Miss Richardson Comes Of Age (Zebra Regency Romance) by Wilma Counts

familiar battle of the sexes. Surveying the crowd even as she allowed admirers to sign her dance card, she spotted Celia and Letty and their spouses.
    And then, like the parting of the Red Sea, the crowd seemed to disperse and the Wainwright brothers were approaching the party of Lord Wyndham, Luke in the lead. The brothers had similar coloring and they were both dressed in evening attire, though Luke wore a flamboyant embroidered waistcoat of canary yellow. So why was it that her breath caught in her throat at the sight of only the elder of the two?
    Annabelle had arranged earlier with Luke which two dances he would have. When he had signed, she thrust the card in Thorne’s direction.
    “Here, Thorne. I have saved this last dance on my card for you.” Already feeling nervous and bold, she observed Harriet’s raised brow at her brazen use of Lord Rolsbury’s given name.
    Thorne looked at her with curiosity, but he smiled. “I am sure you know I no longer dance, fair lady.”
    “But you used to,” she stated rather than asked.
    “Once upon a time.”
    “Well, then . . .” She thrust the card at him again, knowing he had no choice but to take it.
    “Annabelle,” Harriet said, obviously surprised at her one-time ward’s behavior.
    “Never mind, my lady,” Thorne said. “If Miss Richardson wishes to deny herself the attentions of an adequate partner, I shall be glad to sit with her.” He examined the card, preparing to sign. He looked up and caught Annabelle’s gaze. “It is the supper dance.”
    “Yes, I know.” She held her gaze steady with his.
    He hesitated only a moment, then gave a slight shrug. Handing a grinning Luke his walking stick, he braced himself to sign the card. He gave it back to her with a look of “you asked for this.”
    The five of them engaged in idle conversation for a few moments, then the musicians switched to a dance tune and Annabelle and Luke took the floor for a country dance.
    “Well done, Annabelle,” Luke murmured between figures in the dance.
    “You approve?” She made no pretense of being coy about what she had done.
    “Yes. He needs to be more sociable—that is, beyond mere attendance at affairs like this.”
    Annabelle was struck by the genuine affection with which Luke regarded his brother. It was not merely hero worship. There was a protective quality to Luke’s attitude. She wondered what it would have been like to grow up with siblings.
    Orphaned at the age of nine, Annabelle had been delivered to the doorstep of the ill Earl of Wyndham. The earl’s wife and his eldest son had shipped the child off to a boarding school. When she was fifteen she had been expelled from the school for a series of misdemeanors, some of them involving her friend Letty. Once again she was deposited on the doorstep of an Earl of Wyndham. Marcus Jeffries had by then unexpectedly succeeded his brother to the title. Marcus had been surprised to find that not only was he this young girl’s guardian, but he shared the guardianship with a certain Harriet Knightly.
    In the way of families, the Jeffries clan had molded and evolved, and made room for yet another member. Still, Annabelle often wondered what it might have been like to grow up with a traditional mother and father and brothers and sisters.
    Later, yet another partner had returned her to the sidelines where he had found her. There was Thorne, waiting for her. Her heart skipped a beat.
    “You remembered,” she said foolishly, feeling a bit out of breath from a vigorous country dance.
    He grinned. “One is not likely to forget the only dance for which one has signed in five years and more.”
    She waved her fan as energetically as decorum allowed. “Would you mind if we enjoyed this dance out on the terrace?”
    “Miss Richardson!” A definite hint of laughter lurked beneath his pretense of shock. “First you bamboozle me into a non-dance, and now you are luring me onto the terrace!”
    She adopted a very formal tone. “Do