Page 63 of The Trouble with Tweed

He arched his brow in a mischievous way. “A pity. There are several I have exceedingly fond memories of.”

Claire pursed her lips and shook her head in lieu of rolling her eyes. Truth be told, she was fighting the hint of a blush from his words, though she hardly wished to reward his impertinence.

“Lord Gill, Lord Evans, and Lord Cook to see Miss Lily Preston,” the butler intoned from the doorway.

“Good heavens.” Claire’s head snapped up to inspect the men filing through the doorway. “Is it always like this?”

Michael smiled. “Isn’t the crowd why you’d keep to the park or the parlor?”

“Of course, but I thought the gentlemen were more evenly distributed amongst my sisters.”

“Lord Brooks, Mr. Craig, and His Grace, the Duke of Dunn to see Miss Lily Preston.”

“If any more gentlemen join us, we might as well hold Parliament right here. We’re very near a quorum as it is,” Michael murmured.

Claire jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow as surreptitiously as possible. “Do be serious. Have none of them come for Beatrice?”

“I’m sure she’ll have visitors, but rumor has it that Lily is the main draw this Season. Indeed, I believe she and Miss Dahlia Warrington are fighting tooth and nail for the top spot.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; Lily would never fight for that,” she murmured distractedly as a fresh wave of gentlemen took their positions around Lily. It now looked rather like she were the last open bet-taker on Ascot Day.

“Certainly she couldn’t have encouraged all of them,” Claire whispered.

“Lily doesn’t strike me as the type to know how to discourage a gentleman, does she?”

“Oh dear,” she said faintly.

“Lord Hayes to see Miss Lily Preston.”

It was the man in the dark suit, the one Claire had seen dancing with Lily during the first ball. His grim expression hardly seemed warmer than the first time she’d seen him, and it only grew darker when he saw the crowd surrounding Lily.

“Who is that?” she murmured to Michael.

“Lord Hayes,” he replied instantly.

Claire might have tsked him for his obvious answer, but she was too distracted by the tableau of gentlemen across the room. “But who is he?”

“He’s a man who knows how to get what he wants, apparently,” Michael said, sounding impressed.

Michael was right about that, at least. Lord Hayes had walked forward, said something lowly to the man sitting closest to Lily, and promptly taken his spot.

“Do you think he paid that man to get here early so that he might save a place for him?” Michael raised an eyebrow.

“He certainly wouldn’t look so put out were that the case,” she murmured.

Indeed, the man who’d relinquished his seat looked positively mutinous. Lord Hayes grandly ignored him, turning his focus to Lily.

For several moments, Claire studied the grouping around her sister. Though the other gentlemen conversed with each other in low tones when Lily was otherwise engaged, Lord Hayes’s focus was solely on her sister. Whoever he was, he seemed very serious about the business of courting.

On a sudden thought, Claire turned to Michael with a frown. “If you mean to follow through with our deal, then why are you here?”

“You said you’d help me choose,” he said smoothly.

“Choose?”

“Which lady to court, of course.”

Her stomach twisted in something close to nausea; Claire wondered if she’d had too much breakfast, or perhaps not enough.