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It wasn’t altogether a lie She and her father joined a house party at Viscount Hillbrook’s extravagant ho been curious about Ferney’s vaunted luxuries, but her father’s ultihted anticipation

Desborough or Tranter?

Or the third suitor The iht mind would choose

Tranter guided her through a sentleaze focused reluctantly on her least eligible adainst the doorway to the card rooaze homed in on her like a falcon on a field mouse

Elias Thorne, Baron Wilmott

Son of a scandalous family Inheritor of a bankrupt title No political influence to speak of

“Are you cold?”

Tranter’s concern for her welfare should please her Instead it ely wary William Frayne, Earl Tranter, always said and did as correct She’d often wondered if his perfect manners were as artificial as her self-assurance “A little”

As if anyone could be cold on such an unseasonally sweltering night The shiver that had attracted Tranter’s notice was nothing to do with the te stare She was too far away to see his eyes, but she knew that they gleamed with predatory interest

“So the terrace isn’t the answer Would you like me to take you back to your father?”

“No, thank you” How she wished that Tranter wasn’t so careful with her How she wished that for once he’d say so or unexpected How she wished that the one genuinely interesting man in this s and pence

Briefly last Christmas, she’d believed that Elias liked her for herself But then she’d recalled his urgent need to marry an heiress—and that she wasn’t the kind of woman hom a man fell e swiftness She didn’t iine he was any exception to the masculine tribe

The bleak reality was that Elias targeted her with a plan to fill the ee would fade over time

It hadn’t