Royally Ever After
Page 6
While Oliver was talking, Harry slipped away.
“I want to go in the boat,” she said.
“I don’t,” Oliver said.
She looked about and noticed Harry’s back retreating from view as he hurried to catch up with Clevedon. Her gaze came back to Oliver, eyes narrowed accusingly now.
“Your brother doesn’t want you along,” he said. “He doesn’t want to worry about your being sick or falling out of the boat and drowning.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I’m never sick.”
“You will be if Harry’s rowing,” he said. “Why do you think I’m not going?”
She said, “That rhymes.”
“So it does,” he said. “Shall I show you the Heptaplasiesoptron? I’ll wager anything you can’t say it. You’re only a girl and girls aren’t very clever.”
Her blue eyes flashed. “I can too say it!”
“Go ahead, then.”
She screwed up her eyes and mouth, concentrating, and the expression was so comical that he had all he could do not to laugh.
Harry Fairfax and Clevedon had come to Eton the year after Oliver arrived. Very much to his surprise, they made a friend of him. This was more or less in the way they made a pet of Lady Clara. They’d dubbed him Professor Raven, which they soon whittled down to Professor.
He’d come to Vauxhall’s Second Annual Juvenile Fête because Harry’s father had sent an invitation to join the Fairfax family excursion, and Oliver’s father said he must accept. Oliver had expected to be very bored and irritated but Vauxhall turned out to be fascinating. It offered acrobats and rope dancers and trained monkeys and dogs, and all sorts of interesting optical illusions and devices, as well as music and fireworks. He didn’t mind at all not joining the other boys in the boat.
He hadn’t planned on playing nursemaid to a little girl, certainly. But Lady Clara had turned out to be something out of the ordinary, rather like other Vauxhall wonders. She wasn’t nearly as stupid as one would expect, considering she was, firstly, a girl and, secondly, related to Harry Fairfax. No one had ever accused Harry of intellectual prowess.
She’d pronounced Heptaplasiesoptron correctly by the time they got to it. Equally important, she was perfectly willing to be taught about reflections and optical tricks.
After exhausting the marvels of the Pillared Saloon, they walked on to the Submarine Cave. After Clara had her fill of that, they were moving on to the Hermitage when a disagreeably familiar voice called out, “That the best you can do, Raven? She hasn’t even got bubbies yet.”
He was distantly aware of his temperature rising and his heart beating fast and of seeing the world through a red veil. He heard himself speak as though from a great distance to Lady Clara. “Stay,” he said.
He marched to his cousin Bernard and punched him in his fat gut.
The fat must have been more solid than it looked, because Bernard only gave a baffled, “Huh,” before punching back.
Unprepared for the quick reaction, Oliver was an instant too slow to dodge, and the blow made him stumble. Bernard took advantage, hurling his great carcass at Oliver and knocking him down.
The next he knew, Bernard was sitting on him.
Oliver was aware of Clara shouting something, but mainly he was aware of his ears ringing and trouble catching his breath.
Bernard laughed.
Oliver was trying to dislodge him when he heard a wild cry. Clara launched herself at Bernard in a flurry of punching and kicking. That was so funny that for a moment Oliver forgot he couldn’t breathe.
Then he saw her lunge at Bernard, and he saw Bernard throw his arm up to shield his face. Oliver wasn’t sure what happened next, but he deduced she’d run into his cousin’s knuckles or elbow, because she fell back, her hand over her mouth.
Bernard leapt up and yelled, “I didn’t do anything!” and ran away.
Oliver saw blood on her hand. He looked about, but Bernard had vanished. He’d picked his moment, as usual, when no adult witnesses were about.
“The bastard,” he said. “The cowardly bastard. At least he could have asked if you were all right. Are you all right?”
She took her hand away, then tested a tooth with her thumb. “Is it broken?” she said. She displayed her teeth. No blood there. It must be Bernard’s blood on her hand.
Her teeth were impossibly white and even. Except for the left front incisor.
“Did the one in front always have a chip in it?” he said.
She shook her head.
“It does now,” he said.
She shrugged. “I hope the chip’s stuck in his elbow and stays there forever,” she said. Then, in a whisper she added, “The bastard.” And giggled.
Perhaps Oliver fell in love with her then.
Perhaps not.
Whether he did or he didn’t, after that night he never saw Lady Clara again.
Until.
Also by Loretta Chase
VIXEN IN VELVET
THE MAD EARL’S BRIDE (novella)
SCANDAL WEARS SATIN
SILK IS FOR SEDUCTION
LAST NIGHT’S SCANDAL
DON’T TEMPT ME
YOUR SCANDALOUS WAYS
NOT QUITE A LADY
THE LAST HELLION
LORD OF SCOUNDRELS
CAPTIVES OF THE NIGHT
About the Author
LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail, and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly checkered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA®. For more about her past, her books, and what she does and doesn’t do on social media, please visit her website, www.LorettaChase.com.
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Copyright
“Lord Lovedon’s Duel” was originally published in the e-book anthology Royal Bridesmaids, published in July 2012 by Avon Impulse, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Jilting of Lord Rothwick” was originally published in the e-book anthology Royal Weddings, published in April 2011 by Avon Impulse, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Dukes Prefer Blondes copyright © 2016 by Loretta Chekani.
LORD LOVEDON’S DUEL. Copyright © 2012 by Loretta Chekani.
THE JILTING OF LORD ROTHWICK. Copyright © 2011 by Loretta Chekani.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition APRIL 2015 ISBN: 9780062393838
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