Lord Scoundrel Dies by Kate Harper Page A

for all her tremulous uncertainty,
was vastly relieved to have her chits returned. It seemed that Miss
Honeywood had been right after all. It was downright criminal to
make the poor creatures who had been victims of Lord Sutton’s
cruelty suffer any longer.
    Suddenly, he felt a good deal better about
his early morning rendezvous. He had thought his new acquaintance
quite mad to go to such extraordinary efforts but it seemed she had
the right of it all along. If he, Charles Lampforth, could render
any small service to assist, then so he would.
    As far as he was concerned, Harriet
Honeywood was doing a splendid job.
     
    It was extraordinary, Aubrey reflected, how
one inconsequential female could make him feel as if he wanted to
take her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. He
had met Miss Harriet Honeywood exactly twice and each time she had
precisely the same effect on him, so much so that his hands were
actually twitching in anticipation.
    After judicious
consideration, he had not been going to speak to Miss Honeywood if
he happened to encounter her while out and about. In fact, he had
been determined to ignore her, as they had not been introduced and
he would hardly be breaching any rules of etiquette in pretending
ignorance. But the sight of her – clad in a dress, which somehow
seemed to make her appear far more vulnerable and considerably more
attractive than she had in the ridiculous garb she had worn the
night before – had shaken his resolve. After brooding about how
absurd her actions were, he had felt he really should say
something. For all the good it had done him. The girl was as
intractable, as stubborn, as infuriating as ever. She had
dismissed his concern and any help he might have to offer – not
that he had been planning on helping her – with a careless wave of
the hand and had sailed off with that obstinate tilt to her chin he
was coming to be all too familiar with, despite their exceedingly
brief acquaintance.
    Well, to hell with it. She could land
herself in whatever trouble she cared to and he would not lift a
finger to help her. Not. A. Finger.
    ‘My, my,’ a familiar female voice purred,
‘aren’t you looking fierce tonight.’
    Shaken out of his
abstraction, he found himself face to face with the reason he was
at this hellish dance in the first place; Miss Felicity Beauchamp.
Miss Beauchamp was looking charming in pink satin; it reflected the
delicate color in her cheeks. While not the Season’s Beauty she certainly
rivaled the girl who held the title for Miss Beauchamp was very
good looking. Dark blonde, eyes the color of summer skies, small,
straight nose. Odes were written to the perfection of her rosebud
mouth but then poets were daft fellows who wrote all manner of
drivel. Not that he did not find Felicity Beauchamp as appealing as
the next fellow, but he would have found her a great deal more
appealing if she had not wished to marry him.
    That was enough to make any man wall himself
up in his castle.
    ‘Miss Beauchamp,’ he returned, with every
semblance of pleasure. ‘Here I am, as promised.’
    ‘I knew you were not a man to break your
word.’
    He was fairly sure he had not gone so far as
to give his word but he let it pass. ‘I have come to beg a dance of
you.’
    ‘Why, I would be delighted, kind sir.’ And
she held out her hand, which he took with alacrity. He danced with
Felicity, then with Celeste who approved of his arrival and then
with Lady Finch, an older woman who at least could be relied on to
be entertaining. If he had to dance, he was determined to make a
display of it. With any luck this outing would get him out of
others like it for the next week or so. It wasn’t that Aubrey did
not like Society; how could he not, for it was perfectly agreeable
and treated him very well. It was just that he had always found
this type of entertainment to be nothing more than a parade of
hopeful women trying to catch the eye of eligible men. Its main
function