“Of course,” Daphne said demurely.

“I'm certain your mother would never be so lax as to allow me a second waltz,” Simon said, looking every inch the debonair duke, “but I do hope she will permit us to take a stroll around the ballroom.”

“You just took a stroll around the ballroom,” Anthony pointed out.

Simon ignored him again. He said to Violet, “We shall, of course, remain in your sight at all times.”

The lavender silk fan in Violet's hand began to flutter rapidly. “I should be delighted. I mean, Daphne should be delighted. Shouldn't you, Daphne?”

Daphne was all innocence. “Oh, I should.”

“And I,” Anthony snapped, “should take a dose of laudanum, for clearly I am fevered. What the devil is going on?”

“Anthony!” Violet exclaimed. She turned hastily to Simon. “Don't mind him.”

“Oh, I never do,” Simon said affably.

“Daphne,” Anthony said pointedly, “I should be delighted to act as your chaperon.”

“Really, Anthony,” Violet cut in, “they hardly need one if they are to remain here in the ballroom.”

“Oh, I insist.”

“You two run along,” Violet said to Daphne and Simon, waving her hand at them. “Anthony will be with you in just a moment.”

Anthony tried to follow immediately, but Violet grabbed onto his wrist. Hard. “What the devil do you think you're doing?” she hissed.

“Protecting my sister!”

“From the duke? He can't be that wicked. Actually, he reminds me of you.”

Anthony groaned. “Then she definitely needs my protection.”

Violet patted him on the arm. “Don't be so over-protective. If he attempts to spirit her out onto the balcony, I promise you may dash out to rescue her. But until that unlikely event occurs, please allow your sister her moment of glory.”

Anthony glared at Simon's back. “Tomorrow I will kill him.”

“Dear me,” Violet said, shaking her head, “I had no idea you could be so high-strung. One would think, as your mother, I would know these things, especially since you are my firstborn, and thus I have known you for the longest of any of my children, but—”

“Is that Colin?” Anthony interrupted, his voice strangled.

Violet blinked, then squinted her eyes. “Why, yes, it is. Isn't it lovely that he returned early? I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him an hour ago. In fact, I—”

“I'd better go to him,” Anthony said quickly. “He looks lonely. Good-bye, Mother.”

Violet watched as Anthony ran off, presumably to escape her chattering lecture. “Silly boy,” she murmured to herself. None of her children seemed to be on to any of her tricks. Just blather on about nothing in particular, and she could be rid of any of them in a trice.

She let out a satisfied sigh and resumed her watch of her daughter, now on the other side of the ballroom, her hand nestled comfortably in the crook of the duke's elbow. They made a most handsome couple.

Yes, Violet thought, her eyes growing misty, her daughter would make an excellent duchess.

Then she let her gaze wander briefly over to Anthony, who was now right where she wanted him—out of her hair. She allowed herself a secret smile. Children were so easy to manage.

Then her smile turned to a frown as she noticed Daphne walking back toward her—on the arm of another man. Violet's eyes immediately scanned the ballroom until she found the duke.

Dash it all, what the devil was he doing dancing with Penelope Featherington?

Chapter 6

It has been reported to This Author that the Duke of Hastings mentioned no fewer than six times yestereve that he has no plans to marry. If his intention was to discourage the Ambitious Mamas, he made a grave error in judgment. They will simply view his remarks as the greatest of challenges.

And in an interesting side note, his half dozen antimatrimony remarks were all uttered before he made the acquaintance of the lovely and sensible Miss (Daphne) Bridgerton.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN'S SOCIETY PAPERS, 30 APRIL 1813

The following afternoon found Simon standing on the front steps of Daphne's home, one hand rapping the brass knocker on the door, the other wrapped around a large bouquet of fiendishly expensive tulips. It hadn't occurred to him that his little charade might require his attention during the daylight hours, but during their stroll about the ballroom the previous night, Daphne had sagely pointed out that if he did not call upon her the next day, no one—least of all her mother—would truly believe he was interested.

Simon accepted her words as truth, allowing that Daphne almost certainly had more knowledge in this area of etiquette than he did. He'd dutifully found some flowers and trudged across Grosvenor Square to Bridgerton House. He'd never courted a respectable woman before, so the ritual was foreign to him.

The door was opened almost immediately by the Bridgertons' butler. Simon gave him his card. The butler, a tall thin man with a hawkish nose, looked at it for barely a quarter second before nodding, and murmuring, “Right this way, your grace.”

Clearly, Simon thought wryly, he had been expected.

What was unexpected, however, was the sight that awaited him when he was shown into the Bridgertons' drawing room.

Daphne, a vision in ice-blue silk, perched on the edge of Lady Bridgerton's green damask sofa, her face decorated with another one of those wide wide smiles.

It would have been a lovely sight, had she not been surrounded by at least a half dozen men, one of whom had actually descended to one knee, gales of poetry spewing from his mouth.