Page 27 of The Lady Knows Best

“Would sooner kill me than welcome me into the family. Yes, yes.”

And if they didn’t succeed, Daphne might.

“But I think,” Miles continued, “that you underestimate my charms. Why, only last evening, Miss Burke accompanied me in a lovely duet at the Estleys’ musicale.”

“Willingly?” Alistair’s expression was one of patent disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, yes. I did a little of that . . . what was it you called it? Wooing?” He made a show of struggling to pronounce the word.

“She might sing with you,” Alistair conceded, “but she’s far too sensible to do more.”

Miles couldn’t help himself. “Care to make it interesting, old friend?”

Alistair wisely ignored him, though his eyes narrowed. “What makes you so certain you’ll succeed?”

Miles opened his mouth to tell what he knew. He’d never kept secrets from his friend, even when Alistair probably would have preferred he had.

But somehow, revealing Daphne’s secret didn’t seem right.

“I just know,” he said instead. “You, her family, and all the chaps at White’s will have to accustom yourselves to the fact that I’m going to win my wager in the end—by marrying Daphne Burke.”

Alistair looked thoughtful, and only marginally less skeptical. He unfolded the newspaper with a snap and held it up between them again. “Peculiarly unfortunate, then, that your invitation to her sister’s annual garden party seems to have got lost in the mail.”

Miles picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you—Oh, that’s right. The Duchess of Raynham is Miss Burke’s sister, isn’t she?”

“Good God, Miles.” The wall of newsprint collapsed once more to reveal a stern-faced Alistair—though at least he hadn’t resorted to calling him Deveraux. Yet.

“I just thought that, since Her Grace is always so particular about extending a family invitation to the Earl of Ryland”—indeed, the Duchesses’ Garden Party was one of the only grand events of the London Season at which even young children were welcome—“and since you have, on occasion, led me to believe you think of me as the brother you never had . . .”

Alistair favored him with one of those looks, the sort he’d been giving Miles for nigh on seventeen years. “You might be interested to learn that Charlie paid me a call first thing this morning.” Charlie was Charlotte, the second eldest of Alistair’s siblings, more commonly addressed as the Honorable Mrs. Jefferson Powell. Miles hadn’t long to wait for an explanation for that apparent non sequitur. “She was at the Estleys’ musicale last night. Didn’t you see her?”

“I, er—I hadn’t the pleasure, no.”

“Which is to say, you were too distracted by trying to win a smile from Miss Burke—who, by all accounts, hadn’t one to spare for you. I believe Charlie’s exact expression was, ‘she looked as if she’d liked to have snapped his neck, given half a chance.’”

“Nonsense.” Miles waved away Alistair’s sister’s assessment, preferring to think of the look in Daphne’s eyes after they’d kissed.

With a grimace, Alistair folded the newspaper again, laid it on the table, and stood. “You are constitutionally incapable of believing someone might dislike you.”

The room was not of a size to permit pacing, but he stood with his hands behind his back, examining a rather muddy-looking oil painting of a landscape that was decidedly not England; Miles knew for a fact he’d been studying that same picture for a decade at least, whenever he had something unpleasant to chew over.

“I’ve known that for a long time, of course,” he went on without turning to face Miles. “But from the moment Sinclair laid down that first wager, you seemed . . . obsessed is not too strong a word, I think, with the possibility that somewhere out there might be a young lady immune to your charms, Deveraux.”

Alistair only used his title when things were serious. Miles sat up a little straighter in his chair. “I’ve always enjoyed a challenge,” he agreed. What was so wrong with trying to prove he was an amiable fellow?

At that, Alistair’s left hand gripped his right wrist more tightly. “I suppose there is nothing I can say that would persuade you to set your sights elsewhere.”

Vaguely, Miles wondered whether it was Miss Burke or his own friend Alistair hoped to protect.

But naturally it must be the former—the Earl of Ryland was nothing if not a gentleman.

Miles tried to weigh Alistair’s remark with the seriousness it deserved, undistracted by Daphne’s proposal, her soft lips, or the imagined look on her face this morning when his gift arrived—he’d hit on just the thing to please her, this time; proof that he knew her better than she believed.

“So,” he ventured after a moment, “that’d be a no on the garden party, then?”

Regardless of Alistair’s answer, Miles didn’t intend to squander an opportunity to see her again today. She was the one who had asked for a courtship, after all.

Alistair’s shoulders rose and fell on a noisy breath, but when he turned to face Miles, he was wearing a smile, albeit a weary one. “The girls and I will meet you in Curzon Street at two o’clock. Don’t be late.”