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“Mother.”

“You should show him the tapestry you’re working on, dear,” her mother, eternal matchmaker, said. “I hear he loves Greek mythology as much as you do.”

“I am not going to show him my tapestry,” Lia said. “Or anything else.”

“Sex really is very fun, darling.”

“My kingdom for a normal mother.”

“Tsst.” Her mother snapped her fingers. “Here he comes. Smile on. Tits out.”

They straightened their backs and put on their best smiles as the man approached.

“Mr. Bowman, isn’t it?” her mother said. “How do you do?”

“A pleasure, Lady Godwick,” he said. Then he turned to Lia. “And you must be Lady Ophelia.”

“No one on earth calls me Ophelia,” she said at once. Ha. She’d show him.

“Shall we go to Venus, then, if I wish to speak to you?” Mr. Bowman asked.

A joke. Unexpected. She didn’t like it. And an accent, too. Greek obviously. And nice. It perfumed his words like a subtle incense. She could give credit where credit was due.

“Call me Lia,” she said, when what she wanted to say was,Please leave before Georgy sees you, because if any man here is rich, handsome and DTFMEL, it’s you.

“And you must call me August, please,” he said. “I have a gift for you.” He offered her a box wrapped in plain brown paper and twine.

Lia saw her mother flashing her the old side-eye. Lia ignored it.

“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” she said. “I have everything I want or need.”

“But you don’t have this,” he said, and there it was again—that winking smile, that smiling wink. She’d heard a phrase before—That one looks like trouble—and Lia never knew what it meant until this moment.

Now she knew exactly what trouble looked like. It looked like him.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll put it with the others.”

She’d meant to go alone to the gift table in the morning room, but Mr. August Bowman had other ideas, apparently. He followed her, which was the exact opposite of what she wanted him to do.

Double trouble, this one.She was determined to ignore him and his obnoxious good looks. They would not get to know each other. She would not, on pain of death, chat him up.

“So...you’re a friend of my father’s, Mr. Bowman?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

Damn her. Damn her to Hades.

“August, please.”

“August.” She did like the feel of his name in her mouth. August, the hottest month of the year. She’d told the other ladies not to flirt and here she was, flirting her head off.

“I’d call your father and I more friendly adversaries than friends,” he said. “At auctions, I mean. Usually I win the duels. He bested me last time. But I haven’t surrendered.”

“Good luck. With my father, you’ll need it.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” he said. “Perhaps divine intervention.”

“Do you know any divinities?”

“I’m looking at one.”

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