The Bridal Quest. Candace Camp

enjoying the party, Lord Radbourne.”

      The earl barely spared her a glance. Looking at Irene, he said, “May I have this dance, my lady?”

      “I do not care to dance,” Irene responded bluntly. From the corner of her eye, she could see Francesca’s eyebrows vault upward at this bit of rudeness, but she ignored her.

      Lord Radbourne, however, did not even flinch at her set down. To Irene’s astonishment, amusement flickered for an instant in his face, as he replied, “That is good, then, as I am not at all proficient at dancing. Why don’t we simply take a stroll and talk?”

      His effrontery left Irene speechless. But Francesca, a trace of laughter in her voice, spoke up beside her. “That sounds like an excellent idea. While you two are occupied, I shall pay my regards to our hostess.”

      With those words, Francesca turned and hurried away, leaving Irene alone with Lord Radbourne. There was little she could do except take the arm he extended, for she could see that they were the object of several interested gazes. If she gave him the direct cut now and stalked off, ignoring his arm, it would be gossiped about all over Mayfair tomorrow.

      So she gave in with a regal nod, laying her hand on his arm. As they turned and began to stroll around the edge of the dancers, Irene nodded at one or two of the women watching them. She could feel Lord Radbourne’s muscles like iron beneath the sleeve of his jacket, and it startled her to find that the fact stirred a warmth in her.

      “Lady Haughston intimated that you wished to meet me,” Irene began in her usual direct way. This approach, she had found long ago, was the easiest method of deflecting any man’s interest in her. It was unladylike, with none of the flirtation and deception that marked the common course of interaction between men and women.

      “That is true,” he replied.

      She shot him an annoyed look. “I cannot imagine why.”

      “Can you not?” He looked at her again with an expression of faint amusement, an expression that Irene realized she quite disliked.

      “No, I cannot. I am twenty-five years of age and have been on the shelf for quite some time.”

      “You assume my interest in you is matrimonial?” he countered.

      Irene felt a flush rise in her cheeks. “I just told you, I cannot imagine what your interest in me is. However, I have rarely found that men had any interest in spinsters.”

      “Perhaps I merely wished to renew our acquaintance.”

      “What?” Irene turned her head to look at him, startled. She had thought there was something familiar about him, and the feeling tugged at her again. “What do you mean?”

      “We have met before. Do you not remember?”

      Her interest was thoroughly caught now, and she studied his face, scarcely noticing as they stepped through one of the open doors onto the terrace.

      “Let me refresh your memory,” he said, leading her toward the hip-high stone wall that edged the terrace. “At the time, you tried to shoot me.”

      She dropped her hand from his arm and turned to face him. “What in the world are you—”

      Suddenly the memory fell into place. It had been years—surely almost ten. She had heard a fracas downstairs in the entry and had gone to look into it. She had found this man punching her father, and she had stopped the fight by firing a shot from one of her father’s dueling pistols into the air.

      “You!” she exclaimed.

      “Yes. Me.” He looked back at her levelly.

      “I did not try to shoot you,” Irene told him caustically. “I fired over your head to get your attention. If I had tried to shoot you, you would be dead.”

      She expected him to turn on his heel and leave her at that remark, but to her surprise, he let out a short bark of laughter. His face shifted and changed, his eyes lightening with amusement, and he was suddenly so handsome that her breath caught in her throat. The heat that flooded her cheeks this time was not from embarrassment.

      “Well, I am glad to see that you bear me no ill will,” she said tartly, to cover her odd and unsettling reaction. She turned and strolled away from him along the stone wall.

      A little to her surprise, he kept pace with her, saying, “It was natural, was it not, for a child to protect her father? I could scarcely blame you.”

      “Since you apparently knew my father, I imagine you know that he was little deserving of protection.”

      Radbourne shrugged. “What one deserves has little to do with the relationship between parent and child, I would think.”

      “My father would have told you that I was an unnatural child.”

      He looked at her. “You stopped me from hurting him any further, did you not?”

      “Yes. I did.” She did not look at him, instead turning her gaze out over the garden. She had no interest in discussing her father or her feelings toward him. “Still, I see little reason why you should wish to meet someone who held a gun on you.”

      “I was finished with Lord Wyngate, anyway. I had made my point to him.” He paused, turning his own attention toward the garden. “But you seemed…interesting.”

      Irene turned to him. “I fired a shot at you and you found it interesting?”

      The smile tugged at the corners of his mouth again. “It was over my head. Remember?”

      She frowned. “I am not sure what you are getting at.”

      “You were correct in your first assumption, my lady. Matrimonial concerns are what brought me here.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “My family is interested in marrying me off to a proper young lady. I am, you see, an embarrassment to them. The facts of my life are, apparently, somehow a scandal, a reflection upon them. And an earl who cannot ride, and whose vowels are not rounded and plummy enough, is a disgrace. As for my business interests…well, they cannot even be spoken of.”

      Despite his light tone, his words were biting and his eyes were hard. It seemed clear to Irene that the man had little liking for his newly discovered family—or perhaps it was simply disdain for the nobility in general. She could not help but feel a certain sympathy for him. After all, she had for several years been viewed by many of her peers and even some members of her family with disfavor, if not actual dislike, for her forthright manner and blunt speech.

      Radbourne went on, “They have come up with a plan to cover my shortcomings by shackling me to a woman of good family. I think it is their hope that she will guide me into more appropriate behavior—or at least hide some of my inappropriateness.”

      “You are a grown man,” Irene pointed out. “They cannot force you to marry.”

      He grimaced. “No. Only talk me to death on the matter.”

      Irene hid a smile. She knew the power of an incessant harangue all too well.

      He shrugged. “But I know that I must marry and produce an heir. If I refuse now, I am only delaying the inevitable. I toyed with the idea of marrying an opera dancer or some such, just to put their noses out of joint. But it would be unfair of me to put someone else in that position. Nor would I want to doom my children to gossip and whispers. I will not make them pariahs among their peers. Therefore, I agree that I need to marry a suitable wife. You are, I understand, not yet married or betrothed, and according to my great-aunt, your family fits the requirements very well. Lady Haughston has apparently agreed to help Lady Pencully in this endeavor, so I suggested to her that you be considered as one of the possibilities.”

      Irene gaped at him, so astonished that she was momentarily robbed of the ability to speak. Finally she blurted out, “You are considering marrying me because I once threatened you with a pistol?”

      “I