Scandal in the Regency Ballroom. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ to Lady Sophia your days of managing the yard were doomed. Sooner or later someone is going to find out, and then think of the kick-up there’d be.’

      He looked up at her standing in front of him, and smiled. Bree took her hands off her hips and tried not to glower. ‘A chaperon, a business manager—what are you going to tell me I need next? James is costing us a great deal of money.

      ‘What is it with you men and stagecoaches? You’ve got drags, you’ve got much better bloodstock than we can afford—why do you want to play with my stagecoaches?’

      ‘It is not your company, when all is said and done. Don’t you want to get married, have a family of your own?’

      ‘I suppose so, but I am resigned to it. By the time Piers is old enough to take control, I will be too old to find a husband.’

      ‘So find a business manager, then find a husband,’ Max said. ‘And don’t frown at me, it creases your very nice forehead.’ He got up and smoothed the furrow between her brows with his thumb. ‘I fail to see why you cannot find a good man to manage your business.’

      ‘Piers would resent it.’ It was tempting and yet, what on earth would she do with herself all day without the company to run? Shopping and calls and parties until she found a husband? Then more of the same, plus children? The children were intriguing, the unknown husband and the daily social whirl were not. ‘I would die of boredom.’

      ‘Find a man with an estate you can become involved with, start a charity, play the ‘Change, take a lover …’

      ‘Max!’ He was altogether too close. She could smell the light, citrusy cologne he wore, the trace of soap, the exciting tang of masculinity overlaid with all the refinements of clean, well-groomed sophistication. He was showing an altogether commendable, if very disappointing, restraint about trying to kiss her again.

      Perhaps he didn’t like it last time. I am very inexperienced after all. Completely inexperienced. Perhaps he doesn’t want to do it again. I shouldn’t want him to—this can’t possibly lead to anything.

      ‘You are a delicious innocent, Miss Mallory, and I should not be out here with you.’

      ‘That’s true. But you were in the carriage with me before, so I know I can trust you. But then I looked dreadful.’

      ‘You looked edible,’ Max said, reminiscently. He reached out and let one finger trail lazily up and down the column of her neck. It felt strong, hard, slightly rough against her soft skin.

      ‘You, my lord, must have a very strange taste in women, if you thought I looked better then than I do now,’ Bree observed as repressively as she could manage, given that her insides appeared to be hollow and her breathing was not working properly.

      ‘I did not say that.’ The finger was exploring the whorls of her ear now, rubbing the lobe, then drifting up behind it into the soft hair. ‘Now, I think you look utterly seductive.’

      ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’ Bree asked, swallowing hard.

      Chapter Seven

      ‘Seduce you? No.’ Max’s mood of gentle sensuality seemed to have quite vanished. ‘I am getting you in a fluster and I am ensuring that I spend an acutely uncomfortable evening.’

      ‘Why?’ Bree demanded.

      ‘Why am I getting you in a fluster?’

      ‘No. I know the answer to that—you’re a man. Men flirt, and I was silly enough to come out here with you—I expect it is quite automatic on your part. No, why will you be uncomfortable?’

      ‘Um … my conscience will be troubling me,’ he said. Bree narrowed her eyes. That was not the truth, but he would refuse to tell her if she pressed. ‘May I call and take you driving?’

      ‘You are number three,’ Bee informed him, torn between smugness and exasperation. ‘Am I to go driving with all of the Nonesuch Whips while you take it in turns to try to persuade me to let you drive a stage? It is a deeply unflattering motive.’

      ‘But you may acquit me, for I have already driven your stage, have I not?’

      Time to take the bull by the horns, my girl, Bree told herself. ‘Then what is your motive, my lord? You do not want to drive a stagecoach, you do not want to seduce me …’

      ‘I said I was not trying to, not that I did not want to.’

      ‘Now you are teasing me. I know perfectly well that you are too much the gentleman.’ He grimaced. In the flare of the torchlight his face looked stony. Bree blinked; it must be a trick of the light.

      ‘Perhaps I am amusing myself by bringing you into fashion, perhaps I enjoy flirting with you or perhaps I enjoy your company and would like to be your friend. What do you think, Bree?’

      ‘Perhaps all three?’

      ‘Clever girl.’

      She slapped at him lightly with her fan. ‘Do not patronise me, my lord, or we will not be friends for long.’

      Max stood and held out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘That would be a pity, Bree Mallory, because I think you will be very good for me.’

      Max watched Bree take the hand of her next dance partner and walk gracefully on to the dance floor. Another of the Whips, he noted. He really should do something about that, but it was too tempting to let them lay siege to the Challenge Coach Company—nothing was more certain to drive Bree out of the office and into the life that was proper for her. Into his company.

      ‘Don’t you go hurting my about-to-be-sister-in-law,’ a voice at his elbow chided him, like the echo of his conscience.

      He looked down and met the sparkling green eyes of Georgy Lucas. ‘What do you mean, Lady Georgiana?’

      ‘You know perfectly well what, and you know who, as well—don’t go getting all starchy with me, Max,’ she said, slipping her hand companionably under his elbow as they stood there. ‘I know what they say about you.’

      ‘And what is that, pray?’ Georgy’s challenging gaze was not at all shaken by his coolness.

      ‘That you gave your heart very unwisely when you were young, had it broken and now have no heart at all.’

      Damn the woman! Max bit down a sharp retort. What does she know, really? Not the whole truth—very few people know that.

      ‘Oh, I have a heart, Georgy, just not one I care to hazard any more.’

      ‘You will have to marry one day, Dysart—think of the title.’

      The title. And my heart—if anyone wants it.

      ‘And if you really choose to be unconventional, why, you have the standing to carry it off. Miss Mallory is not so very unsuitable after all—think of all the members of the House of Lords who have married actresses, for goodness’ sake. She is perfectly respectable, with some excellent, if distant, connections.’

      ‘I assume you are trying СКАЧАТЬ