“And the son of a duke about to marry the daughter of one. He would have far too many questions about how the daughter of landed gentry wound up with a lot of money wagered in a men’s club game ofvingt-et-un. He may be a gambler, but he’s still aristocracy.”
“So are you.”
Eloise drew back, annoyed, then relented. “Well... there is that.”
Adrienne laughed and put her arm around Eloise. “Your tendency to forget that will be your ruin.”
Eloise shook her head. “I can never completely forget that.” She flicked her lace cap with one finger. “I’m an on-the-shelf spinster because I’m an aristocrat. I cannot marry freely—or at all at my age—because I’m an aristocrat. I am not supposed to be clever”—she pointed at her nose—“or freckled because I am a woman and an aristocrat.”
“Yet Lord Robert likes both of those.”
“I cannot—” Eloise broke off from her next aristocratic declaration. “What?”
“He was staring at your freckles. And the stains on your fingers.”
“He is younger than I am. And betrothed.”
“Not yet, he isn’t. I saw the look on his face as well as you. And I saw how you flushed the more he spoke.”
“I did not!”
“There is nothing improper about feeling warmth for another person.” Adrienne tapped Eloise’s lower back. “To feel that tingle in those unspeakable parts. Impropriety only comes from acting on them.”
Eloise looked again at the front door, as if the man continued to stand there. “Watching him continue to court Lydia, to play the buffoon, will become increasingly more difficult.”
“Especially if you keep imagining him without his shirt.”
Eloise glared at her friend. “Stop that!”
Adrienne snorted with laughter. “And now you are, aren’t you?”
Eloise put a hand over her eyes, as if to block out the sudden vision that had appeared in her mind, that of Lord Robert’s tall, lean form unclothed—bare of shirt—and other apparel. Heat flooded her, breast to hip.
Adrienne pulled Eloise’s hand down, her eyes still lit with humor but her face solemn. “I know you will not take my advice on this—”
“Although you are going to give it anyway.”
“What are you going to do now that Judith is out? Be a chaperone forever to the next set of debutantes?”
“My father has made comments about retiring to the country.”
“Your mother would lose all good sense.”
“I’m not sure he plans for Mother to go.”
Adrienne leaned back. “Ah. But you would?”
“Most likely.”
“Then I challenge you to do something outrageous before you go. Flirt at the next ball. Scandalize the dragons by asking a duke to dance.”
“You cannot possibly be serious.”
“Serious enough to suggest if Lord Robert Ashton looks at you again the way he did tonight that you do more than pull your hair down.”
“Adrienne!”
“Eloise! You are thirty! Who knows? Scandal may suit you. And Lord Robert may decide that whatever it is the Duke of Makendon wants in exchange for Lydia’s hand may be too big a sacrifice to endure a lifetime of that woman’s voice.”
