Accidentally in Love by Claudia Dain Page B

marry?”
    “Certainly not.” This was, by any measure, the most peculiar conversation she’d ever endured.
    “Not even from Culley,” he said.
    In truth, Kit was the only man of her acquaintance who was of an age to marry. He was not of the disposition to marry, at least not her.
    “They look upon Kit as an elder brother,” she said. “It was Kit who gave them their pet names, in fact.”
    “No pet name for you, Miss Harlow?” Raithby looked at her fully, his dark blue eyes glinting.
    “No. Not for me,” she said. She sounded annoyed. She was annoyed. No pet name for her. No. Not for boring, old sisterly Emeline.
    “Ah,” he said, turning to face the orchestra. The violinist had another bow and was running it across the strings. No one seemed to mind the delay as the room was awash in conversation. “Then, Miss Harlow, I must inform you that Culley does not think of you as a sister.”
    “I beg your pardon?” she said, turning in her seat to face him more fully. She caught a glance at Kit, lounging on the side of the room, leaning against the wallpaper. He looked cooly disinterested in everything and everyone. Including his mother. His mother, rather wonderfully, was nowhere in sight.
    “Pet names for your brothers,” Raithby said. “No pet name for you, Miss Harlow. Does that not you tell all?”
    “I’m afraid not. Please explain, Lord Raithby, if you would.”
    “As I said, I have no sister, yet I have made something of a study of the subject.”
    “The subject being sisters?”
    “Men who have sisters, rather. They behave, Miss Harlow, in predictable ways, and Kit does not fit the pattern in relation to you.”
    “Doesn’t he?” she said, a smile blooming across her face. She could feel it and she could not help it.
    Raithby smiled back at her. “Not at all.”
    “How would you say he does behave towards me? Since you’ve made a study of it.”
    “I think, Miss Harlow, that is a private matter between the two of you. As you are old friends, I think that you should not have much trouble in bringing that particular horse to water.”
    “But will I be able to make him drink, my lord?”
    “Miss Harlow,” Raithby said, smiling fully, “I have complete faith in you.”
    And then she laughed. And then the orchestra started. And then Kit got into a fight with a footman.
     
     
    In watching Emeline flirt with appalling obviousness with Raithby, Kit edged forward along the wall. He maintained his negligent air of disinterest, he was quite sure of that, as he inched forward to see things better. Things being Raithy and Emeline. He did not care a whit about the orchestra.
    It was at the moment when Emeline laughed into Raithby’s smiling face, that a footman appeared at his elbow and said, “Sir, there are seats available.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Sir,” the footman said a bit more forcefully, “I can show you a couple of very nice seats. You can see the playing just fine from there.”
    “I said I was fine,” Kit said crisply.
    The footman, who was a tall, well-formed fellow with light red hair and small light green eyes, actually took him by the elbow and tried to lead him away, toward the available seat, Kit presumed.
    Kit pulled his arm out of the fellow’s grasp and said . . . nothing. What could one say to a footman who was so completely beyond the pale of acceptable behavior?
    “Sir, I have been instructed to lead you to a seat.”
    “You are overplaying your instructions,” Kit said.
    “The wallpaper is not to be touched.”
    There was nothing to be said to that. People were starting to stare in their direction. The butler and another footman were moving toward them rapidly. Was he to be hauled into a seat?
    “Sir, I am new to this house. I must ask that you find a seat.”
    The more he insisted, the more Kit was determined to stay exactly where he was. It came to him that he had been accommodating others all his life. Every decision he had made in his life had been made for