All's Fair in Love and Seduction Read Online Free Page A

perform that minor miracle.
    A delighted smile, stretched across Mrs. Abernathy’s face. “Oh my dear girl, that is wonderful. My, your mother never said of word of it to me.” She clapped her hands together in girlish glee.
    However, the dowager wasn’t so easily fooled. She directed a level stare at Elizabeth that made her want to squirm. Acting was not one of Elizabeth’s talents but with her future resting in the hands of an unyielding and austere Lady Danvers, she summoned up every bit of ingenuity she possessed—which did not account to much—and smiled a foolish, giddy smile of a young woman with stars in her eyes and love in her heart.
    “And to whom are you betrothed?” the countess asked.
    “Unfortunately, I cannot say until the gentleman receives the blessing of my father. Which my father will grant, of course, as the gentleman is titled,” she added quickly, willing to say anything to remove the skepticism from the dowager’s eyes.
    Lady Danvers glanced at Mrs. Abernathy before turning back to her. “A peer you say?” She spoke with enough doubt in her tone to offend.
    The witch!
    Although truthfully, Elizabeth acknowledged that before her father inherited his title, there was more a likelihood that money would fall from the sky than her marrying even a sir. But now it was indeed possible, especially with the one thousand pounds her father had settled on her.
    Elizabeth drew back her shoulders and stiffened her spine. “Yes, my lady, a lord.”
    In response, the dowager raised one over-plucked eyebrow and gave a soft, harrumph before saying, “I will be expecting an introduction before you go announcing it to all of London.”
    If the woman had requested she deliver her the moon on a platter, Elizabeth would have gladly promised to do just that. But since thankfully, the dowager hadn’t asked the impossible, Elizabeth just nodded vigorously. “You will be the first to know, that I promise.”
    “Make certain you do.” The unspoken threat of revealing all the dowager had heard and seen tonight all over London simmered between them. “And do make yourself presentable before you go back inside. It shan’t take a genius to guess what you have been up to.”
    Elizabeth acknowledged Mrs. Abernathy with a grateful smile, performed an ingratiating curtsey toward the dowager before hastily taking her leave, pondering how precisely she was going to get herself out of this mess.
     
    ~*~*~
     
    After slipping back inside, Elizabeth was met by Missy. She attempted to excuse herself from the remainder of the ball pleading a headache but her cousin insisted they speak privately because she knew something was troubling her. As Elizabeth knew Missy would ruthlessly wear her down with her compassion and concern, she‘d acquiesced without another word and led Missy to her bedchamber.
    Five minutes later, Missy paced the carpeted floor at the foot of the bed, her slender fingers twirling a lock of chestnut hair she’d pulled from the pins securing it into an elegant coiffure, her smooth brow furrowed in fierce concentration.
    “Well, I would definitely say you have managed to get yourself into quite a bind,” Missy stated after a lengthy silence that followed Elizabeth’s recount of the evening’s events.
    At least she hadn’t told her how utterly thoughtless and foolish she‘d been to have put herself in such a situation. Elizabeth had already berated herself up one side of Hyde Park and down the other.
    “What am I to do?” she asked, doing her best to tamp down a wave of panic that seemed to ebb and flow depending on who, the viscount or the dowager, her thoughts centered upon.
    Her cousin’s expression immediately became contrite. Holding out her hand, she motioned Elizabeth to the large canopy bed. “Come, sit down. You look like a bundle of nerves. Don’t fret so. All will be well, I promise.”
    Missy angled toward her once they were seated on the edge of the bed and looked Elizabeth in the