Read Slightly Dangerous for Free Online Page B
Authors: Mary Balogh
her, or rather that he would direct an army of servants to pounce upon her, and have her dragged before the nearest magistrate for assault and battery upon his eye?
He came into the room with Bertie, and there was immediately a different quality to the sound in the room. The young ladies chattered more brightly and smiled more dazzlingly, and the young men laughed more affectedly and swaggered more noticeably. The older ladies preened themselves.
It was really quite amusing.
They might all not have bothered, though. If they had been a roomful of worms, he could scarcely have looked about him with a more supercilious air. His cold, aristocratic face said more plainly than words that he considered this whole scene so far beneath his ducal dignity that really it was too much trouble either to smile or to look marginally approachable.
Melanie, of course, pounced upon him in full grand-hostess style, took him by the arm, and led him about, making sure that all the lesser mortals who had no previous acquaintance with him were given the opportunity to bow and scrape before him.
Fortunately—
very
fortunately—Melanie failed to see Christine in her corner and so the very least mortal in the room was given no chance to rise to her feet in order to have the honor of making her deepest curtsy to the great man.
Satirically observing, Christine reminded herself, surely did not necessitate heaping scorn upon the head of a man she did not even know. But she instinctively bristled at the very sight of the Duke of Bewcastle. She disliked him, she scorned him, and she would be perfectly happy to be soundly ignored by him for thirteen and a half days.
Why
was
it that she reacted so negatively to him? She did not usually react thus, either to acquaintances or to strangers. She
liked
people. All sorts of people. She even liked all the little foibles of her acquaintances that drove other people to distraction.
The round of introductions complete, the duke stood, plate of food in hand, conversing with the Earl of Kitredge and Hector, who had nodded and smiled kindly in Christine’s direction. The earl was a great man. He was also pompous. But she felt no animosity toward
him
. Hector was a viscount, and she was enormously fond of him. So it was not the duke’s aristocratic title that made her bristle.
And then all Christine’s complacency fled as her eyes met the Duke of Bewcastle’s across the room and she had instant images of jailers and jails and chains and magistrates flashing through her head.
Her first instinct was to efface herself utterly and lower her eyes in an attempt to fade into the upholstery of the chair on which she sat.
But self-effacement had never been her way of reacting to the world’s ways—except perhaps in the last year or two before Oscar died. And why
should
she seek to disappear? Why should she lower her eyes when he was making no attempt to lower his?
And then he really annoyed her.
Still looking at her, he raised one arrogant eyebrow.
And
then
he infuriated her.
With his eyes on her and one eyebrow elevated, he grasped the handle of his quizzing glass and raised it halfway to his eye as if utterly incredulous of the fact that she had the effrontery to hold his gaze.
Christine would not have looked away then for all the jails and all the chains in England. So he had recognized her, had he?
So what?
When all was said and done, her only crime was to have allowed the glass in her hand to tip too far when he happened to have been standing directly beneath it.
She looked steadily back at him and then compounded her boldness by deliberately laughing at him. Oh, she did not literally
laugh
. But she showed him with her eyes that she was not to be cowed by a single eyebrow and a half-raised quizzing glass. She picked up a cake from her place and bit into it—only to discover that it was a fairy cake. She felt the icing ooze out over her lips and licked it off as the Duke of Bewcastle left his group and
He came into the room with Bertie, and there was immediately a different quality to the sound in the room. The young ladies chattered more brightly and smiled more dazzlingly, and the young men laughed more affectedly and swaggered more noticeably. The older ladies preened themselves.
It was really quite amusing.
They might all not have bothered, though. If they had been a roomful of worms, he could scarcely have looked about him with a more supercilious air. His cold, aristocratic face said more plainly than words that he considered this whole scene so far beneath his ducal dignity that really it was too much trouble either to smile or to look marginally approachable.
Melanie, of course, pounced upon him in full grand-hostess style, took him by the arm, and led him about, making sure that all the lesser mortals who had no previous acquaintance with him were given the opportunity to bow and scrape before him.
Fortunately—
very
fortunately—Melanie failed to see Christine in her corner and so the very least mortal in the room was given no chance to rise to her feet in order to have the honor of making her deepest curtsy to the great man.
Satirically observing, Christine reminded herself, surely did not necessitate heaping scorn upon the head of a man she did not even know. But she instinctively bristled at the very sight of the Duke of Bewcastle. She disliked him, she scorned him, and she would be perfectly happy to be soundly ignored by him for thirteen and a half days.
Why
was
it that she reacted so negatively to him? She did not usually react thus, either to acquaintances or to strangers. She
liked
people. All sorts of people. She even liked all the little foibles of her acquaintances that drove other people to distraction.
The round of introductions complete, the duke stood, plate of food in hand, conversing with the Earl of Kitredge and Hector, who had nodded and smiled kindly in Christine’s direction. The earl was a great man. He was also pompous. But she felt no animosity toward
him
. Hector was a viscount, and she was enormously fond of him. So it was not the duke’s aristocratic title that made her bristle.
And then all Christine’s complacency fled as her eyes met the Duke of Bewcastle’s across the room and she had instant images of jailers and jails and chains and magistrates flashing through her head.
Her first instinct was to efface herself utterly and lower her eyes in an attempt to fade into the upholstery of the chair on which she sat.
But self-effacement had never been her way of reacting to the world’s ways—except perhaps in the last year or two before Oscar died. And why
should
she seek to disappear? Why should she lower her eyes when he was making no attempt to lower his?
And then he really annoyed her.
Still looking at her, he raised one arrogant eyebrow.
And
then
he infuriated her.
With his eyes on her and one eyebrow elevated, he grasped the handle of his quizzing glass and raised it halfway to his eye as if utterly incredulous of the fact that she had the effrontery to hold his gaze.
Christine would not have looked away then for all the jails and all the chains in England. So he had recognized her, had he?
So what?
When all was said and done, her only crime was to have allowed the glass in her hand to tip too far when he happened to have been standing directly beneath it.
She looked steadily back at him and then compounded her boldness by deliberately laughing at him. Oh, she did not literally
laugh
. But she showed him with her eyes that she was not to be cowed by a single eyebrow and a half-raised quizzing glass. She picked up a cake from her place and bit into it—only to discover that it was a fairy cake. She felt the icing ooze out over her lips and licked it off as the Duke of Bewcastle left his group and