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“Well,” she sniffed. “You certainly shouldn’t have introduced her to me.”
“I didn’t,” James said tightly. “You came barreling down the street at me with all of the discretion of a cannonball.”
“If you’re going to insult me—”
“I tried to avoid you,” he cut in. “I tried to escape, but no, you were having none of it.”
She placed a dramatic hand on her breast. “Pardon me for being a concerned relative. We’ve been after you to marry for many years now, and I merely wondered after your companion.”
James took a steadying breath, trying to unclench the muscles in his shoulders. No one had the ability to make him feel like a green boy of sixteen like his aunt. “I believe,” he said firmly, “that we were discussing Miss Hotchkiss.”
“Ah, yes!” Agatha took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Miss Hotchkiss. A lovely girl. And so levelheaded. Not like these flighty London misses I keep meeting at Almacks. To spend an evening there one would think that intelligence and common sense had been completely bred out of the British population.”
James agreed with her completely on that point, but now really wasn’t the time to discuss it. “Miss Hotchkiss…?” he reminded her.
His aunt looked up, blinked once, and said, “I don’t know where I would be without her.”
“Perhaps five hundred pounds wealthier?” he suggested.
Agatha’s teacup clattered loudly in its saucer. “Surely you don’t suspect Elizabeth.”
“She does have access to your personal effects,” he pointed out. “Could you have saved anything that might be incriminating? For all you know, she has been snooping through your things for years.”
“No,” she said in a quiet voice that somehow screamed authority. “Not Elizabeth. She would never do such a thing.”
“Pardon me, Aunt, but how can you be certain?”
She impaled him with a glance. “I believe you are aware that I am a good judge of character, James. As proof, that should suffice.”
“Of course you’re a good judge of character, Agatha, but—”
She held up a hand. “Miss Hotchkiss is all that is good and kind and true, and I refuse to listen to another disparaging word.”
“Very well.”
“If you don’t believe me, spend a little time with the girl. You will see that I am correct.”
James sat back, satisfied. “I’ll do just that.”
He dreamed about her that night.
She was bent over that damned red book of hers, her long blond hair loose and shimmering like moonlight. She was wearing a virginal white nightgown that covered her from head to toe, but somehow he knew exactly what she looked like underneath, and he wanted her so badly…
Then she was running from him, laughing over her shoulder as her hair streamed behind her, tickling his face whenever he drew close. But every time he reached out to touch her, she eluded his grasp. And every time he thought he was close enough to read the title on her little book, the gold-leaf lettering shifted and blurred, and he found himself stumbling and gasping for air.
Which was exactly how James felt when he sat up straight in his bed, the light of morning just beginning to touch the horizon. He was vaguely dizzy, breathing hard, and he had only one thing on his mind.
Elizabeth Hotchkiss.
When Elizabeth arrived at Danbury House that morning, she was frowning. She had sworn that she wasn’t going to do as much as look at the cover of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS, but when she’d arrived home the previous day, she’d found the book lying on her bed, its bright red binding practically daring her to open it.
Elizabeth had told herself she was just going to take one peek; all she wanted to do was see if there was something about being witty and making a man laugh, but before she knew it, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, engrossed.
And now she had so many rules and regulations floating around her head she was positively dizzy. She wasn’t to flirt with married men, she wasn’t supposed to try to give a man advice, but she was supposed to give a suitor the cut direct if he forgot her birthday.
“Thank heavens for small favors,” she murmured to herself as she entered Danbury House’s great hall. Her birthday was more than nine months away, far enough in the future so as not to disrupt courtships she might possibly—
Oh, for goodness’ sake. What was she thinking? She’d told herself she wasn’t going to let Mrs. Seeton tell her what to do, and here she was—
