Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 04] by Dangerous Lady Page B

to Paris to attend to my formal fittings.”
    “I assume that Sutherland has explained your duties,” Victoria said, clearly tired of talking about fashion.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Letty said.
    “Excellent. Lady Portman,” the queen said, raising her voice and turning her head slightly toward a small group of women talking quietly nearby, “perhaps you and Lady Barham would care to play three-handed whist now for a short while.”
    Two ladies separated themselves at once from the others and moved to attend to the queen. Footmen swiftly set up a card table, and no one seemed to notice as Letty walked away. For the moment she stood alone, for the Duchess of Sutherland had apparently abandoned her. Seeing another lone young woman look her way, Letty moved toward her, saying as she approached, “Hello, I am Letitia Deverill.”
    “Are you indeed?”
    “Well, I was the last time I looked.”
    The smile that began to tug at the corners of the other young woman’s mouth vanished in an instant when a stern masculine voice spoke from behind Letty.
    “Catherine, Lady Tavistock is looking for you.”
    “I shall go to her at once, Sir John. Thank you.”
    Letty had thought the drawing room populated entirely by members of the fair sex, but as she glanced toward the stern voice, she saw at once that she was mistaken. The man who had spoken turned on his heel without so much as a word to her, but she scarcely noted his rudeness.
    Directly behind him, looking right at her, was the very handsome man who had nearly knocked her off Mr. Clifford’s front stoop that morning.

FOUR
    J USTIN STARED IN ASTONISHMENT at the young woman in the pale green dress, hardly able to believe his eyes. However, when he blinked, not only was she still there but she was walking straight toward him.
    Such effrontery unmanned him. Young ladies simply did not walk bang up to unknown gentlemen, let alone smile at them in that disarming way.
    She had small, even, white teeth; and her rosy lips were promisingly full and softly seductive. The dusting of freckles on her small, tip-tilted nose did nothing to mar the beauty of her skin, which was smooth and creamy all the way down to the fashionably deep décolletage that revealed the round softness of her breasts.
    “I have the advantage of you, I’m afraid, my lord.”
    Her voice startled him out of his brief trance, and an unfamiliar feeling of heat in his cheeks thoroughly disconcerted him. “I-I beg your pardon?”
    “You need not do so,” she said kindly, making him flush all the more when he realized that she had misunderstood and thought he had apologized for staring. Fortunately, before he could disabuse her of the notion, she added, “I know who you are, you see, and you cannot possibly know me.”
    “Do you always walk right up to strange men and begin a conversation? For that matter, do you—?”
    “Are you a strange man?”
    Unaccountably he found himself chuckling. “Perhaps we ought to begin this conversation again. In fairness, though, I should warn you that Lady Tavistock is looking our way. I daresay she will not approve of your forward manners.”
    “She will not approve of me in any event.”
    “You say that quite calmly. I should think that since she is chief lady of the bedchamber her disapproval could well end your welcome here.”
    “I doubt that she will pay me that much heed, sir. As a maid of honor, I am little more than a lowly attendant, and besides, I am only a sop.”
    “A what?” What mad sort of female was this?
    “A sop,” she repeated. “It’s what my brother Gideon called me. We’re Tories, you see—my family, that is—and the queen does not want any Tory women here. She appointed me only to appease the grumblers who deplore the fact that she is attended only by members and toadies of the most powerful Whig families. Now that I come to think of it, though, that must include you.”
    “I confess to being a Whig,” he said cautiously. Then, impulsively, he