear, we don’t wish to monopolize you. Louisa, introduce your husband to our guests.”
    They took a grateful step backward. “Dismissed,” Charles whispered into Louisa’s ear.
    “She likes you. Or seems to. That’s a first,” Louisa whispered back.
    “You sound annoyed. Did you wish her to take me in dislike?”
    “No, of course not.” Louisa suddenly gripped his arm in a stranglehold, and it was all he could do not to yelp. “Oh God. How
could
she?”
    “What is it?”
    “She’s invited Sir Richard.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “Sir Richard Delacourt. The man standing next to the vicar. He’s a n-neighbor.”
    Charles looked for a man in a dog collar, then at the tall, brown-haired man beside him. Sir Richard was a decade older than Louisa, with a neat reddish beard and pale gray eyes. Handsome, Charles supposed. “He doesn’t look especially dangerous.”
    “He—I—oh, it’s complicated. I was only seventeen.”
    “Ah.”
    “Oh, don’t make it sound like that,” Louisa said, objecting to his one syllable.
    “Confess later. I promise to be sympathetic. We were all seventeen once. Who is this woman bearing down on us with all the teeth and feathers?”
    They spent the next five minutes circling the room, avoiding the vicar’s corner as long as they could. Everyone seemed pleased to see Louisa, but there was an undercurrent of negativity beneath their inconsequential conversation, as if they did not want to appear
too
pleased. Several of her relatives—an odd lot they were—darted nervous glances at Grace Westlake, who sat in her throne surveying all.
    Charles could tell Louisa was nervous—there was a light sheen of perspiration at her hairline and her gloves were damp. The introduction was inevitable, and the vicar, Mr. Naismith, pumped Charles’s hand with enthusiasm and kissed Louisa’s blushing cheek.
    “We do look forward to seeing you both Sunday. No one has been able to do the altar flowers for us like you, Miss Louisa. All those colors thrown together so unexpectedly! Singular, quite singular. We’ve missed you in these parts.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Naismith. Sir Richard, how do you do? May I present my husband, Maximillian Norwich?”
    If Louisa had been seventeen when they had their fling, Sir Richard must have been old enough to know not to trifle with a virgin. Charles felt himself carefully assessed by those silvery eyes, and somehow found wanting. Charles couldn’t see the appeal of the man in front of him, either.
    Though he was not a sheltered young girl. Perhaps Louisa had been intrigued by his title, or just the very fact that he was a
man
. Sir Richard might even be responsible for the fact that Louisa no longer held men in any kind of awe.
    “Norwich, good to meet you.” Sir Richard sounded bored, deliberately so. His handshake was as brief as it was civil. “Do you shoot? It’s a Delacourt family tradition at the Priory on New Year’s Day. You both could join us. It would be like old times, wouldn’t it, Louisa? Your aunt has already agreed to join us.”
    Charles had not pointed a gun at anything but a human in his life, and he truly did not want to blow some poor bird to bits to prove himself to anyone. His aim would be off now anyhow. He brought Louisa’s hand to his lips and gave her a heated look. “I’m not sure what our plans are, Sir Richard. My wife might want to