Once an Heiress by Elizabeth Boyce

Lily’s cheeks. She swatted the swain’s hand. Ethan understood that she didn’t want the man touching her leg. The place he kept swiping at
was
awfully close to Eden.
    The man kept insisting, kept touching.
    A frustrated knot formed in Ethan’s chest. Why didn’t anyone stop the fool pawing her? He made a disgusted sound.
    “Exactly,” Lady Elaine said. “See how she berates the poor fellow?”
    Ethan’s brows furrowed as he suddenly felt a protective urge. He started forward, intent to pull the man off Miss Bachman, when she took matters into her own very capable hands.
    She jumped to her feet and rounded on the offending gentleman. Ethan couldn’t hear her voice over the music and rumble of the crowd, but he saw well enough the sharp gestures of her hands, the way her teeth were bared as she spoke. He saw, too, how the man seemed to crumble under her verbal evisceration.
    Finally, the man hurried away, swiping at his cheek.
    “By Jove,” Quillan said, all astonishment. “She made him cry!”
    “Horrible,” Lady Elaine sneered.
    Ethan let her declaration hang in the air, unanswered, as the inexplicable anxiety he’d felt for Miss Bachman drained away. He didn’t know that he’d call Miss Bachman
horrible
, as Lady Elaine insisted, but having already been on the wrong end of her sharp tongue, he wasn’t ready to jump to her defense, either.
    A moment later, he noticed the space at his side had been vacated. Lady Elaine had evidently gone elsewhere to spread her vitriol. He breathed a little easier.
    “So,” Quillan said.
    Ethan looked at him. “Yes?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Of what?” Ethan asked.
    “Miss Bachman,” Quillan said.
    He shrugged. “What is there to think?” She had turned her back on the punch-spiller. Ethan had a nice view of her profile, which was dominated by a spectacular pair of —
    “Ethan,” Quillan said.
    “What?”
    His eyes still roved Miss Bachman’s assets. She’d been modestly buttoned up in a pelisse when he’d met her before.
Hiding those lush breasts should be a hanging offense
, he decided.
    “The gleam in your eye, Ethan, reminds me of the last time you had a decent hand. When was that? Remind me; it’s been a while.”
    Miss Bachman’s money offered freedom from a bleak future. It was comfort, security.
    As he watched her skewer another hopeful, he felt something akin to the same blissful state he remembered from sailing with his grandfather. Exhilaration and peace all at once.
    Well, maybe not peace, he considered. Not with Miss Bachman part and parcel with her hundred thousand.
    Of course, he mused with a thoughtful tilt of the head, he didn’t really
like
peace all that much, did he? A little fire to keep things exciting might be just the thing.
    Besides, marriage didn’t mean an end to his life. Plenty of people, Quillan included, lived virtually separate lives from their spouses. Marriage was just a contract, names scribbled on a license. It didn’t really
mean
anything, as he knew from his own parents’ wildly unsuccessful union. His own life could go on just as he wished.
    Maybe Ethan
could
offer Miss Bachman a mutually beneficial arrangement. He had the title she wanted, and she had the money he needed.
    He smiled. “Quillan, my friend, I’ve decided it’s time I marry.”
    “And I won’t insult you by asking the identity of the lucky lady. Only one has the charms,” he said while rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together, “to catch your eye. When do you start your pursuit?”
    Ethan looked across the room where the future Lady Thorburn was conversing with one of her hangers-on with a bored expression on her face.
    Ethan’s smile deepened. He handed Quillan his glass. “Right now.”

Chapter Five
    Lily cast a longing look at one of the two chandeliers hanging above the ballroom. It glittered like a thousand shards of ice the morning after a winter storm.
    She wondered if it would support the weight of a noose from which