This Duke is Mine (8 page)

“I am not—” She broke off the sentence. “I shall repeat my request. Would you please fetch the
butler
?” She sounded as though she was talking through clenched teeth.

Quin had the feeling he was having a hallucinatory experience. He’d heard of this sort of thing, when men lost their minds and suddenly kissed the vicar’s wife.

He always thought imprudence of that nature indicated a profound lack of intelligence, but as he wasn’t inclined to question his own aptitude, he’d have to change his mind. In fact, it was a good thing the mermaid wasn’t the vicar’s wife, because he would likely kiss her and never mind her sanctified husband.

“You look very chilled,” he said, observing that her teeth were chattering. No wonder she sounded as if her jaw was clenched. What she needed was a warm fire. He bent down and scooped her into his arms without a second thought.

She was soaked, and water instantly drenched his breeches . . . which just made him realize all the more sharply that his body agreed with his mind. If the mere sight of her had aroused him, now that she was in his arms the situation was made worse. She was gorgeous, a soft, fragrant, wet—

“Put me down!”

As if in punctuation, a sharp bark sounded around his ankle. He looked down and saw a very wet, very small dog with an extraordinarily long nose. The dog barked again, in a clear command.

“Does that animal belong to you?” Quin asked.

“Yes,” his visitor said. “Lucy is my dog. Will you please put me down!”

“Come,” Quin said to the dog, and “In a moment,” to the lady, who was beginning to struggle. He moved toward the drawing room only to realize that the fire in that room would be banked for the night. But there was a coal stove in Cleese’s silver room that was easily stoked.

“Where are you going?” she said indignantly as he changed direction. “The coachman is out there in the rain and—”

“Cleese will arrive in a moment,” he told her. Her lips were fascinating: full and plump, and a deeper rose color than any woman’s lips he’d seen before. “He’ll take care of your coachman.”

“Who is Cleese?” she demanded. “And—wait! Are you taking me into the servants’ quarters?”

“Don’t tell me that you’re one of those ladies who has never been through a baize door,” he said, turning so that he could back the two of them through the door, and then keeping it open for the dog. “Your dog looks rather like a rat thrown up on the banks of the Thames,” he added. The silver room was just to the left, so he kicked the door open.

“Lucy does not look like a rat! And what does that have to do with anything? I am Miss Olivia Lytton and I
demand
. . .”

Olivia. He liked it. He looked at her eyelashes and her plump lips. Her eyes were a beautiful color, a kind of pale sea green—or was it the color of new leaves in the spring?

“Put me down, you rudesby!” she was saying fiercely, and not for the first time.

He didn’t want to do that. In fact, he felt very strongly about the question, which was unlike him. Generally, he didn’t care strongly about anything other than polynomial equations. Or light. But Miss Lytton was rounded . . . beautifully rounded in all the right places. She felt right in his arms. He particularly liked the soft curve of her bottom. Not to mention the fact that she smelled wonderful, like rain and, faintly, of some sort of flower.

“I shall inform your master!” She had a definitely threatening tone. Rather like a queen.

He placed her gently on Cleese’s sofa, then threw a shovelful of coal into the stove and gave it a stir. Yellow flames surged up just as he swung the stove door shut, and they threw out enough light so that he got a good look at her face. She was furious, eyes narrowed, arms wound around her chest as if he were a ravisher.

He would be happy to oblige.

Her dog had hopped onto the sofa as well, and was perched next to Miss Lytton. The beast was only slightly larger than a Bible, but she had the fierce eyes of an attack dog.

In fact, Lucy and Miss Lytton had a certain resemblance, though not in the nose.

A person would always know what Miss Lytton was thinking, he realized, lighting the Argand lamp on Cleese’s sideboard. At the moment, her eyes were full of rage.

“If you don’t fetch your master this very moment, I shall have you let go. Dismissed, and without a reference!”

Her dog barked a sharp underline to that threat.

He felt a strange sensation bubbling up in his chest. It took a second before he realized it was laughter. “You’re going to have me dismissed?”

She leaped to her feet. “Stop looking at me like that! If you had a brain that was bigger than a mouse’s willy, you’d realize that I have been telling you something important!”

At that he surprised himself with a laugh. His mother was not going to appreciate Miss Lytton’s colorful use of the English language. “I cannot lose my position. I was born to it.”

“Even a family retainer should not be tolerated if he oversteps the bounds of propriety.”

That sounded faintly familiar, probably because it was the sort of thing his mother said. It created an odd contrast to
mouse’s willy
. He’d never met a lady who’d admitted to knowing terms of that sort.

Following his gut instinct, Quin took a step toward her, just enough so that he caught her enticing scent again. He expected her to scream at him, but she didn’t.

“I am not a footman,” he stated.

Their eyes met. The world of logic and reason—the world that Quin inhabited on a regular basis—peeled away. “And you are very beautiful,” he added.

She blinked. And then, just as if she were the vicar’s wife and he was a man who’d suddenly lost his mind, he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers.

They were soft and berry colored, like a raspberry tart. It was a gentle kiss, at least until he pulled her against his chest. His body turned to flame and the kiss changed, turned dark and deep. He gave a silent groan and put a hand to her cheek, tilting her head so that he could kiss her again . . .

Her cheek was very cold to the touch. He straightened, reluctantly. “I had better fetch you a blanket.”

That snapped the invisible thread that had kept them staring at each other. Just like that, all the outrage flooded back into her eyes. Quin felt a deep sense of rightness. He
could
read her, just like a book.

“I suppose you are the duke,” she said stiffly. “I realize now that you sound like one, though I might add that you are not behaving like one.”

“I am not the one who was throwing around references to willies, whether belonging to small rodents or other mammals. The last time I heard that word I was five years old.”

He was fascinated to see that although a trace of pink was stealing into her cheeks, she tilted her little nose firmly in the air. “Lady Cecily is out there in the rain, as is my sister. Why aren’t you sending people to rescue them, not to mention that poor coachman? It’s cold and wet.”

She had the bearing and tone of a duchess, he thought, and then: Lady Cecily?

“Lady Cecily
Bumtrinket
? My aunt? Lady Cecily is out in the rain?” As she started an explanation that had to do with her carriage and the missing coachman, Quin finally snapped out of his trance. He yanked the cords connected to Cleese’s rooms, the kitchens, and the fourth floor. For good measure, he pulled open the door and bellowed, “Cleese!”

Then he turned back to Miss Lytton. She was shivering, her arms still wrapped around that magnificent chest of hers. He felt for his coat and realized that he wasn’t wearing it, nor even a waistcoat. No wonder she’d decided he was a footman. A gentleman is never seen in disarray.

Livery hung on the wall, and he grabbed a coat.

Her eyes were dark and suspicious, but she took the garment. She wasn’t fast enough, so he threw the coat around her shoulders himself and pulled it tight, even though he didn’t like seeing her luscious bosom disappear under a swaddling of black cloth.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“I’ve been trying to tell you. We hit a pillar at the end of the drive,” she said. “I think Lady Cecily is fine, but she’s injured her ankle and her ear hurts where she struck the edge of the window. My sister and I were unhurt, luckily, but I couldn’t find the coachman anywhere. The horses seem to be sound, though it was so dark I couldn’t be completely certain.”

Quin was quite aware that what he most wanted to do was scoop up his watery visitor and then sit down, with her on his lap. At the very least, he didn’t want to leave her.

The very thought was a shock. He had felt like this once before.

The first time he met Evangeline, he had felt intoxicated. He had seen her dancing, as delicate and joyful as if she were floating on the wind, and he had succumbed on the spot. Even now, after the years of disappointment and grief, he could remember the sense of wonder he’d felt.

But he could also feel his scalp prickling. He was at risk of succumbing again. As if he were a mad hare in the springtime . . . just what his mother warned that he shouldn’t do.

What’s more, given Miss Lytton’s creative vocabulary—not to mention the fact that she allowed a man she believed to be a footman to kiss her—she was as unlikely a candidate for the role of Duchess of Sconce as Evangeline had been.

If there was one thing he knew in his bones, it was that he never, ever, wanted to fall under the spell of a woman again. Nor did he wish to humiliate himself by marrying a second wife who had no respect for her marital vows. He took a deep breath and willed the world to reassemble itself.

He was the Duke of Sconce. This young lady had been summoned to his house as a prospective duchess, and she was clearly, definitively, ineligible. That was the end of that.

True, his impulsive kiss suggested to him that he should make a greater effort to find a mistress. It wasn’t like him to accost strange women who appeared on his doorstep, no matter how revealing their attire might be.

He pulled himself upright. “Miss Lytton, I trust you will forgive me if I leave you for the moment.”

“Certainly,” she murmured. She was looking at him with a rather amused curiosity.

He bowed.

“Your Grace,” she said, still clutching the coat to her neck. It had to be his imagination that there was a faintly mocking tone underlying her salutation.

He headed out the door without another word.

Seven

Ineligible! And More So Every Moment

O
livia took a deep breath as the duke disappeared into the corridor. She felt as if her mind was darting in fifteen different directions, all at the same time. Who could have thought that the mere absence of a coat would emphasize a man’s shoulders so much? At first she’d thought the duke’s eyes were black, but then she’d realized they were gray-green, fringed with surprisingly long lashes.

And he’d
kissed
her. She actually touched her lips, thinking of it now. Her first kiss. She sat down and Lucy leaped onto her lap. A bundle of wet fur could not make her gown any wetter than it already was, and Rupert’s little dog was shivering terribly, so she bundled her inside the coat and pulled it closed.

She had imagined that Rupert would kiss her when they consummated their betrothal. While she hadn’t been looking forward to his salutation, her imagination had been proved wrong: he hadn’t made the slightest attempt. Apparently his father had not included kissing in his instructions for marital congress.

But this duke had kissed her as if it were his right. As if
he
were her fiancé. And . . . he’d said she was beautiful. Olivia pulled the coat a little tighter and thought about that. She’d been complimented before, of course. She was to be a duchess someday, and on occasion men had flattered her in a halfhearted sort of way.

Still, the Duke of Sconce had had no idea of her future rank when he’d told her she was beautiful. The thought was like a bright little coal in her heart, a happy spark.

Her mind skipped to a different subject. She’d never seen hair like his. Black as midnight, except for one white streak in the front, and falling loose around his shoulders. Of course, he’d presumably been called from his bed. Undoubtedly he wore his hair tied back during the day.

Lucy made a little snorting sound, so Olivia glanced down, only to see a gleam of pink leg showing through her skirts. Perhaps that was why the duke had stared so intently. She couldn’t bear wearing corsets while riding long distances in a carriage—but generally, there was no one to see her but her sister.

Just as she peeked into the coat to see whether, in fact, her breasts were as visible as her knees, a middle-aged man trotted through the door, pulling his livery over his right shoulder. “What is it?” he panted, seeing her. “Lord, and aren’t you half-drowned, then? Has the bridge to the village gone under water again?”

“The village?” she echoed.

The moment he heard her voice, his entire demeanor changed. He straightened, and something indefinable shifted every feature in his face. He transformed from a rather annoyed, sleepy man into the butler of a great house.

“Please accept my humble apologies,” he said, bowing. “I am Cleese, the butler. On seeing you in my silver room, I assumed . . . has there been some accident?”

A footman poked his head in at the door, with another at his heels, their livery pulled on in a haphazard fashion. “Our carriage drove into the gatepost,” she explained. “Lady Cecily Bumtrinket’s ankle is injured. She is not badly wounded, but the coachman must have been thrown clear. I couldn’t find him at all. I called out, but when no one answered, my sister and I decided that I should come to the house, while she stayed with Lady Cecily.”

She suddenly felt exhausted. “I am Miss Olivia Lytton,” she continued, “and while I would not wish to disturb Her Grace, we are expected.”

“Your rooms await you,” the butler said reassuringly. “If you would accompany me, Miss Lytton, I’ll have you upstairs, dry and comfortable, in a moment. I gather your maid is not travelling with you?”

“There were two carriages with our maids and trunks, but apparently they weren’t following closely.”