‘Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not desperate to dance with you like the other women in the ballroom.’
‘They want more than dancing from me, I assure you. You noticed my following? It is quite considerable.’
Dulci blushed, as he’d intended.
‘What? There’s nothing wrong with the words “following” or “considerable”.’ Jack feigned ignorance of his innuendo.
‘Except when you say them. I can’t say I have noticed your “following”, but I’ve noticed you’re still as conceited as I remember you in the orangery.’
Jack laughed at Dulci’s pique, the familiar longings starting to stir. He was enjoying this: his hand at her back, the warmth of her body through the thin silk of her gown, his mind taking pleasure in the mental exercise of parrying her comments.
‘It’s the truth.’ Jack swung them into the opening patterns of the waltz. He was starting to wonder if his emotional distance could be challenged tonight. He’d like nothing more than to try his luck at stealing a few kisses…
A Thoroughly Compromised Lady
Bronwyn Scott
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing, she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages.
Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.
Recent novels from Bronwyn Scott:
PICKPOCKET COUNTESS
NOTORIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT LADY
THE VISCOUNT CLAIMS HIS BRIDE
THE EARL’S FORBIDDEN WARD
UNTAMED ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS
and in Mills & Boon® Historical eBook Undone!
LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS
PLEASURED BY THE ENGLISH SPY
MILLS & BOON
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For Wendi, thanks for your support of the Brenda Novak auction to raise funds for research in the fight against juvenile diabetes. Your contribution makes all the difference.
For my family and friends who are all so supportive of my writing, especially the kiddos, Ro, Catie and Brony, who let their mom write. And for my editor, Joanne, too, who worked extraordinarily hard to make this story just right!
Author Note
Thanks for your patience over the last few years as Jack and Dulci waited their turn. They made their first appearance in PICKPOCKET COUNTESS, and they just seemed to beg for their own story. I had many letters asking when it would happen!
Jack and Dulci are wild ones, and a grand adventure in the New World seemed like the right venue for them. When I discovered the beginnings of the Venezuela-British Guiana controversy over a shared but undefined border, I knew Jack and Dulci had found their adventure and I inserted them into history.
Robert Schomburgk actually did a mission in British Guiana in 1835, for mapping purposes, and later went back around 1840 to reaffirm what is now known as the Schomburgk Line. The border dispute continued into the 1890s, until the US stepped in to intervene.
Another interesting point of note in the story: there was indeed gold discovered in the Essequibo River (as Jack suspected), and several other rivers in the region.
You can read more about the history behind Jack and Dulci’s adventure in British Guiana at www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com. Come on by and say hello!
Chapter One
London—spring 1835
Jack Hanley, the first Viscount Wainsbridge, firmly believed that ballrooms were for business. Chandeliers, potted palms, sparkling champagne—all the standard trappings of festivity aside, ballrooms were a gentleman’s office. They were the places a gentleman conducted the most important business transactions of his life: ensuring a place in society and arranging his marriage. Jack had already done the former and had no intentions of doing the latter. Tonight was no exception.
Jack stopped inside the arched entrance of the Fotheringay ballroom, halting a moment to adjust the sleeve of his evening jacket and surreptitiously scan the room. He took mental roll of the attendees. For all intents and purposes, it was an assembly of the usual suspects. That suited him well. This evening, his business was with the newly arrived Venezuelan delegation. He had very specific orders to meet them, and determine if there was any substance to the quietly circulating rumours that Venezuela was spoiling for a fight over undeclared borders with British Guiana.
‘Wainsbridge!’ An excited female voice broke over the dull din of constant conversation. His hostess bore down upon him with a gaggle of females in tow. Jack swallowed a groan. The horde was descending slightly earlier than anticipated. That was the price of being a newly titled, attractive bachelor with a certain reputation with the ladies. It didn’t help that he was still something of a novelty since his work for the Crown seldom brought him to London on a regular basis.
‘Lady Fotheringay, how charming you look tonight.’ Jack pasted on a benign smile that hid his cynicism. Women in ballrooms had their business too.
‘I want you to meet my nieces, Wainsbridge.’ The purple ostrich plumes in Lady Fotheringay’s hair bobbed dangerously. There were five of them, all named after flowers—nieces, that was, not ostrich plumes, although he wouldn’t put it past the silly woman to name them too.
By the time introductions were completed, Jack’s court had grown substantially, filled with females clamouring for their hostess to introduce them to the handsome, newly minted viscount with the mysterious antecedents. For the moment he was hemmed in on all sides and not another man in sight. He could only guess where his fellow males had taken themselves off to—cards and the good brandy, no doubt.
Jack was listening with feigned interest to Miss Violet Fotheringay’s rather unenlightened dissertation on the year’s fashions and contemplating how he might extract himself from his group in order to find the Venezuelan delegation when he heard it: the unmistakable whisky-and-smoke sound of Lady Dulcinea Wycroft’s laughter.
Even in a crush such as this, the sound was distinctive in a pleasant, provocative way, something akin to Odysseus’s sirens; a sound that would make a smart man fear for his bachelor status. Of course, that assumed the woman in question wanted to marry at all. Dulcinea had shown no inclination