My Lady Rival Read Online Free Page A

at a worse time.
    Willa, who understood very well what occurred on terraces out in the moonlight
    —from experience—refused. Her business flirtations didn’t extend into that distant a territory. Or rather, they had once, but she preferred to learn from her mistakes.
    “No, thank you,” she said, another line of perspiration rolling between her shoulder blades. “I’m very comfortable.” She liked Mr. Lunsford. She enjoyed his banter and sly observations of the guests milling about them. But she knew enough of his love for women—all women—to wish to keep her lips from becoming yet another pair to pledge their surrender.
    The other side of his mouth lifted in a curl, presenting the full extent of his smile
    —a smile which would have made other women consider fainting, if only for a chance to be caught against his chest.
    “I am not the sort of man to complain when a woman wishes to spend the entire evening with me,” he said. His smile grew wider, yet still she didn’t feel at all like fainting. “I enjoy spending time in your company, my lady. Yet I find myself suddenly questioning why you prefer mine.”
    “I think you very handsome,” Willa said automatically, obviously, flirting with the ease of practice. She regretted it at once, nearly laughing when his eyes narrowed. Perhaps some level of enthusiasm was called for.
    “Do you?”
    “The most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she added, fluttering her eyelashes.
    It was the closest to simpering she’d ever come.
    “A nd I suppose you’ve gathered all this from staring at my mask tonight?” Well, blast.
    It was the lack of breathlessness, she decided. She needed to affect a loss of oxygen in the quality of her voice whenever he looked at her. Heave her breasts a little to distract his attention. She should feign something similar to the way she’d truly felt earlier in the evening in the company of the other man.
    A s she’d done at least a dozen times since leaving him, Willa’s gaze swept through the throng of masks for a simple black domino tied to a dark head. There were many such men nearby, and none of them him. She knew this, for not one were many such men nearby, and none of them him. She knew this, for not one caused her breath to stutter in her lungs, or her heart to race as it had done before, when his brown eyes had captured hers and his strong, warm hands remained settled on her shoulders.
    Foolish. Tonight she was here for the Madonna dye, nothing more.
    Willa tilted her head as if to consider Mr. Lunsford’s attributes. “Your chin is very fine,” she acknowledged.
    “A h, but many men have fine chins,” he said. “You claimed me to be the most handsome man.”
    She pressed her lips together. “Your nose is nice as well.”
    “The one behind my mask?”
    “It’s the only one you have, isn’t it?”
    He chuckled, his gaze stretching over her shoulder. “A nd what of this approaching fellow?” he asked. “Shall you say that his nose is nice, too?” Willa turned to find him approaching, the man with the black domino and the dark hair. She shouldn’t have allowed her gaze to linger, should have returned her attention quickly to Lunsford. But the stranger succeeded in distracting her yet again, and as he neared, thoughts of everything else fled from her mind. Her palms perspired in her gloves. Her chest heaved. A nd she became breathless.
    He halted before her, his gaze flicking to Mr. Lunsford. He nodded, then met her eyes. A nd the thought came, swiftly—and yes, foolishly—that perhaps if all else failed when it came to the dye, she might marry an aristocrat. A rich one who loved her, to be sure, one who didn’t need her father’s money, for Daniel Stratton had made it abundantly clear that she would have neither dowry nor inheritance unless she married Harold Eichel.
    “I beg your pardon, sir,” the man addressed Mr. Lunsford, his gaze still locked on hers. He had brown eyes. Dark and rich—she could almost