Read One Moonlit Night (Moonlight Square: A Prequel Novella) for Free Online Page B

wonderful.
    Matchmaking mamas watched them pass in startled alarm. After all, Trinny’s abandonment of the marriage game would have meant that there was one less competitor for their own daughters. So what was she doing standing up to dance with one of the most eligible—and evasive—catches in the ton ?
    Ah, well, they needn’t have worried. Gable was right; she did not have designs on him. She would not have minded another kiss, to be sure, but in the main, she would much rather have a friend.
    When the music started, he smiled at her and chased any last anxious thoughts right out of her head. The line of ladies curtsied, and the gentleman bowed in compliance with the dance, but Trinny had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when she spotted her sisters arrayed along the wall.
    They were gaping at her.
    Then her partner strode nearer and slipped his arm around her waist, and Trinny gasped in delight as he pulled her close.

    # # #

    Gable was fascinated to hear she had taken his advice, and privately, he reflected on how much he had thought about her kiss ever since that night. To be sure, it had preoccupied him far more than had his tryst on the same day in the same place with another woman, Lady Hayworth, of earring fame. Guilty pleasures of that sort were quickly consumed and just as quickly forgotten.
    But this, now, this was something different.
    He paid no attention whatsoever to the people watching them, enjoying her obvious pleasure in the dancing, and, inevitably, wondering what it would be like to bed her. He had never actually deflowered a virgin…
    “So what have you been doing?” she asked cheerfully as she passed, brushing by him as the line of dancers wove about.
    “The usual lot of nothing,” he replied.
    “Anything interesting going on in the night sky these days?”
    He grinned, recalling their conversation. “Lunar eclipse coming up, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac ,” he said.
    “Hmm. Isn’t that an ill omen, by tradition?”
    “I believe so. Could be the end of the world,” he warned in a spooky tone.
    “It had better not be!” she said, laughing. “I’ve got things I want to do!”
    Gable chuckled. I genuinely like her. She amused him with her unexpected ways. And she was even prettier than he had thought at first, now that he could see her in the light. The kind of pretty that only grew more beautiful the more he got to know her. The soft lavender hue of her gown flattered her pale complexion and strawberry hair, and the shimmer of the chandeliers slid over the satin as it hugged her curves. He could not imagine for the life of him why she was still unattached.
    She kissed well enough, God knew.
    His thoughts drifted back to that bit of naughtiness. He had taken a huge risk that night, making a move like that on an unmarried young lady. But, of course, Gable liked risks, and secondly, he had wanted to show the teary-eyed little sweetheart that she in no way lacked appeal. Not to him, anyway, and he was fairly discerning.
    Those tears of hers must have got to him.
    Now he was all the more intrigued by her after hearing she had heeded his advice, which was always terribly flattering. In truth, he envied this freedom she had seized for herself.
    As the heir to an earldom, he knew he would not have that luxury, no matter how much he might scoff at the mention of marriage.
    Still, he hoped she wouldn’t regret it within a fortnight. He hoped he hadn’t ruined her life.
    Meanwhile, some girls around the ballroom looked daggers at her, which puzzled him. Gable did not dance often, but he had the right, surely, to choose his partners as he wished. Lady Katrina was openly enjoying herself, smiling from ear to ear, her blue eyes shining with merry warmth.
    He couldn’t seem to peel his gaze away from her. Having watched her cry, it was good to see her happy.
    “Oh dear,” she murmured when she brushed past him once more as the dancers switched sides.
    “What is it?” he