Three Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James Page A

conveying a sense of fragility.
    Mr. Dautry wasn’t the man Lala would have chosen for a husband; he was altogether too rough and masculine, with his hard eyes and the way the air seemed to vibrate slightly around him. But that was irrelevant.
    As her mother had said, beggars can’t be choosers.
    Throughout the fuss over the tea tray, Lala told herself that she was not going to sit like a stone, without opening her mouth. She was going to be witty. She had rehearsed some clever things to say, and she had asked her maid to read aloud the Morning Post . If the conversation lagged, she planned to say—brightly—“Isn’t it marvelous that those terrible mutinies in the Royal Navy were put down quickly?”
    Mercifully, she didn’t have to blurt it out immediately, because her mother was inquiring about the “dear duchess,” Dautry’s stepmother, even though Lala knew perfectly well that her mother had, at best, a nodding acquaintance with the Duchess of Villiers.
    Dautry was obviously aware that her mother did not move in such exalted circles. At the same time, he didn’t seem to care that she was claiming acquaintanceship. Despite Lala’s nerves, a smile turned up the corners of her mouth. And Dautry smiled back at her—with his eyes only, but she saw it.
    “The duchess is great friends with Mrs. Worsley, is she not?” her mother was saying. “Mrs. Worsley is so lively at the dinner table. She always leads the conversation.”
    Dautry did not reply, and neither did Lala. She had learned long ago that replies were not obligatory when conversing with her mother.
    “I wouldn’t know how to speak as she does, going on and on about affairs of state and matters of high culture. There’s something unrefined about it, don’t you agree, Mr. Dautry?”
    “I find Mrs. Worsley an interesting conversationalist.”
    “Men do, do they not?” Lady Rainsford exclaimed. “That is, she has the trick of talking to every man as if she adored him.”
    “And every woman as if she loathed her,” Mr. Dautry said. “I suppose that I fall on the lucky side of that divide. But I come with an ulterior purpose, Lady Rainsford. Your daughter has told me of your exquisite taste.”
    Lala had never said anything like that, but she recognized the work of a master and smiled as if she had, indeed, said as much.
    “I have recently acquired a country estate, Starberry Court.”
    “So we have heard,” Lala’s mother said, adding, with inexcusable vulgarity, “for some twenty thousand pounds.” That was typical of her mother: she chastised Lala for mentioning money, but considered her own social position so secure that she could say whatever she wished.
    Mr. Dautry clearly did not like to discuss his finances. But when Lala looked at him with a plea in her eyes, he did not utter the rebuke her mother deserved. Instead, he said, “That rumor was inaccurate. The sum was close to double that; the lands are quite extensive.”
    His expression apparently reminded Lady Rainsford just how presumptuous she had been; the handkerchief began fluttering about her face as she peeped over it.
    “At any rate,” Mr. Dautry continued, “I should be very grateful to have your advice on restorations you might suggest for the estate, Lady Rainsford. I am thinking of assembling a small house party for just that purpose.”
    “We are frightfully idle in this family,” Lala’s mother replied, still playing peekaboo with her handkerchief. “Even so, our social engagements keep us running hither and thither all the time. When will you hold your party, Mr. Dautry?”
    “In three weeks, if that will suit you.”
    “I shall look at my engagement calendar.” She looked as if she were bestowing a shilling on a vagabond.
    Lala could read his eyes without difficulty. He thought her mother horrible. She rose, guessing that her suitor had endured all the intimate time with Lady Rainsford that he could tolerate. “Mr. Dautry, it has been such a pleasure to