Man Of The Mist
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“My dearest Lady Elizabeth, an angel of your stature could not possibly grant me the intercourse I most desire.” Byron waggled his thick brown brows suggestively. “Not an angel of the first water, such as you.”
Beneath those brows, the most outrageous eyes in all of London simmered with mock heat. Elizabeth pursed her lips and drew back her fan. He blinked, and those clear blue orbs widened in genuine alarm when he perceived her intent to strike him again. “Behave, you pesky little brat,” Elizabeth balked. “Don’t use those eyes on me. I’m immune.”
“Are you? Really?” Byron lifted a brow in a wicked arch, and when Elizabeth’s scowl deepened, he laughed with genuine amusement. “You’re supposed to melt at my feet and simper, damn it.”
“Ladies don’t melt,” Elizabeth said confidently, but she couldn’t keep up the ruse. The corners of her mouth spread in an impish smile. “And gentlemen don’t swear.”
“I vow, Elizabeth, you sound as pedantic as Lady Jersey. You really should write a poem titled ‘Ladies Don’t.’”
“It’s been done — and overdone, and satirized, as well.” Elizabeth sighed. She leaned her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table, to look over Monk Lewis’ bent shoulder, watching his pen fly across his sketchpad.
“What would be of greater interest is what ladies do.” Byron resumed his previous sulk. “I don’t want any fuss on my birthday, and well you know it, Elizabeth. Gads! Imagine how hostile I’d feel if people actually jumped at me from all directions, yelling, ‘Surprise,’ giving me apoplexy and propelling me to an early grave? I’d probably shoot someone, and then have to repent and regret it.”
Abruptly he made a fist and slammed it forcefully on the table. “Confound it, Elizabeth! There’s not a blessed thing to celebrate about being twenty. All twenty marks is another three hundred and sixty-five days of groveling, begging and explaining myself. I fear I’ll never become my own free man...ever. Damn me, do you realize how much I envy MacGregor his age, his luck and his damned bloody daring? He managed to throw off all the traces and escape this bloody coil.”
Elizabeth empathized with Byron’s straits, but thought better of telling him so. He needed prodding out of his sulks, not comfort that pushed him deeper into his private mire. They were very much alike in that respect. “Byron, you’ve done it again. I don’t want to talk about Evan!”
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