Pretty Poison by Lynne Barron Page A

she’d be disappointed?” Emily asked.
    “Why, because I shall win, of course,” was Veronica’s immediate response.
    “Is that so?” she asked.
    “You had your chance, Miss Calvert,” Veronica said. “Lady Morris had him all but sewn up for you.”
    “Oh,” Emily exclaimed, allowing her eyes to widen, “Are we talking about Mr. Avery? Goodness, I had no idea you had set your sights on him.”
    “Now you know,” she purred, her eyes darkening to the color of angry storm clouds.
    “I don’t think Mr. Avery is the right man for you, Miss Davis,” Emily said, turning to the other lady.
    “I don’t either,” she agreed.
    “I think you want a debonair gentleman, one’s who’s traveled, who’s well read.” Emily eyed the shy girl. “Someone kind and gentle.”
    “Oh, yes,” Lucinda said.
    “And really, you needn’t marry a fortune hunter,” Emily continued, warming to her subject. “You are a lovely lady, from a good family. You can surely look higher than the impoverished second son of a viscount.”
    “It’s just that I am so terribly shy,” Lucinda whispered as if she were letting Emily in on a secret. “I never do know what to say to a gentleman.”
    “What do you know of trains?” Emily asked.
     
    Nicholas entered the parlor with his father and brother and immediately found Miss Calvert across the room in conversation with Misses Ogilvie and Davis.
    He was struck by her vibrant presence between the two fair blondes. She was the sun while they were two pale moons orbiting her.
    Just then she looked up and met his eyes. She tilted her head to the side and studied him, her lower lip caught between her pearly white teeth, her gaze intent.
    Nick felt a jolt of raw desire, felt the familiar stirring in his loins. He’d been in a hell of a state all through dinner watching her laughing and flirting with Carmichael.
    He still found it hard to believe that this exotic creature was the same lady who had fallen asleep at the theater and again in the gardens of Lady Clevedon’s Mayfair mansion. He remembered that flash of memory as he’d looked down into her dazed eyes after he’d kissed her in the stables. There was nothing dazed in her eyes now. No, they followed him as he weaved his way through the chatting groups of people clustered about the room.
    “Ladies, may I join you?” he asked when he reached the sun and two moons.
    “Please,” Veronica purred, sliding toward Miss Calvert to make room for him.
    Miss Calvert rose and took the seat next to Miss Davis, putting her directly across from him. Veronica had no choice but to move farther away on the settee. She couldn’t very well stay plastered to his thigh without another body beside her.
    “We were just discussing travel by rail,” Miss Calvert replied cheerfully and there was something in her eyes that made him think she found him amusing, as if she was waiting for him to make a fool of himself. As he had in the stables.
    He cringed remembering how he’d asked her if she’d rub him down and sing his praises.
    She’d compared him to a stallion in search of a broad mare. And why not? She likely hadn’t heard that Ollie and Joan were in anticipation of a blessed event.
    “You seem to know a lot about the railroad,” he replied carefully.
    “It’s the railroad that brought me to England,” she replied with a careless wave of her hand. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
    “Whatever do you mean?” Veronica asked.
    “Da was planning to make the journey to investigate the operations here when he received Aunt Margaret’s letter,” she answered with a teasing smile. “You know, the one that offered Mr. Avery as a prospective husband.”
    Nick jerked in his seat, so great was his surprise that she would speak so openly of their disastrous Almost Betrothal .
    Lucinda Davis turned and covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes dancing with suppressed laughter.
    Veronica glared across the low table before replying, “I