“I’m sure it will wear off by the time I’m dressed and ready to go,” Lisa said with unconcern, but wasn’t at all sure it would. She simply felt . . . well, she felt oddly invincible, untouchable . . . or maybe she just couldn’t seem to care.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“Robert, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you intended to avoid these things like the plague this year,” Richard commented as Robert reached where he and Daniel stood enjoying a drink on the fringes of the ballroom.

“Aye,” Daniel agreed. “Thought you were happy in your bachelorhood and completely uninterested in being chased by marriage-minded maidens and their mothers.”

“Aye, I am,” Robert muttered, his eyes searching the ballroom. “Where’s Lisa?”

“Oh ho, don’t tell me you’ve finally deigned to notice she’s all grown up?” Daniel teased with amusement.

Robert shook his head with a frown. He’d certainly noticed that today, but that wasn’t why he had asked the question. After a hesitation where he briefly and silently debated just how much to reveal of that day’s escapades, he sighed and said solemnly, “I would have a word with you two gentlemen. In private.”

Richard raised his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Daniel, but then the two men turned as one to lead him out of the ballroom. Robert hesitated before following, his gaze searching the room for Lisa again. It was only when he spotted her safely between her two sisters in a group of women at the other side of the ballroom that he relaxed and trailed the other two men.

“Lisa Madison!” Suzette said with amusement as the latest would-be suitor moved disappointedly away. “Why are you lying to all these men and claiming your dance card is full? I know darned right well that you have three dances left.

“I am saving them,” Lisa said with a shrug.

“For Robert?” Christiana asked gently.

“Not likely,” Lisa said dryly. “I wouldn’t waste another dance on him if he were the last man on earth.”

She didn’t miss the raised eyebrows of her sisters or the glance they exchanged, so wasn’t surprised when Suzette asked delicately, “Did you and Robert have a falling out we don’t know about?”

“Not at all,” Lisa assured them airily. “It’s just perfectly obvious that his feelings for me don’t reach beyond filial and I’ve decided that neither do mine. He is far too stupid a man for me. Our children would be dunces. So I am turning my attention to more likely, intelligent game.”

“Game?” Suzette asked with disbelief, patting Christiana’s back when she choked on the punch she was drinking. Mouth quirking with amusement, she asked, “Are we on a hunt, then?”

“A husband hunt,” Lisa said with a firm nod. “I am ready to find a husband, have children, and start my life.”