with that train!’ chortled Charlotte. Penelope uttered a tinkling little laugh, shaking her head at the impossibility of Imogen performing such a feat.
‘Oh, I am sure you will manage it, given time and plenty of practice,’ put in Lady Verity kindly.
Penelope made a noise which expressed her extreme doubt. They all knew Imogen could not survive half an hour in a ballroom without tearing her gown. How on earth was she going to cope with all the rigmarole of a court presentation? Sidling through doorways with panniers strapped to her hips, backing away from the royal presence with yards and yards of lace train just waiting to trip her up?
Imogen was still managing to hang onto her composure, when Penelope brought up the subject of her headdress.
‘Have you practised getting into a carriage yet?’ she asked, all feigned solicitude. ‘I presume you have bought your feathers. Or at least—’ she paused,
laying a hand on her arm, obliging Imogen to come to a complete standstill ‘—you do know how tall they usually are?’
And that had been the moment when disaster struck. Irritated by Penelope’s patronizing attitude, Imogen had swung round, replying, ‘Of course I do!’
Charlotte had let go of her arm, and naturally, Imogen had taken the opportunity to demonstrate exactly how tall those infernal plumes were.
‘They are this high!’ she said, waving her free arm in a wide arc above her head.
And her hand had connected with something solid. A man’s voice had uttered a word she was certain she was not supposed to have understood. She had whirled round, and been horrified to discover that the solid object which her hand had struck had been a glass of champagne, held in the hand of a man just emerging from the refreshment room. All the champagne had sprayed out of the glass, and was now dripping down the front of an intricately tied cravat, onto a beautifully embroidered, green silk waistcoat.
‘Oh! I am so sorry!’ she had wailed, delving into her reticule for a handkerchief. ‘I have ruined your waistcoat!’ It really was a shame. That waistcoat was very nearly a work of art. Even the stitching around the buttonholes had been contrived so that the buttons resembled jewelled fruit peeping out from lush foliage.
She pulled out a square of plain muslin—highly absorbent and just the ticket for blotting up the worst of the spill. So long as not too much soaked into the gorgeous silk, his valet would be bound to know of some remedy to rescue it. Why, Pansy could make the most obdurate stains disappear from even the most delicate of fabrics!
But her hand never reached its intended target. The gentleman in the green waistcoat grabbed her wrist and snarled, ‘Do not presume to touch my person.’
Stunned by the venomous tone of his voice, she looked up, to encounter a glare from a pair of eyes as green as the jewels adorning his waistcoat. And just—she swallowed—as hard.
It was only the hardness of those eyes, and perhaps the cleft in his chin, that prevented her from immediately applying the word beautiful to the angry gentleman. She took in the regular, finely chiselled features of his face, the fair hair cut in the rather severe style known as the Brutus, the perfect fit of his bottle-green tailcoat, and the immaculately manicured nails of the hand that held her wrist in a bruis-ingly firm grip. And all the breath left her lungs in one long, shuddering sigh. She had heard people say that something had taken their breath away, but this was the first time it had ever happened to her.
But then she had never been so close to such a breathtakingly gorgeous specimen of masculinity before.
She pulled herself together with an effort. It was no use standing there, sighing at all that masculine beauty. A man who took such pains over his appearance was the very worst sort of gentleman to have spilled a drink over! Determined to make some form of reparation for her clumsiness, Imogen feebly twitched the handkerchief she was still clutching in fingers that were beginning to go numb.
‘I only m-meant—’ she began, but he would not let her finish.
‘I know what you meant,’ he sneered.
Ever since he had arrived in town, matchmaking mamas had been irritating him by thrusting their daughters under his nose. But worse, far worse, were the antics of enterprising girls like this one. It was getting so that he could not even take a walk in the park without some female tripping over an imaginary obstacle and stumbling artistically into his arms.
By the looks of her, she was yet another one of those girls from a shabby-genteel background, out to snare a wealthy husband who could set her up in style. Definitely not a pampered lady who had never done anything more strenuous than sew a seam. He could feel the strength in her wrist, as he held her determined little fingers away from their target.
It never ceased to amaze him that girls could think that running their hands over him would somehow make a favourable impression. Only two nights earlier, he had been disgusted by the apparently prim young miss who was seated next to him at dinner running her hand along his thigh under cover of the tablecloth. Just as this hoyden was attempting to run her hands over his torso, under cover of mopping up the drink she had thrown over him.
He glared down into her wide grey eyes, eyes which told him exactly what she was thinking. They were growing darker by the second. And her lips were still parted from that shuddering sigh.
To his shock, he experienced a reckless urge to yank her closer and give her the kiss those parted lips were begging him for.
Instead, he flung her from him. ‘I am sick to death of the lengths your kind will go to in order to attract my notice.’ And sickened to find that, in spite of his better judgement, his body was responding to this girl’s far-from-subtle approach.
‘My kind of…attract your…what?’ she sputtered.
‘Do not think to dupe me by a display of outraged innocence, miss. And do not presume to approach me again. If you were a person worthy of notice, you would have been able to find a more orthodox way of effecting an introduction and making me aware of your charms.’
Imogen stood, open-mouthed, while those hard green eyes raked her quivering form from top to toe with such insolence she felt as though he might just as well have stripped her naked.
‘Such as they are,’ he finished, with a sneer that left her in no doubt of his low opinion of her.
‘Well!’ she huffed.
One of his companions raised a lavender-scented handkerchief to his lips to conceal his smirk as the green-eyed exquisite turned and stalked away. The others sniggered openly.
Penelope and Charlotte flicked open their fans and raised them to their faces, but not before Imogen caught a glimpse of a pair of smiles that put her in mind of a cat that has a live bird under one paw.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Lady Verity, a frown creasing her normally placid brow as her friends turned their backs on Imogen and sauntered away, their noses in the air. ‘How unfortunate. He seemed to think…’
‘Yes, he made it quite plain what he thought. Odious man! Who does he think he is?’
‘I have no idea, but he seems to be someone of consequence…’
‘Someone who thinks a great deal of his own consequence, you mean,’ Imogen muttered darkly, taking in the arrogant set of the blond man’s shoulders as he strode towards the exit. ‘How dare he talk to me like that!’
Lady Verity was beginning to look perturbed. And Imogen realized she was clenching her fists and breathing heavily and, worst of all, scowling. All three things a lady should never do. Particularly not in a ballroom.
Oh, heavens, she thought, swinging to look towards the chaperon’s bench, where her aunt was sitting, monitoring her every move.
She took a deep breath, smiled grimly at Lady Verity and said, ‘I think I had better go and rejoin Lady Callandar.’
Lady Verity dipped a curtsy and went off after