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He smelled of lilies and overpoweringly musky cologne, and his hands were everywhere at once—in her hair, around her waist, stroking her cheek... rather like an octopus.
Ugh.This was not making her feel the slightest bit enlightened or amorous.
Deciding he had nothing to teach her about the art of kissing, Alice plucked a hairpin from her coiffure and jabbed it into his cheek in a defensive motion her friend Charlene, the Duchess of Harland, had taught her.
“Ouch!” the earl yelped, pulling back. “You needn’t poke a gentleman’s eye out.”
At his exclamation, Hodgins finally lifted her head from her book and glanced their way, frowning as she watched Lord White rub his cheek and pout.
“You brought my retribution upon yourself,” Alice said in a vehement whisper. “You shouldn’t try to kiss unsuspecting ladies without their consent.”
“You’d better not have left a mark.” His cheeks were red, his eyes stormy, and his languid, poetic air had vanished.
Alice held her breath, waiting for him to signal to his manservant, who stood a discreet distance away, that he wished to pack up and leave.
To her chagrin, the earl made a visible effort and forced a smile to his lips. “Please forgive me for startling you, Miss Tombs. I was carried away by your beauty. Have you had ample opportunity to prepare yourself now?” He glanced meaningfully at her lips and bent near again.
Drat! This one was remarkably persistent. He must be truly desperate for funds.
Time to utilize the fail-safe method; proven to be effective one hundred percent of the time in dissuading amorously inclined fortune hunters.
“My father thinks very highly of you, Lord White,” she said sweetly.
He stopped halfway to his target. “Of course he does.”
“Just the other day he was speaking of you.” She pretended to have to think about what she’d supposedly overheard. “He said, ‘Don’t let the earl slip through your fingers, he has a remarkably ancient title.’”
Lord White nodded approvingly. “Sensible fellow, your father.”
“And then he said, ‘Don’t let on about the disaster, though. We mustn’t worry him with details of that storm off the Cape of Good Hope.’”
Lord White stared in consternation, his nose twitching with the scent of scandal. “What’s that you say? A storm?”
“Oh, silly me.” Alice covered her mouth with her hand. “I wasn’t supposed to mention that. I’ve really no idea what he meant. Of course, he has so many trading ships in his fleet that losing a dozen or more couldn’t mean much to him.”
The earl gulped. “A dozen, you say?”
“It was nothing, really. Only heavy cargoes of silk and porcelain. I’m sure Papa has simply boatloads more. Though he was tearing his hair out the other day when that nasty newspaper writer paid us a visit.”
The earl’s face began to match his title. He scooted back from her on the blanket, rising to his knees.
“Why, my lord, is anything the matter?” Alice asked innocently.
He glanced at his waiting servant, clearing his throat and drawing an ostentatious gold timepiece from his waistcoat pocket. “Oh lud, it completely slipped my mind. I’m late. Ever so late. I must be going. I’ve an appointment at... Tattersall’s... to see a man about a horse.”
Alice hid a smile behind her lacy parasol. “Must you go?”
“I really must. I’m ever so late.”
He couldn’t return her from the courtyard back to the parlor fast enough.
Hodgins had to run to catch them, and only arrived after Lord White had rudely left Alice without even saying good-bye to her parents, escaping out the front door and fairly leaping into his yellow phaeton.
Alice laughed softly.
Another one down.
Now her third social season was well and truly over. Lord White had been the last prospect standing.
