CHAPTER TWO

"How do you know about Farrow and Miss Sharpe's engagement? It hasn't officially been announced," Viscount Stone grumbled. He'd disliked her assessment of his feelings for Miss Sharpe, but Wren could hardly ignore the temptation to tease him. The play of emotions over his handsome face as he watched the happy couple offered far more entertainment than her book, even if she didn't dare admit it aloud.

"Wallflowers possess a unique advantage in society. We hear everything." No one paid attention to the lonely girls observing the flirtations of men and women from the outside. That fact became doubly true when one was a quiet spinster such as herself.

Miss Wren Preston, thirty years of age and firmly on the shelf.

"I'm going to pretend that eavesdropping isn't a paltry substitute for engaging in conversation," he said, "Advantage or not, it's quite unbecoming of a lady."

"As is conversing with a man without a proper introduction, yet here we are," she pointed out. It was rare that Wren got the chance to banter with the opposite sex. She wasn't normally an outspoken person with strangers, but something about Viscount Stone made her cast caution to the wind and poke at his armor of rakish ennui.

For only a rake of his proportions—the firstborn son of the King of Corruption —could find so much dissatisfaction in his libertine life that he resorted to coveting another man's betrothed for excitement.

"Drake Caster, Viscount Stone." He dipped his head in a semblance of a bow.

"Wren Preston, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Preston." She set her book aside and stood to offer an abbreviated curtsy.

"Wren like the bird? That's an unusual name."

"Indeed… Wrens are difficult to spot in nature due to their miniature size, but on the morning of my birth, my mother saw one in the garden and thought it was a sign."

"Of what?"

"Of strength and resilience." Wren pitched her voice to match her mama's. "And a propensity for loud chatter." Her childhood had been happily spent discussing all manner of things with her parents and siblings, confirming her mother's superstitious belief that the tiny bird who appeared March 17, 1794 represented more than a coincidence.

The matriarch of the Preston family was quite eccentric like that.

In truth, eccentric could be used to describe Wren's entire family. It was part of the reason she remained unmarried despite years out in Society.

"You've certainly a hand for inserting your opinion where it's not needed," Stone said, raising a dark brow in judgment.

"Think of it as me preventing you from inserting your hand where it's liable to get bitten," she retorted. Crossing her arms over her chest, Wren mirrored his defensive stance, prepared to lob another caustic reply, when a bark of amusement broke the building tension.

Stone covered his mouth as another laugh erupted from his broad chest. "My god, you may have a point there. Farrow's a crack shot. He wouldn't take kindly to me ogling his betrothed, and I'd likely end up with more than an injured hand if he ever detected the slightest hint of my interest in Miss Sharpe."

Deflating a bit, Wren studied Lord Stone's brightened features—golden-flecked eyes filled with mirth, his previously firm mouth twitching with the prospect of a smile—then shrugged, offering her own shy grin.

"I'll accept that as your apology and expression of gratitude." A flustered feeling burgeoned in her belly as they shared a moment of mutual appreciation. She'd long ago accepted that love and marriage weren't in store for her after multiple failed seasons, so Wren's heart had been carefully but securely buried beneath other things that gave her joy—books, family, friends.

However, one boisterous interaction with a rogue, and a tell-tale thump beat through the well-maintained and strictly guarded grave where her heart resided. That tenuous organ sending little cracks to the surface.

This won't do.

Viscount Stone was a charming devil. All of Society knew his infamous parentage and subsequent actions to uphold the family legacy of debauchery. A man like him did not fall in love.

Least of all with a spinster like Wren.

Fighting to recover her nonchalant attitude, she grabbed Chaucer and tossed out a stuttering, "Y…You're welcome, my lord," before escaping his magnetic presence for the safety of the library.

"I should have been here all along," she muttered to herself. Empty libraries overflowing with adventures Wren could live vicariously through were all a lady like she could hope for.

Certainly not flirtatious encounters with wicked rakes amounting to something real.