Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Her eyes widened, and I wished to hit him upon the head. Now she would think he did not wish to be in my company.
“Well, I am sure they will not keep you much longer.” She smiled at him. “Lady Aphrodite, I would like to introduce you to my niece, Miss Edwina Charmant, who came down for the season. She is most excited about your ball. Edwina!” she called into the shop, and out came Edwina, the woman from the garden!
“Hello,” was all I could muster, my mind a blank.
“Hello, my lady. You truly are a beauty. I am very excited about your ball,” she said.
“My dear niece is quite taken with our great ton,” Mrs. Frinton-Smith said. “She’s still a bit green, so I do hope you will take care of her tonight…should you not be too busy.” Her eyes shifted to Evander. She should have kept her gossiping eyes on her niece, for I was worried about our garden.
“Of course.” I nodded.
“Aphrodite, we are finished,” Silva said, coming out with Verity.
“Well, we will not hold you, as everyone must prepare.” Mrs. Frinton-Smith and her niece took their leave.
When I saw the driver of their carriage and the look that he and Edwina shared, I was sure he had been her partner in the shrubbery.
I had never known a scandalous tale before anyone else. I was not really sure what to make of this information, but I was worried for her. She was young and this match was also wholly inappropriate. More so for her than him. He would be a rogue…but she would be ruined.
“Should something be said or done?” I whispered watching them go.
“About?”
“Her,” I said forcefully before looking to him. “No matter how…pleasant the experience, she is still but a young lady. What if she is being taken advantage of and knows not the risks?”
“All young women know of the risks—”
“We do not. For love blinds us and makes even the wisest of us fools,” I snapped angrily at him.
He frowned. “And so, what shall you do? Rid the world of love?”
“Aphrodite, we should return,” Silva called out to me as she suddenly took my arm before I could reply.
“Yes, we should.” I held on tight, aflutter with emotions. “Goodbye, Your Grace—”
“Lady Aphrodite,” Evander called to me, “I do pray that you accept the request of my letter.”
I stared at his face for a long moment before turning to leave.
I needed to think.
8
Aphrodite
Like fire spreading throughout your body, desire pulsating upon the skin, and an ache in the pit of your stomach. His words repeated in my mind as always but this time with inescapable intensity. I now also had a more profound ability to understand them, but it was not enough for me. Some of his words I still did not understand. I felt that, should we be alone, or as alone as we could be, he would answer truthfully. He would protest just slightly, but he would do so in the end, and that was far more than I received from any other person. The prospect of not being treated like a child who was kept ignorant of the world was breathtakingly freeing.
I was eager to see him again.
“Have you chosen who shall receive your first dance?” Hathor asked as she entered my room once again unannounced, dressed not in pink but red.
“You have changed your color for the evening,” I replied.
“Yes, more catching to the eye,” she said. “I need all the advantage I may get.”
I smiled, toying with the feather in my hands, as my maid finished my hair. “What are you seeking to get, sister?”
“A husband, of course.”
“And yet you have rejected all the callers who have come to see you.”
“I refuse to accept anything less than a duke.” She lifted a vial of scent from my table, sniffing it.
I scoffed. “Then your choices are a duke or a prince. Your standard may be a bit high, for I do not see many princes around.”
“Then I shall have a duke.” She shrugged, placing the scent upon her neck. “Why, are you saying it is impossible for me to be a duchess?”
“No, by all means, you would surely be the greatest of our time.”
She grinned at my words. “I believe so as well.”
“And pray tell, how many dukes are here this season?”
“Three, if you must know, well two, seeing how you are blinded by one of them.”
I tore my gaze from her and glanced back into the mirror to check my hair. “I know not what you mean.”
“Oh, please. All the ton is abuzz with talk of you. Apparently, Mrs. Frinton-Smith saw you and the Duke of Everely speaking rather intensely in front of Madam Marjorie’s shop.”
How did gossip fly so quickly?
“Oh, and?”
“They said you looked rather smitten, and he uninterested…again. Odite, they are saying that you will chase after him and fail once more.”