Page 24 of A Bluestocking for the Wicked Duke

“She is beautiful,” he heard Lord James say.

“That does her pulchritude no justice. She is like light to the eyes, attractive to look at and making everywhere brighter,” William replied.

“You mean to make her suffer William. Do not be too taken by her beauty,” Lord James reminded him.

William turned back to face his friend.

“This is our chance James, no one is with them. The dance will soon start. Let us go keep their company so we have the first chance to dance with them because they are too fine a company to remain unperturbed by a wandering mister for long,” William said.

“You want to leave me with the other one, the bluestocking,” Lord James replied.

“If you do not take her attention, I will be left to face her snipping mouth. It would be easier for me to fall into Joane’s favour without her friend critiquing my every word,” William replied.

LordJames looked at this shirt, straightening it downward before looking up again.

“Well reputation asides, she is a beautiful specimen. And she might be a jollier mate than I have heard, I can take the risk,” Lord James said.

William and his friend walked across the hall to the chattering friends. They seemed to have seen his approach because they had stopped talking and faced William and Lord James before they got to them.

William bowed briskly on getting to them.

“Good evening my fair ladies, I hope the ball is of favour to you,” William said.

“Yes it is. The dance proper is yet to start but the atmosphere is relaxed,” Joane replied.

She had a smile on her face, brightening it up to higher levels of beauty. William was stunned.

“Would it be too much to ask to keep your company?” Lord James said.

“I didn’t know you speak,” Emma replied him curtly, a look of annoyance on her face.

“I do, and rather well. Let me escort you around the premises, I have been here a lot of times and I know the place. You will find that the Viscount is a man of many artistic pleasures,” Lord James replied.

Lord James hooked his arm with Emma’s arm and started walking away, taking the surprised Emma with him. Joane looked flabbergasted that her friend could be so easily taken.

“That leaves the two of us. I think we will make good company. I am William Marlow, the son of the Duke of Wellington.”

Joane looked up to him and smiled.

“I know. I have been expecting you,” she replied.

Chapter 8

The Duke’s Daughter or the Earl’s Daughter

Joane saw his eyebrows rise, his eyes popped out in an expression that looked more like alarm than surprise to Joane. He wasn’t expecting her to say she had been expecting him.

Well, I had.

“You were?” William asked her. He grazed his hand over his hair as he said that, taking Joane’s eyes to his glistening hair.

“A man of your stature would gravitate to the daughter of the man he just lost a duel to,” Joane said.

“Hardly lost,” William corrected.

“Hardly lost,” Joane repeated after him, smiling in response to his immediate correction.

“I was interested in knowing you too.”