An Unexpected Proposal (St Daine Family 1) by Leighann Dobbs

nicely from whatever has unsettled you after a few quiet moments spent away from this heated crush.”
    The duchess did not rush, nor did she tarry. Instead, she made her way through the crowd with a slow, measured deliberation. At the edge of the ballroom floor, she stopped and patted Claire's hand consolingly while her gaze warmed with something Claire might have likened to friendship under less intimidating circumstances, but it was her words that put Claire immediately on her guard.
    “There is no need to pretend with me, Claire Leighton. Having attained the grand age of seventy four years, I have attended hundreds of balls,” she said, one aged brow arched high, “and I am well aware the flush gracing your cheeks at the moment has nothing to do with the rather moderate temperature in our ballroom.”
    Claire could feel her cheeks burn ever hotter, only this time with chagrin. How had the duchess known the uneasy reaction she was experiencing at the moment was really due to her grandson's nearness?
    Was it possible that was she also aware the tumult of emotions making her palms perspire and her stomach twist had been furthered still more when he had asked Melisande to dance instead of her?
    No, she could not possibly, Claire decided, and opened her mouth to deny it. But the duchess merely shook her head and continued, a knowing twinkle lighting her eyes. “Not to worry, my dear. I shan’t give away your attraction to my grandson this evening any more than you will dare to hasten our journey to the library.”
    Patting the hand she held lightly within her own, the dowager continued, “Each of us have our own agendas, I can assure you. Mine, for example, is to give Lucien a moment to dance with the lovely Lady Melisande without drawing his attention to precisely where and with whom his unruly sister has escaped just as yours was to give my darling Phoebe a moment of privacy during which to seek out that impish Locke fellow.”
    Claire's eyes widened and she could only guess at what her expression must have revealed in that moment but the duchess merely chuckled. “Come, my dear, we had better move along now lest that chatty bird, Lady Wingate, arrive in the library before us. It would not do to have Phoebe's private conversation with Lord Nicholas interrupted by that one, no, not a'tall.”

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    “ U gh . Had I but known finding a moment alone with one's friends would become a clandestine effort of monumental proportions once I came of age, I vow I would have remained in the schoolroom for at least a decade more,” Phoebe grumbled inside the library. She dropped down onto the plush settee, a pout curling her lips and furrowing her brow. “I shall warn Emily and Alaina at my earliest opportunity that they should never, ever grow up.”
    The deep, masculine chuckle following her words was soothing and while Nicholas Locke, a long time friend of the family, moved to stand near the door where he could easily be seen by any who passed the library, Phoebe kicked off the tight slippers she had been wearing to allow herself a moment of relief, which she expressed in a long, pleasurable sigh.
    “Bored with adulthood already?” Nick teased while she rubbed at her offended toes. “Best you find yourself a husband quickly, then, lest you end up shelved and furious about it, like our poor Julia.”
    Phoebe chuckled at that. Julia Locke was the first person she had looked for this evening because she had known Julia would get a message to Nick that she wished to speak to him in private. Her brow furrowed. “Jules is different tonight, though I find I cannot decide quite how.”
    Nick's brow arched high and his bark of rueful laughter brought another smile to her own lips. “No? Perhaps it is the scandalous cherry red dress she is wearing? Or mayhap 'tis the disdain she now wears in the haughty lines of her shoulders as she sweeps past each clique of drooling males in the ballroom—the same males who patently ignored her