Ben made a slow circle of the brightly lit ballroom,
stopping occasionally to study the couples as they
sashayed past, their cheeks pink from exertion. After
several moments, he was satisfied Lord Wellham wasn’t
among the dancers, not that Ben was surprised. If his
memory served, the earl favored gambling over gamboling.
Reaching a secluded corner near a dark alcove, he paused
to check once more for his quarry before he sought out
the card room.
“What are you doing here?” a voice hissed. “You are not
on the guest list.”
“Pardon?” Ben spun toward the speaker and came up short.
His eyebrows veered toward each other. “How do you know?”
he whispered back to the mass of green palm fronds.
“Because I helped make the list.” The plant’s fronds
parted, and Eve Thorne’s stern glare greeted him. What
the devil was she doing?
Her frown deepened when he simply stared, at a loss for
words. “Do you have a death wish, Mr. Hillary?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Let me guess, you’ve
been attacked by a man-eating plant. Are you in need of
rescue, Kitten?”
She growled softly and the fronds snapped back into
place. Ben checked the surrounding area to be certain
they hadn’t earned any unwanted attention, then peered
around the massive greenery. Eve was wedged against the
wall, her yellow chiffon skirts crushed against the large
pot. Her chest rose and fell in rapid movements, drawing
his attention to the modest swell of her breasts peeking
above her lacy neckline. A rosy glow infused her ivory
skin, making the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks
almost unnoticeable.
God, he had missed her – her freckles, her pouty lips,
her soulful brown eyes. He had been smitten from the
moment he had spied her at the theater during the little
Season, and two years on a faraway continent had done
nothing to cool his ardor.
“What are you doing back there, Miss Thorne, and
shouldn’t you have a chaperone?”
She crossed her arms as if erecting a wall between them.
“God only knows why, but I am trying to save your skin,
Benjamin James Arran Hillary.”
Damnation. He had almost forgotten he’d been burdened
with so many names, and that she had a habit of invoking
every one when she was perturbed. His smile expanded.
Despite her pretense of indifference, she was worried for
him. “Am I to conclude your skulking about means you
still care?”
“I care about Lady Eldridge, and I do not want to see her
ball ruined by you and Sebastian coming to fisticuffs.
You really must leave before he sees you and demands
another meeting on the field.”
Crossing paths with Sebastian Thorne didn’t concern Ben.
Her brother’s need to defend her reputation after Ben
jilted her had been satisfied three weeks earlier in a
duel, and Thorne would not issue a second challenge for
fear of losing. Ben suspected neither of them wanted to
risk looking like fools again either. Instead of dueling
with pistols or swords as any other normal men would do,
they had allowed Eve to choose the weapons. She had
chosen gloves.
He scowled. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous it
looked for two men to engage in a slapping match?” The
gents at Brooks’s hadn’t stopped talking about the duel
for days, and Ben had endured the brunt of the teasing
since he’d followed his youngest brother’s advice and
allowed Thorne to win.
Eve’s smile radiated with self-satisfaction. “Since no
one died, I would say I made an excellent choice.”
H grudgingly admitted her cleverness had managed to
resolve the conflict without bloodshed – or much, anyway.
Ben had walked away with a cut on his cheek and a nasty
bruise, thanks to her brother filling his glove with
pebbles. But bruised pride and a bruised mug were small
prices to pay to see Eve’s position in Society restored.
