How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) Read Online Free Page A

annoyed.
    And he gazed down into a pair of simmering spring-green eyes. The light in them was livid, tart, frustrated. But upon seeing him, it changed immediately to astonishment and alarm, then something akin to fear, before it flickered and died away, like a candle flame caught in a draft.
    Now those eyes were dull, empty.
    He could not speak. He could barely take a breath.
    Was it only three years and six months since he last saw her?
    “Diana.” The name burst out of him, just when he thought his tongue was frozen by her icy regard. “ Diana? ”
    She was so changed, frail and faded.
    “Captain Sherringham,” she replied, her voice tired, her head bowed as she looked down at her trapped skirt again. “You’re back.”
    The weary resignation in her voice irritated him. He might as well be a returning infestation of greenfly, he thought angrily. Now she would not even look up, intent on hiding her face.
    He recovered enough to reply with his customary jocular teasing. “Yes, I am returned, but don’t worry. I shan’t blot the horizon long with my presence.”
    “That will be a pity for some ladies, I’m sure. You’ll still find some addled enough and at liberty to seek a rake’s company.”
    “Good. I do love a woman with a taste for merry thrills.”
    “And thrillingly merry bad taste.”
    She wrestled with her skirt, but since she didn’t have the physical strength to secure her escape, her actions became more frantic and even less effective. The large fellow now noticed her struggle and tried to move his chair, but only succeeded in dragging the leg further along her skirt and rending a larger hole in the hem.
    Where was her husband? Nathaniel wondered. Why did William Shaw leave his wife unattended?
    Nathaniel folded his arms. “I came over to make this gentleman move off your gown, yet I hear not a word of thanks.”
    “Fortunately, Captain, I haven’t been waiting around for you to save me,” she muttered.
    “I didn’t imagine you had. It would have been foolish to do so, since you gave me my marching orders once before.”
    “For a man with itchy feet, marching orders are a gift.”
    “Itchy feet?”
    “A man who is never still, never content, must always be going somewhere. Running away.”
    “ Running away? ” He was incensed by that comment. She dared to accuse him of that after what she’d done to him—left him standing on that bridge like a simpleton? She might at least have come to say good-bye. He didn’t expect miracles, but would a few words have been too much? They might have parted under better terms, and he could have apologized for his undignified proposal.
    Her face in shadow, she said, “As my mother says, some men won’t stop running until they trip and fall face-first into a grave.”
    Ah yes, the delightful Mrs. Makepiece. She and her opinions were always mentioned sooner or later. “Speaking of which”—he spat out the words—“I almost mistook you for your mama tonight.”
    He heard one inhaled gasp, and then Diana gave another furious tug to her skirt. Apparently a pricked temper gave her the needed burst of strength at last. Her skirt ripped free of the gentleman’s chair and she walked away without another word, torn hem trailing after her.
    Somehow moving his feet in the other direction, Nathaniel returned to the refreshment table. But he decided against refilling Caroline’s beverage or his own. His hands trembled with so much anger that he might be tempted to smash the punch bowl to the ground.
    “I say, aren’t you that Captain Sherringham?” A woman standing by the cake was squinting hard at him.
    He didn’t recognize her. She was short, plain but well-maintained, about his age. Her lips gathered in a tight pout as she awaited his answer—almost as if admitting his name would be the same as confessing guilt of a crime.
    “Captain who?” he murmured.
    She stared hard, a deep line forming between her brows.
    “Ah, wait!” He held up a finger.