Page 88 of In the Prince's Bed

“You said it has naughty pictures, didn’t you?”

“Alec—” she began in a warning tone.

“Relax, sweetheart.” Taking her arm, he led her toward the door. “I’ll give it back to you as soon as we’re married. Until then, I don’t want anything reminding you of your previous objections to my suit.”

“Now see here, my arrogant Lord Iversley, I will not—”

“Are you two coming?” Mrs. Merivale poked her head back into the orangery to ask. “We have a betrothal to announce.”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he teased, “why do you dawdle?” He laughed when Katherine scowled first at him, then her mother.

And when Mrs. Merivale stood there and watched until they followed her out, he decided he might like having a pushy mother-in-law. Especially when she was so clearly onhisside.

***

Katherine had never been the belle of the ball or even known how one rose to that lofty status. Now she knew. A woman need only have an attractive and highly desirable earl propose marriage. Because once the news swept through Lady Purefoy’s guests, Katherine suddenly became the most popular person there.

How ridiculous. She’d been in London for weeks—weeks, mind you! But until she’d met Alec, the only men other than Sydney asking her to dance had been Sydney’s poet friends and the occasional squinty-eyed old gentleman. Between her “unfortunate hair,” Mama’s gushing, and Papa’s reputation as a wild-living squire, she hadn’t stood a chance.

She was her same old self, but now she couldn’t beat the men off. Although judging from how Alec frowned at her present partner—a handsome, if somewhat dull-witted viscount—Alec wishedhecould.

She smothered a laugh. He was trapped in an extended conversation with Mama, while Katherine danced with yet another respectable gentleman. Hah! That’s what he got for stealing theRhetorick.

He exacted his own revenge soon enough, however, when the viscount brought her back. As they approached, Alec skimmed his smoldering gaze down her body, resting it briefly on her breasts, then her belly, and finally the place between her thighs that he’d conquered so shamelessly earlier.

Thank goodness the viscount was too busy chattering to notice. Alec’s look was so blatantly sensual, she could hardly manage a response to the viscount’s commentary on the dance. Undressing her with his eyes, indeed—he wasseducingher with his eyes, curse him.

Most effectively, too. By the time she and the viscount reached Alec and her mother, Katherine wanted to throw herself at her future husband and beg him to take her again right there.

She didn’t even notice when the viscount left.

With a pantherish smile, Alec stepped close. “Shall I fetch you some punch, Miss Merivale? You look a bit…warm.”

She just had time to raise an eyebrow before Mama answered. “Oh, yes, do fetch us both some punch. I swear I’m going quite hoarse from discussing your impendingmésalliance.”

Alec covered his laugh with a cough, but Katherine could only sigh. One of these days her mother would be the death of her. “Mama, please say you haven’t been telling all and sundry that ours is a ‘bad match.’ ”

“What? Indeed not! A perfectmésalliance—that’s what I was just saying to Lady Winthrop. Though I confess she looked oddly startled to hear it.”

Katherine wanted to drop through the floor in mortification, but Alec’s eyes twinkled madly. “Never mind Lady Winthrop, madam. On my way to get the punch, I’ll be sure to…er…explain the matter more thoroughly to her.”

As he strode off, his shoulders shaking with laughter, Mama said, “He’s such a nice man, don’t you think?”

“Tolerant, too,” Katherine said, suppressing a smile.

“You’ve made me so happy, dear. I knew when he walked in tonight that he’d forgiven you.”

She frowned. “For what, pray tell?”

“For all that business of delaying the announcement so you could talk to Sir Sydney first.” Her mother scowled at something past her. “And speaking of Sir Sydney, he’s headed this way.”

That was all the warning Katherine got before Sydney was upon them, looking dignified and vulnerable and a little sad.

He bowed to them both. “I came to give you my felicitations. I hope you and Iversley will be very happy together, Kit.”

Katherine recognized the olive branch for what it was. “Thank you.”

“I’m certain Mother would give you her felicitations, too, if she were here.”