Scandal Meets Its Match (The May Flowers #7) - Merry Farmer Page 0,11
lay of the land exactly.
Freddy let go of Lenore’s arm, and she stepped gracefully from his side to Phineas’s. “Ah. I feel ten pounds lighter,” Freddy joked. “And I think I see my sister and brother-in-law over by the piano. I have a familial duty to say hello to them. If you will excuse me.” He bowed, then marched away, toward where Fergus and Henrietta O’Shea were, indeed, chatting with a few members of their circle of friends nearer to the piano.
“That was rather curt,” Phineas said with a grin that said he didn’t mind the situation at all.
“Yes, well, Freddy and I have a deep understanding of each other and our preferred methods of entertainment,” Lenore said, pretending to scan the room as though something else besides Phineas might catch her attention. Which was never going to be the case.
Phineas laughed gently. “You have no idea how cheering it is to know that there are other progressive souls in this world,” he said. “There are times when I feel like I alone can see the way the world should work, and then there are times when it becomes clear just how quickly the young generation is changing their minds and mores to accommodate a new way of thinking and being.”
Lenore couldn’t help but laugh. “That might be the most flowery and philosophical way I’ve ever heard someone admit to embracing modern immorality yet. You should be a writer.”
Phineas shrugged and adjusted his glasses again, a splash of color making his already handsome face even handsomer. “I may have taken pen to paper once or twice before,” he said, his smile cagey.
A twist of excitement hit Lenore’s gut as she sensed a secret just waiting to be uncovered. “Really? What have you written?”
“This and that,” Phineas said with a shrug.
“Have you ever been published?”
He hummed and tilted his head to the side.
Lenore’s eyes widened. “Have you written anything I might have read?”
Before he could answer, Lady Beatrice and Lady Diana broke away from the main crush of the guests and joined them in the corner with the palm. They were both breathless and their color was high. Lady Beatrice was attempting to conceal a pink-tinted issue of Nocturne between her and Lady Diana.
“Have you read the latest?” Lady Beatrice asked, her cheeks a far brighter pink than the paper Nocturne was printed on. “It’s positively delicious.”
“I haven’t yet,” Lenore said, instantly caught up in Lady Beatrice and Lady Diana’s excitement.
“It’s scandalous,” Lady Diana said, her eyes wide and bright.
“Then by all means, let me see.” Lenore inched closer to Lady Beatrice, sending Phineas a saucy grin over her shoulder before leaning in to read the journal.
“If Papa knew I had this, he would confine me to my room from now until Christmas,” Lady Beatrice whispered as Lenore scanned through the salacious story on the paper’s front page. “Heavens, if Harrison found out I was reading this, he’d…why, I don’t know what he’d do.” Lady Beatrice shoved the paper into Lenore’s hands and leapt away, circling around Lady Diana, as though her friend could block her from whatever sin Nocturne might impart on her.
Lenore was tempted to shake her head at Lady Beatrice’s behavior, but the story in Nocturne had caught her attention to the exclusion of everything else, even Lady Diana telling Lady Beatrice, “Harrison might actually propose at last if he knew how much you enjoy reading about such things. And it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.”
“If he hasn’t proposed already, knowing I read this sort of story might prevent him from ever proposing,” Lady Beatrice argued. “Gentlemen prefer pure and innocent maidens, don’t they?”
Lenore was certain she would have had a reply to that if the words of the story she scanned through—one of the author of Nocturne’s most sinful yet—hadn’t caused her heart to drop into her stomach to play with the butterflies that were running riot there. The feature story in the new issue was about a certain Lady A who was locked in a tower by her overbearing mother. That didn’t stop the suitors from climbing up the tower walls to have their wicked way with the hapless but lusty Lady A. Lenore scanned the rest of the pages of the story, which seemed to be little more than a series of intimate encounters with the men bold and brave enough to make it past Lady A’s battleax of a mother and scale the tower walls. It was a few, particular lines of dialog