LITMIR.BIZ

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either of those other times.

      “Your father should order a lock put on the nursery door,” he drawled now, even as he strode to the French doors and unceremoniously tossed the posies out into the garden.

      Lady Chelsea laughed at this obvious silliness, be it directed at his statement or the flowers he couldn’t be certain. But then she told him, drat her anyway.

      “I’d only find another way out. I’m motherless, you understand, and allowances must be made for me. Too young for a Come-out, too prone to mischief to be left with my governess in the country while Madelyn is being popped off. I suppose you want me to vacate the room now, before Madelyn makes her grand entrance and you delight her by drooling all over her shoe tops. Oh, look at that, you’ve got a wet spot from the stems on that odiously homely waistcoat. I’ll wager that’s put a crimp in your airs of consequence.”

      Beau hastily brushed at his waistcoat before his brain could inform his pride that the blasted girl was making a May game out of him. Had he really only considered the nursery for her banishment? He would rather the cheeky child left the continent, perhaps even the universe, but refrained from that particular honesty. “I would like to converse with Lady Madelyn in private, yes.”

      “Oh, very well, if you’re going to be all starchy about the thing.” Lady Chelsea got to her feet and smoothed down her gown. She was a rather attractive child, he supposed. She’d probably break a dozen hearts in a few years. But she didn’t hold a patch on her sister, she of the ice-blue eyes and nearly white-blond hair, her mouth a pouty pink, her skin so creamy and flawless above the low bodice of her gowns.

      Beau inserted a finger beneath his collar and gave a small tug, as it had suddenly become difficult to swallow. That action then turned impossible as the object of his affection entered the room.

      “Mr. Blackthorn, what a lovely surprise. I hadn’t thought to see you so soon after our dance at Lady Cowper’s ball. Naughty man, showing up uninvited as you did. Quite shocking, really. And just to dance with me and then take your leave? It was all quite romantic and daring.” Lady Madelyn tipped her head to one side as if trying to somehow see behind his back. “Did you bring me a gift? I adore gifts.”

      Beau bowed to the love of his life and apologized for his sad lack of manners.

      Lady Madelyn looked crestfallen for a moment but then brightened. “Very well, I accept your apology. Next time, perhaps you’ll bring me flowers. I do love flowers.”

      A giggle from the corner alerted Beau to the fact that the brat was enjoying another small joke at his expense, but he refused to look at her or acknowledge the hit. “I will buy you an entire hothouse full of flowers,” he promised Lady Madelyn earnestly, bowing yet again. “And now, if I might have a word with you in private? There is something of great personal importance I wish to ask you. After the events of last night, I should think you know what that is.”

      She didn’t move, didn’t blink, and yet something changed in Lady Madelyn’s ice-blue eyes. Her smile became frozen in place, and her creamy-white skin seemed to pale even more, all the way to porcelain, and looked just as cold and hard.

      “Now, Mr. Blackthorn, you know that is quite impossible. No young lady of quality is ever without a chaperone in the presence of a gentleman, as we both know. I do believe, if I am interpreting your statement correctly, that it is my absent father you should be asking for, not me,” she scolded in a rather strangled tone. “Chelsea, would you be a dear and ask our brother to step in here for a moment? Mrs. Wickham is still dressing, I’m afraid.”

      “But I saw her earlier on the stairs, and she was completely—”

      Lady Madelyn whirled about to glare at her sister. “Do as I say!”

      “You’re such a snob,” Chelsea said as she flounced out of the room.

      Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn was young and in love, and like many of his similarly afflicted brethren, not thinking too clearly. But it didn’t take a clear thinker to recognize that the rosy scenario he’d pictured in his brain and the scene playing out in front of him now were poles apart.

      She was probably nervous. Women tended to be nervous at times like these; they couldn’t seem to help themselves. He’d make allowances.

      “Lady Madelyn … and if I might be so bold, dear, dear Madelyn,” he said, taking quick advantage while they were still alone, dropping to one knee in front of her and clasping her right hand in his, just as he had practiced the move on Sidney, his horribly embarrassed valet. “It can be no secret that I have admired you greatly since the moment we first met. With each new meeting my affection has grown, and I believe it has been reciprocated, most especially after our walk together the other evening when I so dared as to kiss you and you did me the great honor of allowing me to—”

      “Not another word! How provokingly common of you to speak of such things! No gentleman would ever be so crass as to throw a moment’s folly into a lady’s face. A single kiss? It was a lark, a dare, no more than that. Get up! You’re a dreadful creature.”

      A single kiss? It had been considerably more than a single kiss. She’d allowed him to cup her breast through the thin fabric of her gown, moaned delightfully against his mouth as he’d run his thumb across her hard, pert nipple. If not for the sound of approaching footsteps, there would have been much more. He’d nearly been bursting, had come within moments of thoroughly embarrassing himself, for God’s sake.

      He would have thought her a cold, heartless tease if he’d been in his right mind. But no, he was in love. And she was clearly upset.

      “I know I’m being forward,” Beau persisted—he’d been up all night rehearsing this speech. “I ask only that I have your permission to address your father. I would not wish to do so if my affection truly wasn’t returned.”

      “Well, it isn’t,” Lady Madelyn responded hotly, pulling her hand free. “You overreaching nobody. Just because your father is one of us, and you’ve been accepted in some quarters because of him and because of that ridiculous fortune he’s bestowed on you, doesn’t mean you’ll truly ever be one of us. Don’t you even know when someone is making a May game of you? You’re a joke, Beau Blackthorn, a laughingstock to everyone in Mayfair, and you’re the only one who doesn’t know it. As if I or any female of decency in the ton would deign to align herself with a—a bastard like you.”

      Beau would later remember that the lady’s brother entered the drawing room at some point during this heart-shredding declaration, along with two burly footmen who quickly grabbed hold of Beau’s arms and hauled him to his feet and beyond, so that he was dangling between them, his boots a good two inches off the floor.

      He called out his beloved’s name, but she had already turned her back and was walking away from him, holding up the hem of her skirts as if to avoid stepping in something vile.

      A dare? A joke? That’s all he’d been? She—and God only knew who else—had been encouraging him, yet secretly laughing at him? Is that how Society really saw him? As some sort of monkey they could watch dance? A performing bear they could prod with a stick, just to see how he’d react? Here, bastard, kiss me, touch what you’ll never have. And then go away. You’re not one of us.

      His mother had warned him, warned all three of her sons. Beau had never believed the dire predictions that she ascribed to the ridiculous notions and actions of their father. The world had to have been better than she’d painted it. But she’d been right, and he and his father had been wrong.

      At last Beau, his dreams, all of the assumptions and hopes of his young life shattering at his feet, came to his senses. He struggled violently to be free, to no avail, until he was carried out the way he had come in and been thrown down the marble steps to the flagway. He could hear as well as feel the crack of a bone in his left forearm as it made sharp contact with the edge of one of the steps even as all the air left his lungs in a painful whoosh.

      Then the first snap of the whip hit him across his back, and he could do nothing more than

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