Read And Then He Kissed Her for Free Online

Abernathy cousins during the intermission when we were at the opera. They have no chaperone but Dillmouth, and once I understood their situation, I issued an invitation for all four girls to come to us for a six-week visit. It never occurred to me that Harry would mind.”
    “The hell it didn’t.” Harry scowled at her.
    “I issued the invitation in front of Dillmouth,” she went on serenely, “and he accepted for them. I cannot retract it now.”
    “I should say not!” Antonia frowned at the very idea. “That would be abominably rude.”
    Harry groaned, knowing he was trapped. Though Dillmouth was severely in debt, he was a marquess, well above Harry in rank, and very powerful in the House. He was not the sort to forget a snub. With his sisters’ social prospects severely curtailed by his divorce, they could notafford to snub a man like Dillmouth. He didn’t know whether to throttle Diana or go pound his head into a wall.
    “It’s settled, then. They come in a week, just in time for your return from Berkshire.” Diana smiled at him. “By the way, Harry, you have never met Lady Felicity. Beautiful girl.”
    He looked at his eldest sister, saw the little smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and he realized she’d had Felicity Abernathy in mind all along.
    “She is lovely, isn’t she?” Vivian chimed in. “She has black hair, if I remember. And dark eyes. That sort of coloring makes jewel tones so stunning on her.”
    “She’s hot-tempered, though,” Phoebe cautioned, but even in profile, Harry could see the smile she was trying to hide. “Latin blood in that side of the family, so they say.”
    Sisters were the very devil. They knew all a man’s weaknesses. Harry wondered if he could go off and lease a cottage in America.
     
    During the week that followed, Emma did not dwell much upon her impending birthday, but the night before it arrived, she dreamt of silk. Rich and shimmery silk taffeta, made up in a sumptuous ball gown that rustled when she moved and had those enormous puffy sleeves so fashionable just now. Green silk, it was, with a figured design of blue and green beads on the skirt that shimmered in the light from the chandeliers overhead.
    Chandeliers? Yes, she was at a ball, and a waltz was being played. She was dancing with a man. Odd how she couldn’t see his face—that was a blur—but he was making her laugh, and she liked that. Suddenly there was a fan in her hand, a lavish, exotic fan of peacock feathers. She opened it and gave the man a flirtatious glance over the top, delighting in the feel of the feathers tickling her nose.
    Emma woke up to find Mr. Pigeon’s face inches from hers, his long cat whiskers brushing her nose. He gave a loud meow of greeting, and this abrupt change of scene made her close her eyes, but when she opened them again, there was no mistaking the orange tabby curled up beside her on the pillow.
    She’d been dreaming, she realized. And such an absurd dream when all was said and done. Why, silk taffeta was outrageously expensive! And how on earth could one waltz with a man and wave that enormous fan about at the same time? Still, she couldn’t help feeling a wistful little pang that the beautiful gown and handsome man were not real.
    The fan, though…the fan was a different matter. It was real. Such a lovely thing, with its long feathers, carved ivory handle, and blue silk tassel. She’d seen it in that little curiosity shop on Regent Street, the same shop where she’d found Lady Phoebe’s Limoges box. It was the sort of shop where sham lapis beads for three pence a strand sat beside bejeweled Charles I snuffboxes worth hundreds of pounds, just the sort of shopthat would possess a fan like that. A fan that cost two guineas, she reminded herself. An outrageous price for such a frivolous thing.
    Emma turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, her gaze moving beyond the butter-yellow walls of her flat on Little Russell Street to the far-flung