Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh Page A

added, “I do not choose my words with care.”
    Sensual pleasures.
That was the phrase that must have embarrassed her.
    But instead of striking off immediately onto her chosen path, she hesitated a moment, and he realized that he stood in her way. But before he could move, she spoke again.
    “Perhaps,” she said, “you would care to accompany me?”
    He absolutely would not care for any such thing. He could think of no less desirable a way of spending the free hour or so before he must change for dinner.
    “Or perhaps,” she said with that laughter in her eyes that he had noticed earlier across the drawing room after he had raised his eyebrow and so offended her, “you would not.”
    It was spoken like a challenge. And really, he thought, there was something mildly fascinating about the woman. She was so very different from any other woman he had ever encountered. And at least there was nothing remotely flirtatious in her manner.
    “I would,” he said, and stepped aside for her to precede him onto the path that led back in among the trees, though it ran parallel to the bank of the lake. He fell into step beside her, since the person who had designed this walk had had the forethought to make it wide enough for two persons to walk comfortably abreast.
    They did not talk for a while. Although as a gentleman he was adept at making polite conversation, he had never been a proponent of making noise simply for the sake of keeping the silence at bay. If she was content to stroll quietly, then so was he.
    “I believe I have you to thank for my invitation to Schofield,” she said at last, smiling sidelong at him.
    “Indeed?” He looked back at her with raised eyebrows.
    “After you had been invited,” she said, “Melanie suddenly panicked at the realization that she was to have one more gentleman than lady on her guest list. She dashed off a letter to Hyacinth Cottage to invite me, and, after I had refused, came in person to beg.”
    She had just confirmed what he had been beginning to suspect.
    “After I had been invited,” he repeated. “By Viscount Mowbury. I daresay the invitation did not come from Lady Renable after all, then.”
    “I would not worry about it if I were you,” she said. “Once I had rescued her from impending disaster by agreeing to come after all, she admitted that even if having the Duke of Bewcastle as a guest was not quite such a coup as having the Prince Regent might have been, it was in fact far preferable. She claims—probably quite rightly—that she will be the envy of every other hostess in England.”
    He continued to look at her. Then an evil angel really
had
been at work. She was here only because he was—and
he
was here only because he had acted quite out of character.
    “You did not
wish
to accept your invitation?” he asked her.
    “I did not.” She had been swinging her arms in quite unladylike fashion, but now she clasped them behind her back.
    “Because you were offended at being omitted from the original guest list?” She was normally treated as a poor relation and largely ignored, then, was she?
    “Because, strange as it may seem, I did not want to come,” she told him.
    “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you feel out of your depth in superior company, Mrs. Derrick.”
    “I would question your definition of
superior,
” she said. “But in essence you are quite right.”
    “And yet,” he said, “you were married to a brother of Viscount Elrick.”
    “And so I was,” she said cheerfully.
    But she did not pursue that line of conversation. They had emerged from among the trees and were at the foot of a grassy hill dotted with daisies and buttercups.
    “Is this not a lovely hill?” she asked him, probably rhetorically. “You see? It takes us above the treetops and gives us a clear view of the village and the farms for miles around. The countryside is like a checkered blanket. Who would ever choose town life over this?”
    She did not wait for him or mince her