An Improper Suitor Read Online Free Page B

have to marry her.’
    ‘Deuce take it, Mother,’ he exploded. ‘Stop playing games!’ But she wasn’t playing games. She didn’t like games, except for cards. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’
    ‘But I am telling you,’ she said, bewildered.
    ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘So why do I have to marry the chit?’
    ‘Because you compromised her, of course. Lady Nattleham, hermother’s friend, was riding in Hyde Park and saw her lying on the ground, with you leaning over her, and your hands—’ She broke off, embarrassed.
    ‘My hands?’ he said, dangerously.
    She reddened. Sometimes he wondered if Mama had actually bedded his father. It seemed hard to believe, though his very existence proved it.
    ‘Your hands,’ she continued, in a faint voice, ‘on her limbs.’
    ‘What nonsense!’ He stood up, his hands tearing through his hair. ‘I did indeed feel her limbs, as you choose to call them, Mother. Her legs .’ She looked up in shock. ‘But I was in the presence of her groom, and another perfectly respectable young lady. And I felt her legs to ensure that they were not broken. She had fallen from a horse , Mother.’
    ‘It was very foolish of you to feel her limbs, even if she had fallen from a horse.’ But then the full impact of his words reached her. She rose and drew him to her, to kiss him on the brow. She was smiling.
    ‘I knew it, my foolish boy. I knew you could not be so indifferent to propriety to—’
    ‘Feel a young lady’s limbs. In Hyde Park.’
    She ignored him.
    ‘We must counter this rumour, and set things right immediately.’ She paused and looked hard at him. ‘Unless you were in the company of some dubious female at the time?’
    ‘No, indeed, Mama. I would not go riding at eight o’clock in the morning with some “dubious” female, as you term it.’
    ‘I beg to differ. Any female who would be riding with you alone in Hyde Park at eight o’clock in the morning can hardly be called respectable.’
    He assured her that Miss Swifton was very proper ton . ‘She’s Lady Bullfinch’s granddaughter, no less, Mother. I think we can call her respectable.’
    Still, there was a nagging doubt in his mind. She had not reacted as any society miss would have reacted when he had pounced on her so very unexpectedly. In fact, now that he thought of it, she had been remarkably unflustered, considering how close he had held her. So close, in fact, that her scent, mingling with a subtle hint of rosewater,had lingered with him.
    ‘Yes, of course, we are well acquainted with Lady Bullfinch. She is a good friend of your grandmother’s. And I knew Miss Swifton’s mother, Olivia, though she was younger than me. A family of bluestockings , and rather odd, but nothing exceptionable. I will call on Miss Swifton, in that case, and we’ll devise a strategy to clear your name. As for Miss Neville, I have heard nothing about her at all, but I cannot help but feel that she must be a scheming nobody.’
    ‘There you wrong her, Mother. She is a perfectly charming and innocent young lady.’ A very pretty young lady, in fact. But the direction of his thoughts shifted to Miss Swifton, struggling in his arms; to the moment of awareness, as she jostled against him. His body had reacted, damn it, and jolted him into noticing her. As a woman. Which was certainly odd, because innocents like her usually left him cold. He liked more earthy, older women. It struck him, too, now that he thought about it, that she had remarkable presence of mind, given the fact that he had handled her. He cast a surreptitious glance at his palm. The teeth marks stood out, a clear circle of red.
    ‘If you are planning to call on Miss Swifton, I would be happy to accompany you,’ he said.
    His mother threw him a quizzing look.
    ‘If she is to help me uncoil this mess, I need to talk to her about it,’ he said, surprised to find a hint of defensiveness creeping into his voice. Devil take it, he didn’t need to explain