The Duke Goes Down (The Duke Hunt #1) - Sophie Jordan Page 0,35

it was galling. She doubted Butler had ever talked to their host for the evening for any significant length of time before he was forced to move in with his mother and pay court to women he would have considered far beneath his notice a year ago. Imogen recognized this so clearly. Why did no one else?

Mr. Blankenship was talking now, nodding and motioning eagerly toward the dance floor. Imogen tracked his attention directly to his daughter, Emily. She was finishing dancing with her partner, curtsying lightly before him as the song drew to a close. Imogen’s head whipped back to gauge Butler. He smiled, nodding as he said something in turn to Mr. Blankenship. The sight made her stomach clench.

Splendid. She needn’t hear their words to know. Their conversation was about young Emily. Mr. Blankenship was probably giving his daughter away to Butler right now—lock, stock and barrel—and, of course, Mr. Butler was accepting. Moments ago he had been kissing Imogen, but now he was across the room negotiating marriage to another.

Over my dead body.

Hot emotion swept over her. With indignant heat burning a fiery maelstrom in her chest, she leaned in beside Mrs. Hathaway and began speaking in hushed tones with great relish, catching the lady up on all she had missed . . . and adding a new story about Mr. Butler—perhaps the most creative one of all—with grand flourish. The pièce de résistance. A story that would have any papa snatching up his daughter and keeping her far from the clutches of Mr. Butler.

By this night’s end Peregrine Butler would be the most ineligible man—to daughters and papas alike—in Shropshire.

Imogen sat at her dressing table, vigorously brushing her brown hair until it crackled. Thankfully, they had not stayed at the ball much longer after she had whispered those words to Mrs. Hathaway.

Those words.

She winced. She could not even bring herself to say them in her mind. It was difficult now to even contemplate them in the peace and security of her bedchamber.

She had wanted to start a rumor that would chase off prospective fathers-in-law and not simply repel prospective brides. Imogen suspected she had now succeeded at that. Oh, very well. Beyond her wildest dreams she had succeeded at that. No man worth his salt would want his daughter to marry Mr. Butler now. She had seen to that.

Thankfully, she had not lingered to see the ramifications of her efforts. Papa had grown weary and the kindly baroness insisted they depart before he overtired himself.

Lowering her brush, Imogen tapped it anxiously on the surface of the dressing table.

She stared at her reflection in reproach until she could endure it no longer. She looked away from herself and fiddled with the various perfumes and creams littering the surface. Most of them had belonged to her mother. Imogen only used them sparingly, as when they were gone they would be gone forever. Just like Mama was gone from her. Imogen wanted them to last.

Silly, she supposed. They were inanimate things, but sometimes, inhaling the fragrances, it was like Mama was still with her. Talking and smiling. Imogen would have a flash of her so clearly in her mind, bending over her knitting or working in the garden or bringing baked goods to a neighbor. For a moment it felt real. It felt like she was right beside her.

Imogen wondered if they would have had the kind of adult relationship that begged confidences. It was difficult to imagine confessing to Mama her actions from this last week. She would not have approved of Imogen inventing rumors. Mama had been unfailingly honest. She’d lived as she preached—or rather as Papa preached. And now as Imogen preached since she was the author of his sermons.

Imogen frowned, thinking how her actions would disappoint both her parents. Perhaps she had gone too far. Especially that last fabrication she had told to Mrs. Hathaway. And then there was the other thing that had transpired this very night.

How could she have kissed him?

You didn’t kiss him. He kissed you.

“And then you kissed him back,” she accused her reflection as though the Imogen Bates in the mirror was someone other than herself.

But tonight she did feel like someone else. She felt like she was gazing at a stranger.

It had been a long time since she put her lips to a man’s, and she had assumed the last time would be the last time. She’d never thought to do it again, and especially not with someone so