My Enchanting Hoyden (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel, #3) by Julie Johnstone

bit regretful about that. Though, it was probably correct. He was man, after all. She shrugged. “He didn’t seem overly wounded.”
    “What was he supposed to say? That you’re rather nasty? He’s a gentleman. And unless you are blind, surely you see how handsome the man is with his mahogany hair and dark, dazzling eyes.”
    Mahogany hair? Dark, dazzling eyes? Anne’s language was so flowery, yet Jemma would have chosen those exact words to describe Lord Harthorne. She could picture his eyes and hair now—in exact detail—and that was the problem. It raised her defenses. He raised her defenses.
    A gleam came to Anne’s eyes, as if she could read Jemma’s thoughts and understood that now was the time to strike. “And as for Lord Glenmore, you’ve judged him unworthy before you’ve ever met the poor man! You, sister dear, are the sort of old, lonely, bitter woman we used to feel so sorry for when she came into the bakery, except you are not old.”
    Anne’s words stung, especially because Jemma worried that the bitter part was true. Will’s betrayal had changed her. Before he’d broken her heart, she’d believed Mother had just had rotten luck with Father and that Grandfather was your typical stuffy aristocrat who couldn’t move past the fact that his daughter had defied him. But after Will, she knew she’d been fooling herself, and that made her angry at Will, at Father, and at Grandfather. She didn’t want to be bitter for the rest of her life. She had to work to let that anger go, she knew. But that didn’t mean she was changing how she felt about men. She was not.
    “Jemma?”
    “I don’t want to be bitter,” she relented.
    Anne quirked a brow. “And Lord Glenmore?”
    Jemma shook her head. “Any man who would agree to court a woman he’s never met would never be the sort of man I would have considered for marriage, even before I became a shrew,” she said with a smirk.
    Anne smiled. “I suppose I’ll have to take what you’ll give me.”
    “Smart sister.” Jemma winked.

    S oon they were on their way to their first ball of the Season with their grandfather and their chaperone, Mrs. Featherstone. It didn’t take long to get to the Duke of Scarsdale’s home, and once they arrived, Grandfather turned to Jemma and waved a hand.
    “Come, I already see Lord Glenmore.”
    Jemma barely stifled her groan as she, Anne, and Mrs. Featherstone followed Grandfather through the thick crowd. Within moments, she found herself curtsying as she was introduced to Lord Glenmore and his father, the Marquess of Wynfell, under glittering chandeliers and surrounded by the swirling notes of a quadrille. When she came up from her curtsy, she searched out Lord Glenmore’s eyes and realized, with a start, that the small, beady things were focused on her bosom. She slid Anne an I-told-you-so look, but Anne wasn’t even paying attention. She had her head turned to the dance floor, and as Jemma tried to ferret out at what or whom her sister might be looking, Lord Glenmore spoke and she turned sharply back toward him.
    “I’ll be pleased to court Miss Adair,” he said in a most lecherous tone, not bothering to take his gaze from her chest as he spoke.
    Was the fiendish man talking to her, her grandfather, or his father? Regardless, her temper sparked to life like a raging river, and she opened her mouth to ask him if he always ogled women’s bosoms, but he drew his gray eyes upward to her face and curled his lips back in a feral sort of smile.
    “I’m sure it won’t take us long at all to ascertain whether or not we suit.” A sneer pulled his lips even farther back as his gaze drifted slowly once again down to her bosom.
    Jemma’s palm itched to slap the sneer off his face, but she could not openly cross her grandfather’s wishes in such a way.
    “Excellent,” her grandfather and Lord Wynfell boomed as one.
    Lord Wynfell clapped Grandfather on the back. “Let’s leave the young people to it, then, shall