To Win a Lady's Heart (The Landon Sisters) by Ingrid Hahn Page A

sportsmen who’d come to hunt on the grounds of the park. His father had wanted to show off—had been boasting about his son for days.
    The young Corbeau had been paraded out, the center of attention. What a great privilege it had been to be allowed beyond the nursery or schoolroom at such an unusual hour. He’d started reciting. The room had been silent.
    Then…disaster. He’d forgotten. The silence had grown. The adults had passed knowing smiles between themselves. Someone had given him a cup of water, but his hand had been trembling, and he’d spilled in the worst possible way. It had appeared he’d wet himself. There had been laughter.
    He’d run away, out to the only place he’d feel truly safe for a long time to come—to the stables, up to the hayloft.
    The next day…the look in his father’s eyes when he’d beheld his son…
    The memory alone was enough to elicit warm, sickly shame washing over him.
    By God, Corbeau hadn’t thought about that night in years. Decades. Had that been the genesis of all his years of extreme discomfiture?
    He made a silent vow that should he ever be blessed with children, he’d never do to them what his father had done to him.
    Corbeau pulled himself back into the present. His lungs were tight. Damn it all, but he was too old for such nonsense. He wasn’t that same young boy any longer. He didn’t need to be ruled by one nightmarish memory.
    He wouldn’t be. For Grace. For his sister. For himself.
    But the thought of going down to all those people still made him go numb.
    If only they’d go away. If only he hadn’t promised his mother.
    “Brother?”
    He caught Hetty’s eye. She enjoyed the company that the Christmas tradition brought to the house. The joy and merriment, the amusements and conversations. That was gratifying. He witnessed with no small measure of awe what a natural hostess she was, attending to everyone’s needs so individually as to make them each feel they were the sole guest.
    His sister was perfectly suited to life at her station. Born to it, really. She had their mother’s warm and easy way with people, and had been indispensable to him acting in the stead of the lady of the house. How he would have managed if Hetty had married earlier was a question to which he could be glad of never having been forced to answer.
    And tonight he could be very proud to be her brother, so fine she appeared in the pale gown cut to the height of fashion, with her brown hair arranged with such perfect elegance. How she’d not married yet was a mystery for which there was no accounting.
    She gave him an expectant look. “Well?”
    “Sorry?”
    “The note you sent Grace this afternoon. I know it was you.”
    “She told you?”
    “She didn’t breathe so much as a syllable about the thing, but I’m not stupid.”
    He blinked. “Ah.” Then scowled. “It’s none of your concern.”
    Corbeau’s valet, a diligent man of longstanding employ with the family, who had been working silently with the discarded afternoon clothing, made a discreet exit.
    Hetty sighed. “They’re all watching, you know. All of them. Watching, talking, speculating. It’s excruciating for her.”
    A point to which he could relate. This year was far more trying than any previous. The guests this year, many of whom had been on the invitation list since the days when his mother was a new countess, seemed to be keeping a particularly sharp eye on him as well.
    “Very well, I’ll send her no more messages in such a manner. You have my word.”
    “Most especially Lady Rushworth.” Hetty went thoughtful. “Do you have any notion of why that might be?”
    “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
    “I find myself asking why we invite her, whether it might be better for her to endure the slight of not being asked back. We could still invite Eliza.”
    “Lady Rushworth’s sour temper inflicts discomfort to all those surrounding her. She deserves our compassion.”
    “Inflicts misery more