Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh Page A

being stretched to twice her height on the rack before admitting such a lowering fact to any other mortal.
    And yet she wondered what it would be like to go to bed with him, and sometimes went even a little beyond just wondering.
    Sometimes, it seemed to her, she needed very badly to have her head examined.

6
    I T DID NOT TAKE W ULFRIC MANY DAYS TO REALIZE THAT the young lady guests must have some sort of contest in progress that concerned him. He was not the sort of man who attracted young girls, despite the fact that he was one of England’s most eligible bachelors. Yet they all fawned over him almost every weary, mortal minute of the day and used every ruse imaginable to draw him apart from the crowd.
    He was not amused.
    He resisted by adopting a frostier than usual manner when in the ladies’ company and by associating as much as he could with the gentlemen and the older guests. Since there was nothing he could do now about avoiding this particular party, he decided that he would use it as an object lesson. For a few foolish days at the end of the session and the Season he had allowed himself to feel a touch of loneliness and self-pity, and this was the consequence. He would not let it happen again.
    He had always been alone in all essential ways—since the age of twelve, anyway, when he had been virtually separated from his brothers and put directly under the care of two tutors and closely supervised by his father, who had known that his death was imminent and who had consequently wanted his eldest son and heir to be properly prepared to succeed him. He had been alone since the age of seventeen, when his father had died and he had become the Duke of Bewcastle. He had been alone since the age of twenty-four, when Marianne Bonner had rejected him in a particularly humiliating manner. He had been alone since his brothers and sisters had married, all within a two-year span. He had been alone since Rose’s death in February.
    Aloneness did not equate with loneliness. It did not call for self-pity. It certainly did not call for scrambling to attend every house party that presented itself. Being in company could often be a great deal less tolerable than being alone.
    He was feeling more than usually irritated after a lengthy afternoon ride, during which he had twice been lured away from the group, first by Miss King and then by Miss Dunstan-Lutt, on slight, ridiculous pretexts and would—both times—have become hopelessly lost along winding country lanes if he had not possessed a strong sense of direction and an even stronger instinct for self-preservation.
    Were they trying to lure him into marriage?
    The very idea was preposterous. Even if he was not literally old enough to be their father, he felt as if he were.
    Rather than follow everyone else into the house after their return, he made his escape and headed off through the rose arbor and onto the long grassy alley beyond. It was picturesque and secluded, with its knee-high stone walls on either side and behind them long rows of laburnum trees, whose branches had been trained to grow over trellises into a high arch overhead. It was rather like a living, open-air Gothic cathedral.
    It was also, on this occasion, occupied. Mrs. Derrick was sitting on the wall on one side, reading what he supposed was a letter.
    She had not seen him. He might have withdrawn back through the rose arbor in good order and found somewhere else to walk—unlike that other time out at the lake, when she had collided into him. But he did not withdraw. She might have an unfortunate tendency not to know how to behave on occasion, but at least she was not silly, and she did not simper or flirt.
    After he had taken a few steps in her direction, she looked up and saw him.
    “Oh,” she said.
    She was wearing the floppy-brimmed straw bonnet again. Indeed, he had not seen her in any other all week. It was quite unadorned apart from the ribbons that tied beneath her chin. It was inexplicably