A Regency Charade Read Online Free

raising her eyebrows in hauteur. “Or shall I call you your lordship ? If that’s what you think, you needn’t offer for me after all!”
    He blinked up at her stupidly as his stomach lurched in surprise. “Wh- What ?”
    “I said, sir, that you needn’t bother to offer for me.”
    “Did you think I was ?” he asked, startled.
    She perched on the sofa beside him. “Well, weren’t you?”
    He stared at her for a moment and then looked down at his fingers which were nervously clutching his knees. “Grandfather did say … er … something about my … making an offer,” he mumbled.
    “Then you may as well proceed,” she ordered, leaning back against the cushions like a royal princess.
    He threw her a quick, apprehensive glance. “P-Proceed?”
    “With your speech. You did prepare something for the occasion, I presume.”
    “Well, no. I mean … I thought … er … that is, I didn’t think …”
    “Are you trying to say, in that very lucid and coherent way, that you intend to make your offer extemporaneously ?”
    Her mockery and her seemingly unshakable self-possession infuriated him. “See here, Prissy,” he exploded, “you’re not going to sit there and pretend that you want me to offer for you!”
    She folded her hands in her lap complacently. “It’s not so much what I want as what is expected ,” she explained.
    “Expected?”
    “Yes. When two people are to be married, as we are, the gentleman is expected to make the offer. It would not be considered at all ladylike, you see, for the female to do it.”
    “Stop joking, for heaven’s sake! You can’t have agreed to get married just because your mother has need of—!”
    “My mother ?” Priss drew herself up stiffly. “My mother has nothing whatever to do with my decisions in these matters.”
    He gaped at her in disbelief. “Prissy! You can’t mean …! Are you saying …? I mean … you cannot wish to marry me!”
    She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. “No? Why not?”
    “Why not ? Why not ?” He pushed his fingers through his hair in a kind of desperate bewilderment. “We don’t even know each other! We haven’t laid eyes on one another for more than four years! And before that …”
    “Yes? Before that?”
    “Before that, you completely detested me.”
    “Did I? I thought it was you who detested me ,” she said, dropping her eyes to her hands, her lips curled in a coy smile.
    “Detested you?” He jumped to his feet and, enraged, placed himself squarely before her. “What sort of game is this? I adored you, and you know it!”
    She grinned up at him mischievously. “Good. That is something like. Now, please sit down here beside me and get on with the rest of it.”
    His head swam in confusion. “The rest of it?”
    “The offer, you gudgeon, the offer. You do want me to marry you, don’t you?”
    His heart began to hammer in his chest, and he dropped down on the sofa, completely stunned. “I … I never dreamed …! I mean, you wouldn’t really … would you …?”
    She laughed merrily, reached over and patted his hand. “Yes. I would. And I thank you for your very eloquent and moving offer. I accept.”
    He could not believe what was happening. Did this beautiful, golden girl truly wish to become his wife? His wife ? It was a miracle … a dream … a fabrication of a fevered, too-long-sequestered imagination. If he put out his hand to touch her, she would undoubtedly dissolve … or disappear into the mist. And he’d wake up and find himself back at his rooms at Oxford. “Prissy, I … I …” he stammered.
    “I know. You don’t have to tell me. You’ve forgotten what comes next.”
    “N-Next?”
    “I think that tradition demands it, you know.” She leaned toward him, her sapphire eyes laughing into his.
    “Demands what?” he asked dizzily.
    “That you kiss me, of course.”
    “Oh!” Very slowly and tentatively, he reached out for her. To his amazement, she did not disappear at his