How to Dazzle a Duke (26 page)

We weren’t cordial, Lord Iveston. We merely kissed, among

other things.”

Iveston uncrossed his legs. “Among other things?”

The room was a bit noisier, the crowd growing. But that was

to be expected at a soiree and she was doing nothing at all scan

dalous, merely having a pleasant and entirely public conversa

tion with the Marquis of Iveston. It was the perfect setting in

which to torment him, though why she should want to was a bit

of a mystery to her. As he was so available and as it was so simple

a thing to do, she did it. And not a bit of her story was a tale,

either. No, it was a history. Her history. Let him choke on it if it

suited him. She almost hoped it did.

“I think the best thing is to start at the beginning, don’t you?

So much less confusion that way. And as you did ask for details

as to both my innocence and my obvious sophistication, I think

proceeding logically and thoroughly through every essential

moment is to be preferred. Now then,” she said, without waiting

for his approval of her plan, though given the look on his face,

she did wonder if he could form a coherent word at all, “I was

approaching my twentieth birthday and truly do believe that

184 CLAUDIA DAIN

something special, some remarkable moment should mark the

passage. Call it a rite, if you will.”

“I suppose a rite is precisely what it was,” he said. “Very

nearly clinical, I should think.”

She leaned forward in her chair and said with some anima

tion, “That’s it precisely. I did think exactly that. Of course,

once he began kissing me, I realized how foolish a thought

that was.”

Iveston, from looking almost benign, looked properly alarmed

again. She preferred him that way. Agitation suited him. His

agitation suited her. Why, she could not have said.

“I can’t think why you’re telling me this, Miss Prestwick,” he

said, his eyes glittering.

“How absurd. I’m telling you because you asked for details,

Lord Iveston. I am providing you with details. Actually, I fi nd it

enjoyable. I haven’t, for obvious reasons, been able to tell anyone

about it. I should like another person’s perspective, and as you

are a man, your perspective will be most interesting to me. I

wonder,” she said softly, staring at him, “if we shall see things in

the same light.”

“I hardly think so. As I am a man.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “You are a man.”

Something turned over, a wet flopping in her knee joints. Not

that wet, wobbly feeling again. Not now. She had him very much

where she wanted him. Though where she would want him in a

quarter hour was far from certain. But she did, indeed she was

nearly certain, want him somehow.

“He was very nicely tall, as you are,” she said, putting them

back on the track. They had fallen off it somehow, hadn’t they?

“His hair was brown, though, and his eyes a very unremarkable

shade of blue. Nothing like yours. Your eyes, Lord Iveston, are

quite . . .”
Remarkable? Arresting? Compelling?
No, no, that would

not do.

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185

“Blue?” he said softly, a smile working its way around his

mouth.

He had a very nice mouth, quite elegant. Everything about

Lord Iveston was elegant, from the shape of his head to his . . .

to his . . . her eyes traveled down the length of him, past his

shoulders to his lean waist and narrow hips, over his long legs to

his well-defi ned ankles.

“Yes. Blue. Very,” she said.

“Are you comparing this man to me?” he asked.

Her gaze jerked up from her contemplation of his legs.

“Naturally not. I’m comparing you to him,” she said.

“And how do I compare?”

“I would hate to make a precipitous judgment, Lord Iveston.

I’ve only kissed you once, haven’t I?” she said.

To judge by the look on his face, it was exactly the right thing

to say. He did not look the least bit pleased. Yet he did not excuse

himself. And neither did she. They could have parted at any

time. The room was filling. They were engaged in a perfectly

inappropriate conversation in a perfectly appropriate fashion. To

merge into the crowd and part would have been natural. And

horrible. She did not want this to end, and so she stayed. And so

did he. That meant . . . something.

“And he kissed you?” Iveston prompted.

“More than once,” she said. “If you will allow me to tell it,

you will discover all. I do find myself losing my way in this his

tory with all these interruptions and objections.”

“I would not have you lose your way, Miss Prestwick,” he

said quietly, looking deeply into her eyes, “unless you lose it

with me.”

“That sounds utterly scandalous, my lord.”

“Perfect, then,” he said, his very blue eyes twinkling with a

very seductive gleam.

She responded first by slipping her bare finger into her glove

186 CLAUDIA DAIN

and teasing it down her arm to her wrist. Iveston’s eyes watched

the action obsessively. And then she inched it back up. He

could not seem to look away. She got a great deal of satisfaction

from that.

“I first noticed the groom on a summer afternoon; I can’t

recall the month,” she began. “He looked very much like any

other groom, until he loosened his shirt. Upon seeing his throat

exposed, a hint of curling brown hair on his chest, I wondered.

When he saw me watching him and smiled, I ceased wondering.

He was the perfect specimen upon which to conduct my practice

of the amorous arts.”

Iveston was staring hard at her, his breath quite shallow, his

hands no longer relaxed upon his legs. Instead, he looked some

thing very nearly enraged, but not quite enraged. Something else

of a likely nature. Something hot-blooded.

“It wasn’t until the autumn that I finally was able to arrange

things between us.”

“You initiated it?”

“But naturally. It was my idea, though he was very willing to

accommodate me. Did you doubt it?”

“No.”

Iveston looked quite savage suddenly. She would not have

thought he had it in him. He was one surprise after another. She

didn’t enjoy surprises as a rule, but in this instance, it was most,

most satisfying.

“It was the hunt, you see,” she said, her voice lowered, her

gaze holding his. “We had guests; they were out upon the fi eld.

The dogs were all out, the stables nearly deserted. Having the

stables to ourselves, that decided it, of course. I approached him.

He seemed to understand what I wanted of him.”

“Yes,” Iveston said, his eyes nearly glowing in their intensity.

“He led me into the hay and then, quite delicately and with

exquisite gentleness, he kissed me.”

How to Daz zle a Duke

187

“Once.”

She shook her head. “All afternoon. The sunlight sparkled

through the hay, dusting his skin. I untied his shirt and kissed his

throat, the start of it all, really. His throat. There was something

about it, some primitive grandeur.”

Iveston lifted his chin and twisted his neck against the white

restriction of his cravat.

“All afternoon? An afternoon of kisses with a groom on

your father’s estate,” Iveston said. “Only kisses? Hours of only

kisses?”

“He kissed very well. Much can be accomplished by kissing.”

Iveston nodded once, his gaze flickering over her face. It was

very nearly like a kiss, a string of kisses played out upon the air,

not touching her skin, but touching her heart.

“Why did you do it?” he asked softly.

“It was my birthday. I wanted to mark it somehow. It was time

for me to be kissed by a man. And so I arranged it.”

Iveston leaned forward, and she resisted the urge to lean away

from him. The groom she had been able to control, thoroughly.

Lord Iveston was not a groom.

“You arrange for what you want, don’t you, Penelope? For

whatever you want? Even if what you want is a man?”

“Of course,” she answered. “I like to get what I want. How

am I supposed to get it if I don’t arrange for it?”

“And do you know what you want?”

She did. Or she had. This contest, which had started from

nothing and ended here, she knew not how or why, had changed

things. She did not like things to change, especially if those

things were her very carefully considered plans for herself.

“You, of all people, know that I do,” she answered, avoiding the

heart of the question. “I want to marry. Hardly surprising, is it?”

“No, not surprising,” he agreed. “It seems nearly universal.

All women want to marry.”

188 CLAUDIA DAIN

“And all men want to avoid it, which makes things very chal

lenging for a woman, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I think, Miss Prestwick, that very little challenges you.”

“Thank you, Lord Iveston.”

“But I do wonder what else you learned from that groom,

besides kissing. Hour upon hour of kissing does lead to—”

“It leads nowhere if the woman has other ideas. And I did. I

can assure you of that. Besides, he was my father’s groom. Was he

going to step past the boundary I laid down for him? He was not.

I chose my man very carefully, Lord Iveston. I do all things very

carefully.”

“I am quite certain of that, Miss Prestwick. I do wonder, how

ever, if your boundary would stay quite so firm with a man who

is perhaps better at kissing than a groom on a remote estate?”

“It’s hardly remote,” she snapped.

“
That
is the part of the question which offends you? How in

teresting,” he said with a quirk of his lips. It was not a smile, but

it bore the shadow of one. “Then you are amenable to my prop

osition? How cordial of you.”

“What proposition? I don’t know what you mean, Lord

Iveston, which is hardly unusual, I must say.”

“Why, I thought I made myself quite clear,” he said pleas

antly. His voice may have been pleasant, but his eyes were not

pleasant at all. His eyes looked quite predatory. “I propose that

you give yourself to me for an afternoon of kissing, just to see

where it leads. I should like to find myself at least as good as a

groom, no matter how remote the estate. Is he still there, at

Timperley, by the by? I confess to some curiosity about him, see

ing that I have made a wager to wed you and your brother made

one that you would marry Edenham. We were going to discuss

that, if you remember. I can’t think but that I’ve been made to

look a complete fool and I should like the chance to make it up

somehow. Besting a groom, a small matter, I hope, would serve

How to Daz zle a Duke

189

me well enough. You will agree, certainly. There is so much you

would gain from it.”

“Such as what?”

Truly, she was at a loss for words. She could barely think

clearly. He had gone barking mad. She wasn’t going to kiss him.

Not anymore, anyway. And she wasn’t going to feel at all guilty

for the Edenham wager. It had been Sophia’s idea and it had

made perfect sense to her, at the time. Of course now, facing

down Iveston, and who would have thought that he could look

fierce in any degree, the double wager idea did seem a bit fool

hardy and, worse, counterproductive.

“I beg your pardon?” he politely inquired, looking wildly

innocent, as if he had not just proposed the most hideously awful

thing.

For her to arrange an afternoon of kissing lessons was one

thing, but to have a marquis suggest that he be allowed to kiss

her was quite another. It was beyond obvious that he had missed

the point entirely. She had done it for her future husband, hope

fully Edenham. She hadn’t done it for herself. Though it had

been pleasant enough, in truth. She had quite surprised herself

at how much she had enjoyed it. Which was why she had ar

ranged for the groom to be sacked the very next day. It wouldn’t

do at all to have him underfoot after that, would it? Resisting

temptation and all that. She didn’t feel at all guilty about it, ei

ther. He had, at her suggestion and with a sack of coins to aid

him, taken the Holyhead Road by coach to Shrewsbury, where

he presumably had sought and gained employment. She was not

one to do things without having thought it all out, and she had

arranged it all very tidily, if she did say so herself. Certainly

she must say so as there was no one else to say it. No one else

knew of it, did they? Except Lord Iveston. But he wouldn’t tell,

would he?

Would he?

190 CLAUDIA DAIN

“Lord Iveston, I can’t quite comprehend what it is you are

suggesting. You are a gentleman of the first water. I am quite at

a loss to explain your behavior. Perhaps the best thing to do

would be to just forget this entire conversation, wouldn’t you

agree?”

“Miss Prestwick, I think you comprehend very well,” he re

sponded promptly, and without the courtesy hesitation would

have implied either. No, he was straight to the point. Quite be

yond his normal manner, she was sure. Everyone knew that