A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting (A Lady's Guide, #1)

by Sophie Irwin

‘Has London changed, since you were away?’ ‘… Yes and no,’ he said, appearing to consider this. ‘In many ways, London feels untouched by everything that went on. As though it never happened. And there are moments, here, when I almost believe that too.’

It was as if, somewhere in the last few minutes, they had crossed a sort of border with one another – one that allowed them, now, to lay bare such vulnerabilities while the ball and its inconsequential guests faded away to the periphery.

‘For the longest time, I have hated it,’ he said. ‘It is why I have kept away. I used to love all the frivolity – loved gambling, and drinking, and flirting. But after, I found myself quite done with all the silliness, all the ridiculous rules we have to live by. As if that matters, after – after the things that happened out there. The people we lost.’

and though she could easily have pointed out his hypocrisy again, this time for sympathising with Hinsley’s plight when he had not done so with hers, she left it unsaid. She found she no longer cared about scoring points against Radcliffe.

And it has been … entertaining, I can admit, watching you cut a swathe through them all. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

and as his mouth quirked upwards, she felt her own mirroring it. She was struck, as she had been upon their first meeting, by how much his face changed when he smiled.

‘Oh, so that’s why you agreed to help me, is it?’ she said. ‘For the entertainment.’ ‘I’m not sure I can be said to have “agreed” to help you,’ he refuted at once, grinning now. ‘I was coerced, I was blackmailed. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.’

Realising he was absent-mindedly searching the crowd for her figure,

dear Lord, was Miss Talbot really going to marry such a buffoon?

as if class had anything to do with courage on such a bloody battlefield as Waterloo had been.

In the past few weeks, it seemed that at every occasion they attended, he and Miss Talbot would end up like this, at the edges, sharing strange intimacies. He thought she could probably ask him almost anything and he would answer her.

Radcliffe nodded. ‘And then everything was down to you?’ ‘I suppose one could say that,’ said Miss Talbot thoughtfully. ‘But I had Beatrice, who is only a little younger, so it is not so bad. And, for all that they left us in quite a mess, I am grateful to my mother and father for such a happy childhood as we had. There was much laughter, in our house – and music, and love.’

‘You must think me very weak,’ he said conversationally. ‘For trying to escape a responsibility you have been shouldering for years.’

‘You have the title, the wealth, the influence,’ she said. ‘You have a family that adores you, and though it might have pained me in the past, you are quite clever at protecting them when you try. I feel you are more than capable of choosing what kind of lord you would like to be.’ ‘How does one choose, though?’ he could not help asking. She shrugged. ‘You just do.’

He looked at her. She looked at him. For a moment, it felt as though they were the only two real people in the whole world, sitting there looking at each other, while the rest of London carried on.

‘I rather think,’ he said slowly, ‘that my answer should be quite different, if you asked me to dance now, Miss Talbot.’

she allowed herself to imagine it for one stolen moment – what it might be like to waltz with Radcliffe, and not with Pemberton. It would be quite different, she knew. Quite different indeed.

She shot him an eloquent look – meant to convey how exceedingly tiresome she found him – and he grinned.

Kitty did not look for him – there never seemed to be a need – but no sooner had the clock struck eleven, than he appeared at her side.

Is it poisoned?’ she asked,

No, no. If I wanted to murder you, I can think of far better means than that,’ Lord Radcliffe said,

Yes, I suppose you could just bludgeon me,’ Kitty suggested. ‘Less elegant, but possibly simpler, and there’s no lack of convenient places to dis...

‘I am alarmed to hear you have given the matter so much thought. Perhaps it is I...

Though I should not expect there are many men in the world brave enough to stand up to you.’ She laughed. ‘Just one, in fact.’

‘Tell me this, then,’ she said. ‘Could you ever have looked past my birth? Past my circumstances? Could it ever have truly not mattered?’

‘And is that so important?’ she asked. ‘Is want so much more important than need?’ ‘It’s everything,’ he told her, voice raw.

Do you know,’ she said, words hot on her tongue, ‘when we first met I thought you proud, stubborn, rude and with a sense of superiority the size of England. I had almost begun to think I had misjudged you – but I see now I should have trusted my first instinct.’ ‘The feeling,’ he said coldly, ‘is quite mutual.’

‘I am in love!’ Cecily said, so loudly that Kitty jumped half out of her skin. ‘Gracious, Cecy, no need to shout – what do you mean, you’re in love? You can’t be.’ ‘I am!’ Cecy insisted. ‘With Lord Montagu – and he is in love with me, too.’

That was the right thing to do, she knew. It was simply one of those terrible moments where the right thing was also the selfish thing. And though it pained her to leave Mr de Lacy to such a fate, she could not risk her family for his sake, she just couldn’t.

Isolation did not hold the same appeal it once had.

He was not going to let such a disastrous thing happen to Miss Talbot, not when it would ruin everything the brave creature had done so far for her family.

and though he could not think of anything less he wanted than to see this man married to Miss Talbot, he could not bear to imagine her suffering such a fate.

This gentleman notices, she reminded herself: he doesn’t just see, and she wasn’t sure she could bear it any more.

I would ask you to trust me, then, when I say this: he was proud of you. He knew you would be a great man. But you cannot take up residence in his shadow for ever – you are Lord Radcliffe now. And that means as much, or as little, as you choose.’

After all their aunt had done for them – for two young ladies who were, in truth, no relation at all – she deserved every ounce of joy the world could offer her.

‘Perhaps I should speak then,’ Radcliffe said. He took a deep breath. ‘I have learnt … much, in these past few months, speaking to you – arguing with you, I should say. You have made me face all my hypocrisies, challenge all my views, made me realise all the ways in which I am still – after all these years – fighting with my father.’

They spun again – she was not paying a single ounce of attention to their steps, all of it fixed upon him, but somehow their feet were moving in quick synchronicity anyway.

‘I think I am quite a different person, now,’ he continued, eyes not leaving hers for a second, ‘for having met you and … I like who I am, who I have become, around you.’

damnnn love that

‘You asked me once,’ Radcliffe went on, gaze fixed intently on hers, his voice hoarse, ‘whether your birth would matter if your feelings were true. I didn’t answer you then, but Miss Talbot – Kitty. You must know that it does not matter to me any more.’

Radcliffe’s hands lingered upon her as though he did not want to let go, and the room felt colder once he had.

‘Now ask me, whether I should still love you, were the choice only mine to make?’

‘Would you?’ he said again.

‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘I will always choose my sisters. I will choose their need more than my want every day. But I want you just as much as I need money. You see me, in my entirety – the w...

‘Would you – would you like to marry me, Kitty?’ Lord Radcliffe – James – asked, voice like gravel.

‘I would,’ she said. ‘But first, I feel I must inform you that I come with four sisters, a badly leaking roof, and a veritable ocean of debt.’

‘I thank you for your honesty,’ he said cordially, and she laughed. ‘May I reassure you that I am desperate to meet your other sisters, the roof sounds charmingly rustic, and the debt does not faze me.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I understand that you will need to see my accounts before committing yourself,’

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘As long as you can promise you’re absurdly rich and you’ll pay off all my family’s debts.’

‘I am absurdly rich,’ he repeated. ‘And I will pay off all yo...

‘Why then by all means,’ she said, grinning up at him, ‘I would indee...

His hand caught her jaw now. There was nothing hesitant about the kis...