The Debutante. Elizabeth Bevarly

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СКАЧАТЬ karma will out.

      Still, her bad karma couldn’t be all that bad, she decided, since it had led her to a room that was quiet, reflective and pretty, a welcome contrast to the noisy, bustling, extravagant party she’d just left. She hesitated before turning around to leave, attracted to the almost Zen-like serenity of the sunroom. It was more than a little appealing for someone who had survived as hectic a day as Lanie had. Maybe she should just take advantage of a peaceful moment and enjoy it for a few minutes before venturing back to the raucous fund-raiser.

      At night like this, the sunroom was really more of a moon room. And the moon was indeed visible, shining like a newly minted silver dollar smack-dab in the middle of the dark sky above. Beyond and around it, stars glittered like tiny gemstones. If Lanie focused very hard, she thought she could see the milky gleam of the galaxy threading its way through the darkness, too. Tables and chairs dotted the room, unused at the moment, but their glass hurricane centerpieces winked in the moonlight as if a few stray stars had spilled into them. Here and there, along the perimeter of the room, pots of ferns and trailing bougainvillea hung from what, in the dim light, appeared to be magic. Coupled with the night sky above, the view made Lanie feel as if she had stumbled into a lush, deserted jungle. The only thing that prevented the impression from gelling completely was that somewhere behind her she could hear the faint strains of jazz—something soft and mellow and perfect for the nighttime hours, the metallic swish of brushes on drum skins inciting an echoing purr of delight that rumbled up from somewhere deep inside her.

      It wasn’t easy being a jazz fan in Texas, where country and western and southern-fried rock reigned. Someone here at the Four Seasons must like it, too, she thought. Or maybe her karma really wasn’t so bad after all, and the Fates had simply seen fit to reward her for some good deed she couldn’t remember doing.

      For another long moment, Lanie only stood in the center of the deserted sunroom, gazing up at the sky, enjoying the soft sound of music. What was the harm? By now, her mother would have decided she’d been waylaid by another partygoer and would be promising Mrs. Steadmore-Duckworth that she’d make sure her daughter called her first thing in the morning. And Lanie would, she silently promised, her guilty conscience gnawing at her. She could fit one more committee into her year, provided it was for a good cause. It was the least she could do for Mrs. Steadmore-Duckworth, since avoiding the woman had given Lanie a few moments of peace and quiet in an otherwise turbulent world.

      Funny how rewards came out of nowhere sometimes. Good thing she had the good sense to enjoy it.

      Not sure what compelled her to do it, Lanie strode to the other side of the room, halting between an especially dense fern and an especially fragrant bougainvillea. Gazing through the window, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement outside, in the bushes that lay just beyond the glass. She noticed then that the entire sunroom was surrounded by outdoor greenery, which, like the potted plants inside, added to the exotic feel of the place. No doubt something small and hungry was out there scavenging about, she thought. Though she doubted it was any more exotic than an armadillo. She placed her open hand against the cool glass of the window, spreading her fingers wide in an effort to block some of the reflection of the light behind her, to see if she could tell what was out there. Narrowing her eyes, she waited to see if the movement would come again.

      “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was someone here.”

      Lanie spun around quickly at the sound of the masculine voice, startled not only by the disruption to her solitary contentment, but also because she had genuinely forgotten she was in a public place full of people, any of whom could have wandered into the sunroom off the busy hallway beyond the door. Startled turned into delighted, however, when she realized who the masculine voice belonged to. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, and she had no trouble making out with—uh, she meant making out—Miles Fortune. Of all people. Well, well, well.

      “That’s okay,” she said. “I was actually just getting ready to leave.”

      And why did she tell him that? she wondered. A handsome man she’d found fascinating for years shows up in a room where she’d have his undivided attention, and she tells him she has to be going? What was the matter with her?

      “Don’t let me scare you off,” he said.

      As if, Lanie thought. He was way too yummy to be scary. Most of the photos she’d seen of him had depicted him in casual clothes, everything from grubby ranch denim to preppy golf shirts and trousers to blazers with open-collar shirts and Dockers. Tonight, though, he’d dressed for the formal fund-raiser in a dark suit with a plum-colored dress shirt and a dappled silk necktie knotted at his throat.

      Snazzy, she couldn’t help thinking. Not a bad dresser for a guy who made his living chasing cows. She wondered if he had a woman stashed somewhere who helped him with his wardrobe. She’d read enough about Miles Fortune to know he never stayed with one woman for very long and, in fact, had dated some of the flashiest, most sophisticated women in Texas. But he had a sister and female cousins, and everyone knew those Fortunes were very close. Maybe one of his feminine relatives helped him make his sartorial selections. Most men couldn’t be bothered with that kind of thing. Especially those whose chief interests were bovine in nature.

      Then again, part of Miles Fortune’s appeal to all those flashy, sophisticated women was how great he looked all the time, Lanie reminded herself. So which was a result of the other? One of those chicken-or-the-egg things she’d probably be better off not thinking about, she supposed.

      “You didn’t scare me off,” she said, remembering that he’d made a comment that had invited a reply.

      He smiled in response, a smile that was sweet and dreamy and—there was just no escaping it—droolworthy. Lanie battled the temptation to swipe her hand over her mouth and smiled back.

      “Good,” he said. “Because the last thing I’d want to do is scare off a nice girl like you.”

      A nice girl, Lanie echoed to herself, turning fully around now to face him. Funny, she hadn’t been called that for a long time. Maybe not ever. Whenever she was mentioned in the society pages or elsewhere, she was usually tagged with some cutesy nickname by whomever was doing the mentioning, and rarely were the nicknames in any way appropriate—or earned. Every time Lanie visited a new town, she was awarded some new, usually alliterative label she didn’t deserve. The Dallas Delilah. The Houston Heartbreaker. The Fort Worth Firebrand. The San Antonio Seductress. The Amarillo Angel. The Corpus Christi Cutie. Or just the all-inclusive Texas Tornado. And then there was the one she had to suffer when she was at home in Austin: Government Goddess.

      Oh, all right. So maybe she did kind of like that last one.

      At any rate, “nice girl” had never been anywhere in the mix. Not even when she’d gone to Nacogdoches. No, there she’d been The Knockout. So hearing Miles Fortune refer to her as a nice girl now made a little ripple of pleasure purl right through her.

      “Hi, I’m Miles Fortune,” he introduced himself. With a hint of self-consciousness—though whether real or manufactured to put her at ease, Lanie couldn’t have said—he strode slowly across the room to where she stood, stopping when there was still a good three feet separating them, obviously not wanting her to feel threatened by him. Then, looking uncertain about how welcome the gesture would be, he extended his hand for her to shake it.

      Lanie took it automatically, totally comfortable with the masculine form of address, because she’d been shaking the hands of her father’s colleagues since she was a little girl. Something like that had always presented a great photo opportunity, after all. Besides, she didn’t feel at all threatened by Miles Fortune, since he was in no way a threatening guy.

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