A Scandalous Proposal by Kasey Michaels Page A

balancing on a small step and hanging on to the back of the curricle for dear life? Did a tiger constitute a chaperone? Why would anyone need a chaperone in the middle of London, surrounded by everyone else in Society who had decided taking the air at Hyde Park was just the jolliest thing anyone could do at this hour?
    Dany hadn’t had time to ask those questions of Mari, although she had tried, even as her sister’s maid was none too gently pushing her toward the door.
    She’d ask Timmerly, but he’d only smirk at her in that obnoxious way he had, and make her feel twice the fool. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d positioned his smug self at the head of the stairs, pretending not to notice her for the past ten minutes? Honestly, some kind soul should bundle up all the rules of Society in one...
    â€œBlast! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” she asked herself as she turned to the stairs, having remembered the thick tome her sister had handed her, commanding she commit every word to memory. The title, as she recalled, was nearly a small book in itself, and contained such words as Circumspection , Comportment , Proper . Dany had waited until Mari departed the room before kicking the offensive thing beneath the bed-skirts. Her big toe had hurt for three days.
    She’d just put her hand on the railing when a footman called up, “Mr. Timmerly, sir, the hero baron has pulled to the curb. Miss shouldn’t keep such a fine pair of bays standing.”
    â€œMiss Foster,” the curmudgeonly old family retainer intoned gravely, “if you’ll excuse my boldness, the foyer lies the other way.”
    â€œYou enjoy this, don’t you?” she accused as she headed for the curving staircase leading down to the foyer.
    â€œYou might wish to be more gentle with the countess, miss, now that she’s in a delicate condition.”
    Dany halted with one foot already hovering over the first step, her right hand thankfully clutching the iron railing or she would have pitched face forward to the marble floor below. “My sister is not — Dear God, perhaps she is. It would be just like Mari not to know.” She looked at Timmerly. “What do you know?”
    â€œIt isn’t proper to discuss such things with young ladies.”
    Dany’s mostly unpleasant day was growing worse by the moment. “It isn’t proper for young ladies to plant butlers a facer, either, but if you were to apply to any of my family they would inform you I’ve never put much stock in proper .”
    The butler cleared his throat, clearly fighting a blush. “It is sufficient to say that Mrs. Timmerly is certain we’ll be welcoming the Cockermouth heir before the king’s birthday.”
    Dany counted along her top teeth with her tongue until she got to nine (she might be young, but she wasn’t entirely stupid). “Oh, that isn’t good. That isn’t good at all.”
    Timmerly straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “I beg your pardon!”
    â€œOh. Sorry. It’s the greatest of good news, isn’t it? The earl will be over the moon when he returns.” Unless he believes his wife had taken a lover. “I’ll be going now, not that you care a button what I do. Mustn’t keep the horses standing.”
    The footman was just opening the door for the baron when Dany went flouncing past him. “You’re late,” she told him before he could say the same to her, which the briefest glance at his expression warned her he was about to do. “We’ve a new problem to discuss.”
    â€œO happy day,” Cooper said, following after her, and then standing back to allow his tiger—really, the livery wasn’t so bad—to assist her up onto the seat of an admittedly fine yet sober curricle. No yellow wheels for the baron Townsend, clearly. And the bays were near to extraordinary.
    â€œYou’ve a lovely