Page 34 of The Mistletoe Dare

“Have you no willpower, woman?”

“No. Not a scrap of it,” she admitted. “Will you come to the ball tomorrow night?”

He returned an uncompromising look, and she grimaced.

“Oh, don’t make out like you’ll be pining away for the lack of me,” he muttered, gently prising tiny claws from his thigh and the material of his trousers. The kitten yawned and stretched, revealing soft, pink paws. “You’ll be danced off your feet, no doubt.”

“Oh, yes. Jules and my godfather, and my friends, and their fathers.” She pulled a face.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

Georgie rolled her eyes at him. She stood up and swept an impatient hand up and down to indicate her person. “Look at me, Rochford.”

“I am,” he said, obviously missing the point.

“I’m taller than most men, which makes them uncomfortable, and dancing awkward. No one who isn’t a friend or a relation will ask me. Not unless you come, anyway,” she added crossly, sitting down again with a flounce of skirts and petticoats.

“What’s wrong with them?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she said, throwing up her hands. “They just want some delicate little flower to protect, and that’s not me, not by a long chalk. I’m robust, not fragile. I’ve never swooned in my life. If I did, I’d likely knock down any man standing close enough if he even tried to catch me.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense! Oh, come to the ball, Rochford, at least for long enough to dance with me.”

Her cheeks burned. That had been perilously close to begging. Not that it mattered.

Rochford shook his head. “If I danced with you again, tongues would truly wag, and that won’t do you a bit of good.”

Irritation burned in her. The pig-headed lummox. “Oh, so what? I’ll never find a match here. One of my brother’s friends back home has always had a fondness for me. I suppose I’ll end up with him, eventually.”

Her lack of enthusiasm for this idea was not hard to discern.

“Well, there you are, then.” Rochford folded his arms.

“There I am then,” she agreed with a sigh. It was clearly hopeless. He wouldn’t come. “It just would have been nice to dance again. It’s not like I’m expecting a proposal. I’m not,” she added hastily.

“Stop trying to work upon my tender sensibilities,” he warned her. “I have none.”

“This from a man with a lap full of kittens,” she said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Hat lining,” he growled.

“Oh, yes. I forgot.”

They sat in silence for a while, the kittens’ contented purring the only sound between them. A groom appeared, leading a pretty bay mare. Georgie waved at him.

“Good morning, John. How is Martha?”

“Ready to drop, I reckon, my lady,” the man said cheerily. “She’s certain it will be a boy this time. Though she’s said it the last three times an’ all. Not that I care, long as it’s healthy.”

“I shall keep fingers and toes crossed for that,” she promised. “Keep me posted.”

“I will do, and thank you kindly for that recipe for tea you sent. Worked a treat, she said.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, thank my mother’s housekeeper, Mrs MacLeod. It was her recipe.”

The fellow waved goodbye and walked away. Georgie turned her head, unsurprised to see Rochford with a face like thunder.