Free His Secret Heroine by Delle Jacobs Page B

Vilheurs working his way back across the ballroom with her third glass of ratafia for the evening. She didn't know how she would manage to stomach it, and looked around unsuccessfully for a different potted palm. She'd probably already killed the first one. Truthfully, she would rather plant Lord Vilheurs in the potted palm, even more than the drink, but the point would be moot if she could find no such plant in the first place.
    She couldn't say she detested the man. She didn't at all, and truth to tell, rather liked him. He just wasn't Reggie. Lord Reginald.
    Aunt Daphne looked back at her from her conversation with her dear friends Lord and Lady Standish and flashed a permissive smile. Chloe shook her head. Aunt Daphne would have never succeeded as a chaperone, governess, or any such thing. Her aunt would likely tolerate any havey-cavey activity as long as it was intelligently applied to the proper cause, such as marriage to the proper fellow. Or evading one who was not so proper.
    Glee lit Lord Vilheurs's dark countenance as he approached her. He had clung like a leech for days, apparently i n the belief that Lord Reginald-Reggie-had abandoned the field for something more attractive, such as his Xanthe . And Chloe couldn't help but wonder, herself. She gritted her teeth, forcing a smile, and glanced about again, just in case some straying palm had decided to present itself for her use after all.
    "Ah, there you are, my dear," said Lord Vilheurs, as if she had wandered from the spot she had so perversely occupied all evening. "Forgive me for the delay. It is a sad crush, I'm afraid."
    "Indeed, an immense success. Thank you." She sipped at the drink, and her lips puckered. "How odd. What a peculiar taste."
    "Surely, only that it is warm," he said, and his voice reminded her of slightly melted butter. "Surely one might more easily cross the Channel than to wend through such a crush."
    Chloe bounced back an agreeable look and sipped again. No, it definitely was quite right. Holding up the glass, she thought the color just a bit too pink, too. She sniffed, but caught no strange aroma. She decided she would just hold the glass, pretending now and then to sip as she tried to think of some subject she had not already asked the man.
    "Have you been abroad, My Lord?" she asked.
    " Mais ouì, mademoiselle ," Vilheurs responded. "As a young man, I was often in Paris, but then there was the War, you know, and my family returned home. Of course, one may not travel so freely now."
    His hawk -like gaze never leaving her, Vilheurs launched into an exhaustive discussion of Paris in the days before Napoleon that would once have fascinated her. But Chloe ached to escape him. What if Reggie did not come? What if he had decamped, just as Vilheurs constantly hinted?
    "Miss Englefield?"
    Oh, she'd let her mind wander away again. "Oh, I am sorry, Lord Vilheurs, what did you say?"
    "I asked if you meant to finish your ratafia, my dear."
    She couldn't imagine finishing it. "Oh, I think not. I believe I have lost my taste for it. Perhaps if I had not had two already ..."
    She saw muscles in his jaw tighten. Well, what if he was displeased? It was not as if she had asked him to fetch Atalanta's golden balls. Seeing a footman with a tray, she summoned him and gave up the wretched glass and its foul brew.
    "Then perhaps another dance, Miss Englefield. I have had but one. Or better yet, perhaps you will reserve the supper dance for me."
    "Taken, Villy. Miss Englefield has promised it to me."
    Chloe spun around to see Lord Reginald grinning at her.
    Vilheurs's black eyes enlarged like dinner plates. "I hardly see how, Beauhampton," he said, glaring, "as you have not been around this age."
    "Because I asked her last time I saw her, Villy. That would have been a week ago, would it not, Miss Englefield?"
    Chloe opened her mouth, but that was as far as her words got.
    "That would have been the night you tried to drown her. " Vilheurs sneered. "Come along, my