On a Wild Night by Stephanie Laurens Page B

believe, but you will survive the night without doing anything to sink yourselves.”
    Emily smiled, nervous but grateful. “It’s just so . . . overwhelming.” She gestured at the throng filling the room.
    â€œAt first,” Amelia said. “But after a few weeks, you’ll be as used to it as we are.”
    Together with Amelia, Amanda chatted of inconsequential matters, skillfully encouraging the younger girls to relax.
    She was looking about for some suitable young gentlemen to snare for Emily and Anne when Edward Ashford, one of their brothers, emerged from the crowd. Tall, well built, soberly dressed, Edward bowed to the twins, then, taking up a stance beside his sisters, considered the crowd. “A relatively small gathering. Once the Season proper starts, it’ll be much worse than this.”
    Emily shot Amanda a startled glance.
    She suppressed an urge to kick Edward. “One hundred or five hundred, there’s not much difference. You can only ever see twenty bodies at a time.”
    â€œAnd by the time the larger balls start, you’ll be feeling much more at home,” Amelia put in.
    Edward glanced at his sisters assessingly, censoriously. “This Season is your chance to make a good match. It mightbe wise to make a greater effort to attract the right notice. Hiding by the wall—”
    â€œEdward.” Amanda smiled daggers at him when he looked at her. “Can you see Reggie Carmarthen?”
    â€œCarmarthen?” Edward lifted his head, looked about. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d be much use.”
    More use than Edward. At twenty-seven, he was a certified bore, pompous and prideful. Amelia seized the moment to draw the girls’ attention; Amanda shifted to keep Edward’s gaze from his sisters.
    â€œI can’t see . . . oh.”
    A familiar blankness infused Edward’s features. Following his gaze, Amanda was unsurprised to see his older brother, Lucien Ashford, Viscount Calverton, step from the crowd, his customary taunting, oddly crooked smile lifting his long lips.
    â€œThere you are.”
    Amanda knew Luc was perfectly aware of Amelia and herself, yet his hooded gaze was all for his sisters. They blossomed—unfurled like buds in the sun—under its impact. Rakishly elegant, he bowed, then raised them from their answering curtsies, twirling first Emily, then Anne, his razor-sharp gaze taking stock of their new dresses, approval writ large in his face.
    â€œI suspect you’ll do very well, mes enfants, so I’d better get in quick. I’ll dance the first dance with you”—he solemnly inclined his dark head to Emily—“and the second dance with you.” He smiled at Anne.
    Both girls were delighted; their glowing expressions transformed them from pretty to bewitching. Amanda bit back the caustic observation that Luc would now have to remain in a ballroom for at least two dances, something he rarely did. The fact he’d committed to do so contrasted strongly with Edward’s contribution to his sisters’ success.
    Although the brothers were similar in height and build, Luc was blessed with a frankly sensual beauty, and the character and aptitude to match. That fact had for years placed the brothers at odds, forming the touchstone of Edward’s frequent carping over his older brother’s rakehell ways.
    Glancing at Edward, Amanda noted the ill-concealed sullenness in his eyes as they rested on Luc. There was anger there, too, as if Edward resented the affection that flowed so easily Luc’s way. Amanda suppressed a humph; there was an easy solution if only Edward would take a page from Luc’s book. Luc could be supercilious and odiously patronizing and he had a fiendishly sharp tongue, but he never pontificated, sermonized or lectured—Edward’s favorite pastimes. Moreover, Luc also possessed a genuine kindliness any female worthy of the name