Page 38 of Bookshop Cinderella

“Again, you sidestep the question. I asked what youwant. Do you want to back out? Do you?” he pressed when she didn’t answer.

“No!” she cried, pushed beyond endurance. “I just don’t want to be laughed at! I don’t want history to repeat itself.”

Satisfied, he gave a nod. “Then let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?” She lifted her hands in a gesture of despair and let them fall. “If I go to this ball, I’ll make a hash of the very first dance, and no one will ask me for another. You’ll lose the bet, and I’ll be the same wallflower I was at those school dances years ago.”

“Why? Because you haven’t been practicing your dance steps? Nonsense. I don’t believe it for a minute.”

She made a rueful face, her freckled nose wrinkling up. “Says the man who has never seen me dance.”

“That is a very good point.” On impulse, he turned to her desk and tore a corner off the top sheet of her blotter, then he plucked a pencil out of the glass jar on top of her desk and scribbled on the torn scrap of paper. “Here,” he said when he’d finished, holding the slip of paper out to her.

“What’s this?” she asked, taking it from his hand.

“I’m calling your bluff.”

She looked down at what he’d written and frowned in puzzlement. “An address in Park Lane?” She looked up again. “I don’t understand.”

“My London residence,” he supplied as he tossed the pencil onto her desk. “It has an enormous ballroom, and I know there’s a gramophone because I bought it myself less than a year ago. Come there tomorrow night, and you can show me how horrible a dancer you are.”

“What?” She stared at him, looking appalled. “I can’t come to your house.”

“Why not? Because it’s not proper?”

“Well, it isn’t!”

“Who’s going to find out? There’s no one staying there at present. No one to see you make a mistake,” he added gently. “No one to laugh. As for propriety...” He paused, his mind veering toward red satin garters and firmly back again, “I give you my word of honor as a gentleman to behave myself.”

She blinked, showing that the possibility he might misbehave if he were alone with her hadn’t even entered her head, demonstrating just how unaccustomed to male attention she truly was. For his own part, he could surely keep his baser needs under control, although it would probably be for the best if he didn’t do any more thinking about her ripping long legs in red satin garters.

“Come at eight.” He picked up her notes on Arabian Nights and reached for his hat. “And use the servant’s entrance on Green Street. It’s less noticeable that way.”

“And if a constable catches me slipping into a duke’s closed-up house after dark?”

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, leaning closer to her. “I won’t let him arrest you.”

“That’s comforting,” she answered dryly, “but I don’t know what purpose you think any of this is going to serve.”

“To show which of us is right, of course. You think you’re a terrible dancer, but I’ll wager you aren’t nearly as bad at it as you think.”

She sighed. “Is making wagers a compulsion with you?”

He gave her an unapologetic grin. “I suppose I am a bit of a gambler at heart. Besides, this will be good for both of us. I haven’t danced in ages, and I daresay I could do with a bit of practice myself.”

She frowned, looking uncertain, but after a moment, she capitulated. “Oh, all right,” she said, tucking the note into her skirt pocket, “but you’ll regret this when your toes are black and blue.”

“That won’t happen,” he said lightly and turned to go. “I’m very quick on my feet.”

9

Only rarely had Evie’s life given her cause to visit the West End. A delivery for a customer when Clarence was unavailable, or an occasional Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park when the fickle English weather allowed it, was the extent of her familiarity with Mayfair, and even then, she’d never paid much attention to the luxurious mansions that lined Park Lane.

Nonetheless, she found Westbourne House easily enough. Located between North Row and Green Street, the duke’s residence proved to be a massive four-story structure of Carrara marble and black granite, with French windows, full-length balconies, and a magnificent view of the park.

The front entrance was closed off from the street by ornate iron gates and guarded by a pair of stone griffins taller than Evie. Beyond the gates, Evie could see a courtyard ringed with flowering trees, and their scent wafted to her on the cool spring breeze, mingling with the Corsican mint that grew between the flagstone pavements. The courtyard made an agreeable picture, a patch of serenity and ease amidst the hustle and bustle of London, but when she looked up, she found a pair of granite-faced gargoyles frowning down upon her from the pillars of the courtyard gate with haughty disdain, as if wondering what on earth she was doing there.

They were not the only ones to wonder. Evie had been pondering the very same question all day, her apprehensions growing stronger with every hour. She wanted to dance well, she did, and yetthat reminder seemed less and less of an incentive with every block the cab had traveled bringing her here.

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