to give. It would do no good to snap at Portia, no matter how much she wished to. “You mustn’t go places unaccompanied, especially here at the assembly rooms.”
Portia’s eyes flashed with a rebellious fire befitting her teenage years. “I know all the rules, Lydia. You need not lecture me.”
“Oh? Because it appears that you enjoy breaking all the rules,” Lydia replied levelly.
“You need not worry, dear sister. I have matters well in hand.”
“Matters? What matters?” Lydia wanted to tell her sister that she was far too young to have matters, but she knew it would fall on deaf ears.
“I have made my decision as to whom I shall marry.”
“Oh? You’ve chosen, then? Which gentleman?” Lydia ran through the list in her head of all the men who had offered for Portia in the last few months. There were at least a dozen. Portia had kept all of their calling cards in her bedchamber and would riffle them in her hands and giggle while she prepared for bed. To her, marriage was a game she wanted to win. She was too young to realize that a handsome buck she would marry now might grow into a cantankerous old man. Marriage was no game. It was serious business.
“Him!” Portia pointed an elegant hand toward a pair of men who were leaning against a column about twenty feet away. One was fair-haired, and one was dark. Both were tall, at least a few inches over six feet. She recognized only one of the gentleman, as Lysandra did, by the way she gasped. Portia did not however, since she did not spend much time in the company of Lydia’s friends or their family.
“Rafe Lennox?” Lysandra shook her head. “Oh, Portia, you mustn’t.”
“No, not him, the dark-haired man next to him.” Portia sighed dreamily as she gazed in his direction.
“I am not acquainted with that gentleman,” Lydia said. “Who is he?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea. I only know he shall be mine.” Portia giggled and twirled where she stood, almost humming to herself. “Won’t we make the most beautiful babies together?”
“Portia, that is ridiculous. You don’t even know the gentleman’s name,” Lydia said.
Her sister laughed. “Oh, he’s no gentleman. Lord, Lydia, look at how he holds himself, powerful, with little care to his clothes, his hair ruffled by the wind, and a hungry look in those gray eyes . . .”
“Those sound like fine qualities in a heartless seducer, not a husband,” Lydia responded primly. But the more she dared to look at the gentleman in question, the more she saw exactly what her sister had described. He had a wild, barely restrained look that gave him an unmistakable air of danger. A flush rolled through her, and she had to spread her fan and whip it rapidly to dispel the sudden heat in her body. Her breath quickened as she saw the man break into a smile as a lovely woman walked past him.
Lord, that smile. It was the sort to break a woman’s heart before she’d even been introduced to him.
“Maybe I want him to seduce me,” Portia declared, a little too loudly, given the sudden stares of a few nearby ladies. Portia’s words set their fans fluttering wildly, no doubt to cover the gossip the women would soon be spreading.
“Portia, please do not say such things.”
“It’s not my fault you aren’t married, Lydia.” Portia’s unexpected insult stung more than Lydia wished it to. She loved her sister, but sometimes Portia was very difficult to like.
“Portia, that wasn’t very nice,” Lysandra said sternly.
“Well, it’s true.” Portia shoved between Lydia and Lysandra and started straight toward the pair of young men, who may well have been man-eating tigers as far as innocent young women were concerned.
“What on earth is she doing?” Lysandra asked. “Is she mad?”
Lydia sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Mad? No. Acting foolishly? Most certainly.” Lydia rushed after her sister, but was too late. Portia was already talking to the dark-haired stranger. Lydia knew she should rush over and stop her, but she was frozen in place. The gentleman was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. She had spent four seasons in London and had seen the best men in England, and none of them compared to him. Portia, for once, was right. He was a man a woman would be irresistibly drawn to, even at the cost of her innocence.
“Excuse me.” Portia smiled as she stopped before Rafe Lennox and his dark-haired companion.