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“Truly?” she teased him, her eyes lighting up for the first time that night. “I can make any man come running to my side with just a few of the tricks you taught me?”
“Why don’t you give it a try?”
Emily looked up at him and blinked rapidly, feeling like an absolute idiot, drawing a burst of laughter from the Duke.
“I feel like something has entered my eye!” she giggled.
“You look like somethinghasentered your eye.”
They both laughed, and Emily shook her head. “Who would have thought that to be a successful debutante, one merely has to flutter her eyelashes as if she were on the verge of fainting and drop her fan as if her fingers were too weak to be of any use?”
“What in the world are you both talking about?”
Emily turned around to find her older brother looking at her in confusion, a glass of lemonade in each of his hands. She accepted one of them, but when he handed the other to the Duke, he sniffed at it derisively.
“I would rather drink hemlock thanthat.”
Benedict let out a guffaw of laughter. “Nice to see your tastes have not changed, my friend.” He turned to Emily with a hint of suspicion. “But truly, what have you two been up to?”
“It’s none of your business,” she quipped, before hastily taking a sip of the lemonade. She smiled a little and then fluttered her eyelashes delicately at Daniel, earning her an incensed glare from her brother.
“You,” the Duke smiled at her, “are a natural.”
They both burst out into laughter as Benedict looked on with a mixed expression of confusion and consternation.
“Now, why don’t you try it on Lord Caney one more time,” he instructed her softly. “This time, cover the lower half of your face slightly with your fan and gaze at him from across the ballroom. When he looks at you, flutter your eyelashes at him before sliding your gaze away.”
Emily nodded and proceeded to do as instructed, gazing out from across the ballroom to where the Viscount of Caney was conversing with Lord Marchman, the young heir to a baronetcy.
The moment his gaze met hers, she fluttered her lashes a little and withdrew her gaze coyly as if she had just been caught doing something absolutely forbidden. The natural flush that came up to her cheeks at the thought of doing something she had never done before only served to heighten her appeal.
That little play was so seamlessly put up that the Viscount soon found himself asking to be excused from the conversation as he bounded across the ballroom in long, sure strides.
“Here he comes,” Daniel told her softly. “Congratulations on your first conquest, Emily.”
No sooner had he spoken those words then the Viscount materialized before them, a little breathless, his blue eyes fixed on Emily.
“Your Grace, Lord Hardy,” he greeted the Duke and Benedict a little breathlessly before turning to Emily with a small smile. “May I have this dance, My Lady?”
Emily glanced up at Daniel in astonishment before he nodded imperceptibly at her. With a slow smile, she slid her gaze from him and settled it on the Viscount before sliding her gloved fingers into his hand.
“It would be mypleasure, My Lord,” she drawled softly.
The Viscount looked like he had been thoroughly whacked with a sturdy branch before happily leading Emily out onto the dance floor as the musicians struck up another tune.
“Just what have you done to my sister, Gilleton?” the Earl of Hardy demanded sharply of his friend.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“You—you have taken a perfectly nice young woman and turned her intothat!” Benedict spat. “Now, she’s acting like an absolute ninnyhammer, fluttering her eyelashes about!”
“Well,youshould have taught her how she is supposed to act to get a man of sufficient means and prestige to marry her,” the Duke frowned. “Your poor sister has been embarrassing herself the past two seasons because none of you have ever thought to teach her how to act better.”
“I do not want her to act like that!” the Earl snapped back.
“Like what?”
“Like those women we often consort with.”
