" Outside the room they found his family standing in the Great Hall, discussing something in heated whispers as Freddy nervously paced the other end.
Oliver cleared his throat, and they all jumped. “My fiancée has made it clear that she doesn’t appreciate my attempt at a joke.”
“Oliver enjoys shocking people,” Maria said calmly. When he looked at her, surprised that she had noticed, she arched one eyebrow at him. “I’m sure you know that about him by now. I find it a great flaw in his character.”
She seemed to consider many things as flaws in his character. Not that he could blame her.
Gran glanced from Maria to him. “So the two of you didn’t meet in a brothel?”
“We did,” he said, “but only because poor Freddy got lost and wandered into one by mistake. I was trying to determine what he was looking for when Maria rushed in, mad with worry over where he might have gone off to. With two such Americans lost in the wicked city, hopelessly innocent of its dangers, I felt compelled to help them. I’ve been squiring them about town the last week. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
She cast him a sugary and thoroughly false smile. “Oh, yes, dearest. And you were a very informative guide, too.”
Jarret arched one eyebrow. “Astonishing that after finding you in a brothel, Oliver, Miss Butterfield wasn’t put off of marrying you.”
“I ought to have been,” Maria said. “But he swore those days were behind him when he pledged his undying love to me on bended knee.”
When Gabriel and Jarret barely managed to stifle their laughter, Oliver gritted his teeth. Bended knee, indeed. She was determined to prick his pride at every opportunity. She probably felt he deserved it. He could only pray that Gran backed down from the right before he had to bring the chit around any of his friends, or Maria would have them taunting him unmercifully for the next decade.
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he said tersely, “that my brothers have trouble envisioning me bending a knee to anyone.”
She affected a look of wide-eyed shock. “Have they no idea what a romantic you are? I’ll have to show them the sonnets you wrote praising my beauty. I believe I left them in my redingote pocket.” The teasing wench actually looked back toward the entrance. “I could go fetch them if you like.”
“Not now,” he said, torn between a powerful urge to laugh and an equally powerful urge to strangle her. “It’s time for dinner, and I’m starved.”
“So am I,” Freddy put in. At a frown from Maria, he mumbled, “Not that it matters, mind you.”
“Of course it matters,” Gran said graciously. “We don’t like our guests to be uncomfortable. Come along then, Mr. Dunse. You may take me in to dinner, since my grandson is otherwise occupied.”
As they trooped toward the dining room, Oliver bent his head to whisper, “I see you’re enjoying making me out to be a besotted idiot.”
A minxish smile tipped up her fetching lips. “Oh, yes. It’s great fun.”
“Then my explanation of how you ended up in a brothel met with your approval?”
“It’ll do for now.” She cast him a glance from beneath her long lashes. “You’re by no means out of the woods yet, sir.”
But I will be by the time the night is over. No matter what it took, he would get her to stay and do this, so help him God. "

― Sabrina Jeffries , The Truth About Lord Stoneville (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #1)