CHAPTER THREE

Thursday, September 9, 1824

"It occurred to me that we both might benefit from an alliance of sorts," Drake drawled once Miss Preston and he were alone at the breakfast table the next morning. Their hosts, Farrow's parents, had spared no expense, plying guests with an assortment of pastries, meats, jellies… The entire affair invited everyone to indulge and kept the breakfast parlor full until only they were left at the end of the table.

He'd specifically chosen a seat across from her after hatching a plan last night when sleep failed to steal away his consciousness. Thoughts of Farrow, Miss Sharpe, and the impudent Miss Preston had whirled in his brain, refusing to give Drake a moment's peace.

So, he'd concocted a haphazard scheme—one to distract him from fixating on Miss Sharpe and to play with Miss Preston, a woman daring him to ruffle her little brown feathers.

A wren, indeed.

"An alliance?" Miss Preston sipped from her teacup, gaze bouncing around the room to ensure their privacy. While surrounded by other guests, he'd learned that she was attending the Farrow house party in lieu of her parents who were friends with the family. She'd arrived with one maid in tow—no chaperone, despite being unmarried—her advanced age allowing Miss Preston a bit more freedom than her younger counterparts.

Which would work perfectly for his proposed arrangement.

"Yes. I require a suitable diversion from Miss Sharpe," he lowered his voice upon speaking her name, "And you require—"

"Nothing."

Drake carried on as if she hadn't interrupted. " You require entertainment. Chaucer can only offer so much before the book is finished, and you're still stuck here without a way to occupy that clever mind of yours."

Or body… His eyes dropped to study the buxom vision Miss Preston made with her bountiful breasts rising above the square neckline of her dress. He'd noticed the delicious pair of tits last evening, but her strange attitude had eclipsed them at the time.

An odd occurrence since banter, no matter how witty, rarely trumped physical attraction in his esteem.

"Somehow I doubt very much that you concern yourself with women's minds ," she stressed the last word then rose from the table, shaking the wrinkles out of her skirt, before hastening from the room.

"You wound me, Miss Preston." Drake followed, an expert chessman making his next move, reveling in the game now afoot. "My reputation may precede me, but rest assured that I'm not a total bastard. Everything about a woman is of the utmost concern to me."

She huffed in disbelief and ducked into an open doorway to avoid two maids scurrying down the hall. Her light blue skirt swished across the floor as she made a beeline for the glass cabinet filled with delicate figurines on the other side of the room. Farrow's mother was known for her obsession with the breakable statues depicting various domestic scenes.

Closing the door behind him, Drake stalked forward and caged Miss Preston against the cabinet, smashing her breasts against his firm chest in an obscene display of flesh that made his mouth salivate.

Miss Sharpe may put him in mind of marriage with her incomparable beauty and genteel spirit, but Miss Preston caused a wholly different reaction. At first, her brazen remarks set him off-kilter—a sensation he decidedly despised—but the more she taunted Drake, the longer he had to appreciate the little minx. From her sharp tongue to her generous curves.

It made a partnership between them that much more palatable.

Perhaps destined.

She inhaled a shuddery breath but that was the only sign of her wavering composure as she chirped, "I'm not afraid of you, my lord. There's no need for intimidation tactics."

A tiny wren bravely challenging a black raven.

"And why is that?" Though Drake's misdeeds never ventured into forcing a woman or acting out in violence, Miss Preston didn't know him that well, and his curiosity got the better of him.

"I'm not the woman you want, despite this scheme you've cooked up. You desire your friend's betrothed, and I'd be a poor substitute for Miss Philomena Sharpe."

She said it so plainly—a pragmatic truth.

It bothered him.

"You hold yourself in such low regard?"

"I acknowledge the facts, my lord. I'm on the shelf as a spinster of thirty. This is my tenth season, while Miss Sharpe has secured a match during her debut at a spry nineteen."

Drake grit his teeth in annoyance. He disliked the easy way she dismissed her value. Miss Preston acted as if she were a crotchety old maid bound for Heaven's Gate at any moment, when she was only four years younger than him.

Did Society abandon women after a certain age? Of course. But he'd never discriminated in his lustful pursuits based on such a trivial matter.

Virgins were his line.

Although, he supposed even that boundary blurred to suit his needs, since Drake doubted Miss Preston had experienced anything more than a kiss in her life.