The Duke and I (8 page)

 Simon was not amused.

 "I'm sorry." This was said between laughs. "Oh, I'm sorry, but really, you shouldn't be so melodramatic. It doesn't suit you."

 Simon paused, rather irritated that this slip of a girl had shown such disrespect for his authority. There were advantages to being considered a dangerous man, and being able to cow young maidens was supposed to be one of them.

 "Well, actually, it does suit you, I ought to admit," she added, still grinning at his expense. "You looked quite dangerous. And very handsome, of course." When he made no comment, her face took on a bemused expression, and she asked, "That was your intention, was it not?"

 He still said nothing, so she said, "Of course it was. And I would be remiss if I did not tell you that you would have been successful with any other woman besides me."

 A comment he couldn't resist. "And why is that?"

 "Four brothers." She shrugged as if that should explain everything. "I'm quite immune to your games."

 "Oh?"

 She gave his arm a reassuring pat. "But yours was a most admirable attempt. And truly, I'm quite flattered you thought me worthy of such a magnificent display of dukish rakishness." She grinned, her smile wide and unfeigned. "Or do you prefer rakish dukishness?"

 Simon stroked his jaw thoughtfully, trying to regain his mood of menacing predator. "You're a most annoying little chit, did you know that, Miss Bridgerton?"

 She gave him her sickliest of smiles. "Most people find me the soul of kindness and amiability."

 "Most people," Simon said bluntly, "are fools."

 Daphne cocked her head to the side, obviously pondering his words. Then she looked over at Nigel and sighed. "I'm afraid I have to agree with you, much as it pains me."

 Simon bit back a smile. "It pains you to agree with me, or that most people are fools?"

 "Both." She grinned again—a wide, enchanting smile that did odd things to his brain. "But mostly the former."

 Simon let out a loud laugh, then was startled to realize how foreign the sound was to his ears. He was a man who frequently smiled, occasionally chuckled, but it had been a very long time since he'd felt such a spontaneous burst of joy. "My dear Miss Bridgerton," he said, wiping his eyes, "if you are the soul of kindness and amiability, then the world must be a very dangerous place."

 "Oh, for certain," she replied. "At least to hear my mother tell it."

 "I can't imagine why I do not recall your mother," Simon murmured, "because she certainly sounds a memorable character."

 Daphne raised a brow. "You don't remember her?"

 He shook his head.

 "Then you don't know her."

 "Does she look like you?"

 'That's an odd question."

 "Not so very odd," Simon replied, thinking that Daphne was exactly right. It
was
an odd question, and he had no idea why he'd voiced it. But since he had, and since she had questioned it, he added, "After all, I'm told that all of you Bridgertons look alike."

 A tiny, and to Simon mysterious, frown touched her face. "We do. Look alike, that is. Except for my mother. She's rather fair, actually, with blue eyes. We all get our dark hair from our father. I'm told I have her smile, though."

 An awkward pause fell across the conversation. Daphne was shifting from foot to foot, not at all certain what to say to the duke, when Nigel exhibited stellar timing for the first time in his life, and sat up. "Daphne?" he said, blinking as if he couldn't see straight. "Daphne, is that you?"

 "Good God, Miss Bridgerton," the duke swore, "how hard did you hit him?"

 "Hard enough to knock him down, but no worse than that, I swear!" Her brow furrowed. "Maybe he is drunk."

 "Oh, Daphne," Nigel moaned.

 The duke crouched next to him, then reeled back, coughing.

 "Is he drunk?" Daphne asked.

 The duke staggered back. "He must have drunk an entire bottle of whiskey just to get up the nerve to propose."

 "Who would have thought I could be so terrifying?" Daphne murmured, thinking of all the men whothought of her as a jolly good friend and nothing more. "How wonderful."

 Simon stared at her as if she were insane, then muttered, "I'm not even going to question that statement." Daphne ignored his comment. "Should we set our plan into action?"

 Simon planted his hands on his hips and reassessed the scene. Nigel was trying to rise to his feet, but it didn't appear, to Simon's eye at least, that he was going to find success anytime in the near future. Still, he was probably lucid enough to

make trouble, and certainly lucid enough to make noise, which he was doing. Quite well, actually.

 "Oh, Daphne. I luff you so much, Daffery." Nigel managed to raise himself to his knees, weaving around as he shuffled

toward Daphne, looking rather like a sotted churchgoer attempting to pray. "Please marry me, Duffne. You have to."

 "Buck up, man," Simon grunted, grabbing him by the collar. 'This is getting embarrassing." He turned to Daphne. "I'm going to have to take him outside now. We can't leave him here in the hall. He's liable to start moaning like a sickened cow—"

 "I rather thought he'd already started," Daphne said. Simon felt one corner of his mouth twist up in a reluctant smile. Daphne Bridgerton might be a marriageable female and thus a disaster waiting to happen for any man in his position, but she was certainly a good sport.

 She was, it occurred to him in a rather bizarre moment of clarity, the sort of person he'd probably call friend if she were a man.

 But since it was abundantly obvious—to both his eyes and his body—that she wasn't a man, Simon decided it was in both of their best interests to wrap up this "situation" as soon as possible. Aside from the fact that Daphne's reputation would suffer a deadly blow if they were discovered, Simon wasn't positive that he could trust himself to keep his hands off of her for very much longer.

 It was an unsettling feeling, that. Especially for a man who so valued his self-control. Control was everything. Without it he'd never have stood up to his father or taken a first at university. Without it, he'd—

 Without it, he thought grimly, he'd still be speaking like an idiot.

 "I'll haul him out of here," he said suddenly. "You go back to the ballroom."

 Daphne frowned, glancing over her shoulder to the hall that led back to the party. "Are you certain? I thought you wanted me to go to the library."

 "That was when we were going to leave him here while I summoned the carriage. But we can't do that if he's awake."

 She nodded her agreement, and asked, "Are you sure you can do it? Nigel's a rather large man."

 "I'm larger."

 She cocked her head. The duke, although lean, was powerfully built, with broad shoulders and firmly muscled thighs.

(Daphne knew she wasn't supposed to notice such things, but, really, was it
her
fault that current fashions dictated such

snug breeches?) More to the point, he had a certain air about him, something almost predatory, something that hinted of

tightly controlled strength and power.

 Daphne decided she had no doubt that he'd be able to move Nigel.

 "Very well," she said, giving him a nod. "And thank you. It's very kind of you to help me in this way."

 "I'm rarely kind," he muttered.

 "Really?" she murmured, allowing herself a tiny smile. "How odd. I couldn't possibly think of anything else to call it. But then again, I've learned that men—"

 "You do seem to be the expert on men," he said, somewhat acerbically, then grunted as he hauled Nigel to his feet.

 Nigel promptly reached for Daphne, practically sobbing her name. Simon had to brace his legs to keep him from lunging at her.Daphne darted back a step. "Yes, well, I do have four brothers. A better education I cannot imagine."

 There was no way of knowing if the duke had intended to answer her, because Nigel chose that moment to regain his

energy (although clearly not his equilibrium) and yanked himself free of Simon's grip. He threw himself onto Daphne,

making incoherent, drunken noises all the way.

 If Daphne hadn't had her back to the wall, she would have been knocked to the ground. As it was, she hit the wall with a bone-jarring thud, knocking all the breath from her body.

 "Oh, for the love of Christ," the duke swore, sounding supremely disgusted. He hauled Nigel off Daphne, then turned to her, and asked, "Can I hit him?"

 "Oh, please do go ahead," she replied, still gasping for breath. She'd tried to be kind and generous toward her erstwhile suitor, but really, enough was enough.

 The duke muttered something that sounded like "good" and landed a stunningly powerful blow on Nigel's chin.

 Nigel went down like a stone.

 Daphne regarded the man on the floor with equanimity. "I don't think he's going to wake up this time."

 Simon shook out his fist. "No."

 Daphne blinked and looked back up. "Thank you."

 "It was my pleasure," he said, scowling at Nigel.

 "What shall we do now?" Her gaze joined his on the man on the floor—now well and truly unconscious.

 "Back to the original plan," he said crisply. "We leave him here while you wait in the library. I'd rather not have to drag him out until I've a carriage waiting."

 Daphne gave him a sensible nod. "Do you need help righting him, or should I proceed directly to the library?'

 The duke was silent for a moment. His head tilted this way and that as he analyzed Nigel's position on the floor. "Actually, a bit of help would be greatly appreciated."

 "Really?' Daphne asked, surprised. "I was sure you'd say no."

 That earned her a faintly amused and superior look from the duke. "And is that why you asked?"

 "No, of course not," Daphne replied, slightly offended. "I'm not so stupid as to offer help if I have no intention of giving it. I was merely going to point out that men, in my experiences—"

 "You have too much experience," the duke muttered under his breath.

 "What?!"

 "I beg your pardon," he amended. "You
think
you have too much experience."

 Daphne glared at him, her dark eyes smoldering nearly to black. "That is not true, and who are you to say, anyway?"

 "No, that's not quite right, either," the duke mused, completely ignoring her furious question. "I think it's more that I think you think you have too much experience."

 "Why you—You—" As retorts went, it wasn't especially effective, but it wais all Daphne could manage to get out. Her

powers of speech tended to fail her when she was angry.And she was really angry.

 Simon shrugged, apparently unmoved by her furious visage. "My dear Miss Bridgerton—"

 "If you call me that one more time, I swear I shall scream."

 "No, you won't," he said with a rakish smile. "That would draw a crowd, and if you recall, you don't want to be seen with me."

 "I am considering risking it," Daphne said, each word squeezed out between her teeth.

 Simon crossed his arms and leaned lazily against the wall. "Really?" he drawled. "This I should like to see."

 Daphne nearly threw up her arms in frustration. "Forget it. Forget me. Forget this entire evening. I'm leaving."She turned around, but before she could even takea step, her movement was arrested by the sound of the duke's voice.

 "I thought you were going to help me." Drat. He had her there. She turned slowly around.

 "Why, yes," she said, her voice patently false, "I'd be delighted."

 "You know," he said innocently, "if you didn't want to help you shouldn't have—"

 "I said I'd help," she snapped.

 Simon smiled to himself. She was such an easy mark. "Here is what we are going to do," he said. "I'm going to haul him to his feet and drape his right arm over my shoulders. You will go around to the other side and shore him up."

 Daphne did as she was bid, grumbling to herself about his autocratic attitude. But she didn't voice a single complaint. After all, for all his annoying ways, the Duke of Hastings was helping her out of a possibly embarrassing scandal.

 Of course if anyone found her in this position, she'd find herself in even worse straits.

 "I have a better idea," she said suddenly. "Let's just leave him here."

 The duke's head swung around to face her, and he looked as if he'd dearly like to toss her through a window—preferably one that was still closed. "I thought," he said, clearly working hard to keep his voice even, "that you didn't want to leave him on the floor."

 "That was before he knocked me into the wall."

 "Could you possibly have notified me of your change of heart before I expended my energy to lift him?"

 Daphne blushed. She hated that men thought that women were fickle, changeable creatures, and she hated even more that she was living up to that image right then.

 "Very well," he said simply, and dropped Nigel.