Page 5 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife (Cinderellas of Mayfair #1)

“Roses and cream.”

He didn’t look impressed, even though it was a better line than anything from her inadequate effort yesterday. “If you like.”

When Sylvie came in to announce Sir Hugo, Athene had been sitting, staring at a blank sheet of paper. Lord Tierney had ordered a verse for his wife to mark their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Now she wrote “roses and cream” down. “What else?”

“What else?”

She sat back with an impatient sigh. Sir Hugo seemed to have trouble recalling the object of his visit. Wooing the current diamond. Unfortunately so did she. “Yes, what else have you noticed about her complexion?”

“Healthy?”

Athene couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “A little prosaic.”

He was unoffended. In fact, something told her that he enjoyed her candor.

Usually she was all quiet discretion with her clients.

But then usually she had no desire to kiss her clients.

The longer she sat a few feet away from Sir Hugo, the hotter she burned to press herself up against that muscled chest.

“Health matters. I’m a farmer. A wilting rosebud won’t transplant too well to my rugged Yorkshire hills.”

Athene regarded him with curiosity. “You’re from Yorkshire?”

“Aye, lass,” he said in a broad accent that made her smile. “The grandest country God ever created. Do you know it?”

She’d grown up in the Dales. Through all her adventures, she’d never forgotten the huge skies and the brisk wind that swept away everything petty and shabby.

It was a constant grief that she could never go back.

She was shut out of paradise. She hated London with its crowds and its dirt and its dangers.

But London was the safest place to disappear.

“No,” she lied, feeling like she denied her best friend. “Is it beautiful?”

“Didn’t I just say?” He reverted to his usual upper-crust accent. “You’d love it. Space for a man – or a woman – to breathe. High hills. Sparkling becks flowing with crystal water that tastes better than champagne.”

Yes, she remembered. How she remembered. “It sounds lovely.”

“I’d like to show you.”

That brought her up with a jolt. “Rather you should be thinking of showing Lady Petronella.”

He looked thoughtful. “I can’t picture her hiking across the moors.”

Neither could Athene. “Perhaps that’s something to consider before you propose.”

Then she bit her lip in chagrin. She never offered romantic advice to her clients.

Partly because most of the gentlemen who engaged her services had no chance of winning the ladies they pursued.

When she’d met Sir Hugo, she’d been convinced that he had no chance with Lady Petronella either.

But now that she factored in his personal charms, the outcome wasn’t quite so clear-cut.

Given a choice between an aging earl and this young Hercules, Athene knew who she’d take.

“Do you know Lady Petronella?” he asked.

“She’s come into the shop a few times. She likes—”

“Sugared violets. I know. Tell me about her.”

“Haven’t you met her?”

“Several times. We’ve danced together.”

Lucky Lady Petronella. Athene would wager that waltzing around a room with Sir Hugo was heaven. “Then why ask me what she’s like?”

He shrugged. “A second opinion never hurts.”

In Athene’s experience, when someone fell victim to a romantic obsession, a second opinion didn’t get a look-in.

Wiser counsel certainly wouldn’t have dissuaded her girlhood self from her disastrous decisions.

But something told her that Sir Hugo wasn’t quite as delirious about Lady Petronella as some of the lady’s other suitors.

Or was that just wishful thinking?

Even if he wasn’t head over heels with the society beauty, he wasn’t about to court Aphrodite de Smith. “I couldn’t possibly say,” she said, deciding – at last – on discretion.

“Of course you could. Tell me about her.”

“She’s…” Indulged. Vain. Childish. Capricious. “…pretty.”

The lily-livered response elicited a snort of contempt. “Yes, she is. But a Yorkshireman needs a wife with character.”

Then why the devil are you pursuing a woman with less substance than the sugared violets she gobbles by the boxful?

Athene wanted to give Sir Hugo a good shake and tell him to wake up to himself. As if her puny strength would prevail against his substantial form.

Before she could speak, he went on. “You have character.”

Without doubt. Too much of it, according to most people who knew her. Certainly according to George Foster, who had seduced an innocent and discovered that he’d taken on a flint-hearted termagant. “Yes, but we’re not talking about me.”

“Aren’t we? For example, I know you don’t like sugared violets. But there must be something in Madame Lebeau’s shop that takes your fancy.”

“I can’t afford Sylvie’s creations. Five shillings for a verse don’t extend to extravagances like expensive bonbons.”

“I gave you a guinea.”

“Yes, you did. For one of my lesser works, too.”

“Imagine what I’ll pay if you extend yourself to the limits of your talents.”

“Imagine,” she said drily. “You may have to mortgage those Yorkshire acres to meet my bill.”

That made him laugh. “God forbid. So what bonbon would you choose? I’m sure you’ve tasted most of the wares, even if the ones not fit for sale.”

It was true. She had. And Sylvie often asked her opinion on new recipes. “There’s a lemon drop that I like.”

“I can see you choosing something with a bit of tartness. You wouldn’t go for anything as sickly as those sugared violets.” His expression indicated his contempt for his lady love’s preferences in confectionery.

That wasn’t precisely a compliment, despite it feeling like one.

Athene told herself that it meant nothing, although the idea of Sir Hugo noticing her to the point of guessing her preferences touched her closed heart.

Her London life was a lonely one. Apart from Sylvie, she had no friends.

In fact, apart from Sylvie, nobody would mourn her if she disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow.

It was how she wanted it, but something deep in her soul blossomed to know that Sir Hugo had spared her a thought.

How utterly pathetic. She’d be kissing his feet next.

This interview proved unexpected – and extended.

She cast the brawny baronet a disapproving glance.

“We seem to have moved away from the purpose of your call. You want a poem to accompany some bonbons for Lady Petronella, and we’ve decided on a verse in praise of her complexion.

I can arrange to finish that, you can order your bonbons from Sylvie, and we can send everything from here.

There’s no need to delay you any further. ”

He cast her a knowing look. “You want to get rid of me.”

She did, largely because he was more tempting that Sylvie’s lemon drops.

For ten long years, the memory of her unfortunate experiences had kept her safe.

But Sir Hugo’s company made her recall the pleasures that she’d enjoyed before everything went sour.

Kisses. A lover’s touch. Conspiratorial smiles.

She and her devilish paramour united against the world.

Athene told herself that all those things just put her on the pathway to damnation.

She’d spent close to a decade crawling back to something approaching security.

She couldn’t risk losing that again. But every second she spent with Sir Hugo made that grim truth harder to cling onto. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“I’m happy to wait.”

“There’s no point.” She hated how panic frayed her voice.

“I’m not sending the bonbons to Lady Petronella.” He settled more deeply into the chair, conveying a silent message that nothing short of an earthquake would shift him. “I’m taking them with me.”

“For when you call on the lady?”

“If you like.”

“It’s more usual to send gifts separate from a call.”

“Perhaps I want to be memorable.”

Athene had a doomed feeling that he was already memorable. She would certainly remember him. In fact, he was sure to infest her dreams. He had last night. She’d woken in a tangle of sheets, wisps of forbidden, sensual images lingering in her mind and her body empty and unfulfilled.

She reminded herself that he sought her assistance in winning another woman. “I’d have thought you’d exhausted your curiosity about my creative processes yesterday.”

“I haven’t even started, Miss de Smith. I’m such a dunderhead when it comes to spinning words together that what you do seems a kind of sorcery.”

She pressed her lips together. Sir Hugo wasn’t going anywhere until he was ready, blast him. It seemed that she had to compose something extolling Lady Petronella under observation again. “Very well. If it will amuse you.”

“A pretty woman bent over her composition and me free to look my fill? Capital entertainment.”

She cast him a glance of dislike. The compliment didn’t please her. “Don’t try and flatter me, sir.”

He folded his arms and sent her a smile of spurious innocence that nonetheless set her stomach coiling tight with longing. By heaven, he was a pleasure to behold. He made every other gentleman in the ton look like a scarecrow. “Wouldn’t dream of it, dear lady.”

The “dear lady” grated. It implied that he cared about her when that couldn’t be the truth. “You should be thinking of Lady Petronella.”

“I find myself…distracted.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, even as the interest that she read in his face made her wanton blood roar like a furnace. “You, sir, are a rogue.”

The accusation left him undaunted. “No more than the next man.”

“Flirting with me while you court another isn’t honorable.”

She wasn’t surprised when no denial emerged. “But you have to admit it’s fun.”

While Athene summoned up a glare, she wasn’t about to enter into an argument. Partly because she feared that she was destined to lose. “Sir Hugo, I believe I must end our association. You seem to imagine that you’re purchasing more than a verse or two.”

The smile faded, and he met her eyes with a sincerity that she knew she couldn’t trust. “No. There you’re wrong. I intend to treat you with every consideration.”

“Then please restrict our interactions to business matters.”

“I am suitably chastened.”

Athene didn’t believe him. Instead, she dipped her pen in the inkpot and struggled to think of something to say about the woman she refused to think of as her rival.

“Lady Petronella is a lucky cow” might carry the ring of truth but wouldn’t find favor with either the diamond or her rather nonchalant suitor.

Not to mention that Athene wasn’t yet willing to confess the full extent of her jealousy.

Something in her wanted to claim Sir Hugo Brinsmead as hers. But that could never be.