LITMIR.BIZ

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might not have sent him to the dinner, but the invitation did provide a sterling opportunity to sound out one of the leaders of the Lords about his position on the upcoming reform legislation. If he could discover from Lord Witlow what areas of compromise there might be, the bill could be tailored to accommodate that before it left committee. Anything which improved the chances for getting the bill approved as quickly as possible in this session would be a great advantage.

      He would need to be on his guard, though. He didn’t know who the other guests might be, but it was reasonable to expect some would be hidebound conservatives. He’d better prepare himself to be attacked.

      Still, if he’d managed to survive the verbal and physical assaults mounted against him at Eton, before Christopher and then Ben had arrived to befriend him, he wasn’t too worried about the venom of politicians. Especially as he came as an invited dinner guest. He doubted his host would allow anyone present to hurl at him the sort of vicious epithets about his mother that had resulted in so many bloody-knuckled exchanges during his schoolboy years.

      The larger looming question was, of course, the lady: what did he intend to do about Lady Margaret?

      As impressed with her—and attracted to her—as he was, he was not at all interested in marriage. As Davie noted, he and the other Hellions were still junior enough not to need a wife’s connections to advance their political careers. And for reasons he’d never bothered to fully analyse, the very idea of marriage aroused some deep, nameless aversion.

      Perhaps it was the disastrous aftermath of his parents’ union, or the lingering guilt he couldn’t shake at having inadvertently been the cause of that failure. Given his political aims and affiliations, as he’d informed her today, a union with him could do Lady Margaret no good whatsoever. And if anything happened to him before the current earl’s demise, his unfortunate wife would inherit only the enmity of a half-brother more than ready to step into his shoes.

      Fortunately, one of the few benefits of being estranged from the earl was it allowed him to avoid the society in which Telbridge and his half-brother moved. If there were any scheming, marriage-minded females who took the long view, figuring that enticing into marriage a man of modest means now would pay off later when said husband inherited a wealthy earldom, they could hardly weave any webs to trap him when he never appeared at any of their social events.

      He intended to enjoy his ambivalent position in his single, solitary state for a good deal longer. Although, he did chuckle to imagine the consternation it might create in Reform circles were he to turn up with a wife who had as strong a Tory pedigree as Lady Margaret.

      He was powerfully attracted to the lady, and was reasonably certain she returned the compliment. A widow with her own property who was not dependent upon some relative for her support—and therefore not under their control—was exactly the sort of female he’d looked to in the past for the few affairs in which he’d indulged.

      And Davie was right—it had been a long time since his last liaison, which had ended amicably when the lady in question decided she wanted to pursue remarriage. He’d kept busy with work since, and when the need for intimacy could no longer be denied, had a friendly arrangement with a discreet lady of the trade, who accommodated his desires with expertise and enthusiasm.

      Might Lady Margaret be amenable to an affair?

      Desire dried his mouth and tightened his body.

      How he’d love to bury his fingers in her thicket of auburn hair, pulling the pins free until the heavy mass billowed down around her shoulders! Watch those green eyes darken with passion as he slowly disrobed her, fanning her desire higher and higher as he kissed and caressed the flesh as he bared it. He could imagine the feel of her breasts, heavy in his hands, the nipples tightening under his tongue. Then to proceed lower, over the silk of her belly, into the valley between her thighs, to the hidden centre of her desires…

      He was throbbingly erect, just contemplating it. But he’d better douse those amorous thoughts before dinner. He’d hardly be able to hold his own against the enquiries that were likely to be fired at him by the Conservative diners with the velocity of volleys from a British square, if he spent the meal in a glassy-eyed haze of lust.

      Besides, though he had no doubt Lady Margaret was attracted to him as well, being attracted and inviting him to an affair were rather large steps apart. For the time being—or until she sent him unmistakable verbal or non-verbal cues indicating such a leap interested her—he had better just focus on enjoying the lady’s conversation.

      Taking a deep breath, he told himself to banish dreams of trysting and concentrate on politics.

      To his surprise, it required an unusually strong application of will to do so, as his normally all-consuming passion suddenly seemed not so all-consuming.

      But even with lust banished to simmer beneath the surface, his whole body still tingled with anticipation at meeting Lady Margaret again soon.

       Chapter Six

      Several hours later, Giles entered Lord Witlow’s town house in Russell Square. So this was where Lady Margaret had been raised, he thought, noting the Adamesque decor in muted tones, augmented here and there with Greek statuary and Oriental vases. Tasteful, classic and understated, like the lady.

      He took the stairs with alacrity, telling himself the excitement coursing through him stemmed partly from anticipation of the spirited political debate he expected at dinner—and not just because of his strong desire to see his hostess again.

      He found the anteroom occupied by a dozen or so guests, gathered in clusters, and already so absorbed in their discussions that they scarcely looked up as the butler intoned his name. He did not at first see Lady Margaret, though the simmering undercurrent of energy heightening his senses indicated that she must be present.

      And then he spied her, walking over with her father to greet him, beautifully dressed in a gown of deep green that set off her eyes. Though he lamented the demise of the fashion for very low-cut dinner gowns, Giles noted, running an appreciative gaze over her figure, that the new lower-waisted style emphasised her slender form and accentuated the swell of that far-too-well-concealed bosom. As he raised his eyes to her face, she extended her hand.

      He bowed over it, feeling a tremor vibrate through her fingers as he raised them to his lips. He had to fight to keep himself from letting his lips linger over the soft kidskin, while his nostrils filled with scent of violets. Concentrate on politics, he warned the senses that urged him to cut her from the group and whisk her away somewhere they might be private.

      ‘Father, I’m sure you remember Viscount Lyndlington—or Mr Hadley, as he prefers to be addressed. I was so impressed by his speech to the Commons, I took the liberty of adding him to our gathering.’

      ‘I heard from several sources about the eloquence of that address,’ the marquess said. ‘Let’s see if you can be equally eloquent in persuading some of my colleagues to your views tonight.’

      ‘I hope in turn to become better acquainted with your objections to it,’ Giles replied. ‘Knowledge and openness to altering opinions will be the only way compromise can happen.’

      ‘I shall look forward to the exchange,’ the marquess replied. ‘I believe you know most of the gentlemen?’ He waved a hand towards the rest of the room.

      Giles forced himself to take his eyes from Lady Margaret, who was shyly smiling at him, and gaze around him. He’d been expecting a gathering of Tory lords, but the group was in fact much more varied. Beside several of the marquess’s associates from the Lords stood his good friend Lord Bathhurst and the irascible Baron Coopley, one of the most rigid Tories. But also present were the railroad man and inventor George Stephenson, several Tory MPs, and one of the Committee of Four whom Lord Grey had charged with drafting the Reform Bill, Sir James Graham.

      This grouping should indeed provide for some interesting discussion, he thought, hopeful that prospect would make it easier to

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