Lovelace’s Web
By Donna and Abs

Hope MacDonald didn’t even notice her younger sister leaving to go home. She was already having a grand time, and the party had just barely started! She was wearing her best dress, and had her hair done up prettily. The budding little socialite loved parties with all the flirting and the dancing, and several men were already asking her to dance, and the music hadn’t even started!

Once of the newest arrivals in town, a pompously dressed man named Lovelace was the most insistent. He managed to finagle an introduction, and then made it clear that he wanted to spend a lot of the evening with her. Hope beamed. This was the type of man she had hoped to catch at that London court!

He looked almost exactly like the count, Vronsky, who had bedazzled her on his previous visit to Edan. 
Surely Lovelace was the same sort of man. Clearly he was well bred, even if he came from an earlier time than she. And in a way, that made it more romantic!

She smiled at him, telling him that she would most certainly save him a dance or two. Hope was a popular
girl with the men, with her flirtatious ways, and her dance card was filling up rapidly. Lovelace bowed,
smiling back. How he was going to enjoy trapping this naive woman child into his web! 

He wanted very much to sample all the women, and the purer and more virtuous the better. Too bad this
one's innocent little sister had had to go home!  Still, that was what had gotten him into trouble the
last time; perhaps this round he would go for one less staunchly devoted to her own virginity.

Whenever he could, he danced with her, flirting and treating her gallantly. His actions attracted the
attention of more than one man. Rob Roy noticed, and was starting to regret not gutting the man on the spot the first time he had seen him. Another one was watching as well, deep concern in his eyes. Father
Ralph, even though he knew she wasn't his beloved Meggie, did not like this one bit! 

So far, he hadn't placed a finger wrong. Lovelace was clever to the extreme, and he was of a noble family, so he knew how to play the game. Rob Roy hated him on sight because he was a foppish dandy, and Ralph was jealous, but anyone else watching his interactions with the young girl could not put blame on him for any wrong doing.

As he danced with Hope, he knew that it wouldn't take much to lure this one into his clutches. And then what a good time he would have!