More Than a Duke (Heart of a Duke Book 2) (8 page)

“Sultry.”

She cocked her head.

“Husky
and
sultry. You forgot—”

“Will you two hush?” Katherine whispered.

Color flooded Anne’s cheeks and she gave a curt nod.

Lady One-of-the-Westmorelands at last concluded her piece, ushering in a brief, and much needed intermission. A loud buzz, like a hive he’d once knocked down as a boy, filled the room as the members of the
ton
present gossiped and chatted.

Harry tilted back on the legs of his chair and yawned.

“I imagine you may leave now,” Anne murmured.

He glanced at her. “Trying to be rid of me, hellion?” He didn’t know why the thought should chafe.

Her cheeks blazed red in a familiar blush. “No. No, not at all,” she said hurriedly.
Too hurriedly.
He narrowed his eyes. Which seemed to indicate Lady Anne did care to be rid of him after all.

Hmm, well this was not common for the Lord Stanhope, rogue and charmer of dowagers and debutantes alike. “I think I care to stay the remainder of the performance,” he lied. He didn’t give a fig about the current show. He did, however, give a fig about Anne’s sudden desire to send him on his way like a nursemaid giving her charge a pat on the head and smile, before hurrying them off to bed.

Anne glanced around, and then looked back to him. “I truly appreciate your being here, Harry,” she said, her words so soft they barely reached his ears. “But I’d not impose on you any further than I have. Your presence has been noted. I’m sure there is any number of…” she colored, “places, you’d care to go.”

What did a young, innocent lady like Anne know of the places he frequented? If she knew a hint of what occurred in those very
places
, she’d have swooned right there. Anne’s supposition would have been true two days ago. Two days ago he’d have been at one of the less reputable gaming hells or in some notorious widow’s arms. Now, for reasons he didn’t understand, nor cared to consider, he wanted to be here.

Just to help the young lady, he assured himself. Why did that feel like a lie?

“Lord Stanhope, how unfair of you. Occupying the attention of the most lovely lady present this evening.”

Harry stiffened. He stood and greeted the
pleasantly handsome and unfailingly polite
Duke of Crawford.

Chapter 5

The only silence amidst Lady Westmoreland’s entire hall happened to be with the five people seated in the very last row.

Mother broke the awkward pall. She rose in a flutter of silvery-grey skirts. “Your Grace,” she tittered behind her hand. “What an absolute pleasure.”

Anne winced and reluctantly came to her feet wishing she could dissolve into a puddle of embarrassment at Mother’s clear grasping.

Polite greetings were exchanged between Katherine’s husband, the Duke of Bainbridge and the young Duke of Crawford.

She waited for a hint of jubilance at the duke’s seeming interest, yet as she studied him conversing with her brother-in-law, she felt only a bored disinterest in what matters the two young dukes cared to discuss.

The heart of a duke.
This is what you want
.
You’ve dreamed of the title of duchess and with it the security and stability represented in that lofty ascension of rank.

With pleasantries aside, the Duke of Crawford turned the full force of his ducal regard on Anne. She shifted at his intent scrutiny, while fingering the ribbon woven through her hair. The duke’s gaze drifted lower and her cheeks burned.

She released the satin striped fabric. “Your Grace,” she murmured and sank into a deep, respectful curtsy.

The duke claimed her hand. “Lady Anne,” he said quietly. His lips hovered above the inner portion of her wrist and he raised it to his mouth.

Disappointment surged through her at her body’s total lack of awareness of that slight caress. He released her hand and she fisted the fabric of her skirts. From the corner of her eye she detected Harry’s hot, furious stare. What did he have to be angry with? He was the cad who’d been eying her sister in the midst of the recital, which
only
mattered because he was supposed to be feigning interest in Anne.

The Duke of Crawford looked between them.

Liar
.

He settled his autocratic gaze on Harry. “Not your usual entertainments for the evening, Stanhope, eh? I thought you made it a rule to avoid all respectable events.” He chuckled at his own charge.

Annoyance churned inside her. She knew the man was a duke and surely had been reared to believe he could say anything without fear of rebuke, but really, his words were borderline crass.

Harry’s hard muscles went taut, straining the fabric of his expertly tailored black coat. But then his firm lips turned up in a half-grin, an insolent smile for the other man, proof that she’d merely imagined his reaction to the duke’s words. “Some rules are meant to be broken. And,” he looked to Anne. “Some people are worth breaking rules for.”

Her breath caught. And she knew his words, the look in his eye was merely part of his efforts to help her secure the duke’s hand, yet, in that moment everything, everyone melted away so that just they two remained.

“Indeed,” the duke murmured. He shifted his attention to Anne, promptly dismissing the earl. “My lady, may I request the pleasure of calling on you?”

Anne looked around, uncertain why her sister, mother, and Harry were staring at her. Then it occurred to her. “You want to call on me?” Embarrassment twisted in her belly. “I…that is—”

“What my daughter means to say, Your Grace,” Mother interjected with a pointed glance for Anne. “Is that she would very much welcome your visit. Isn’t that right, Anne?”

Anne managed a jerky nod. “Er, yes.” This is exactly what she wanted. “I would welcome a visit, Your Grace,” she finished lamely. Perhaps Harry would need to instruct her on the art of communicating with an eligible lord on the marriage mart, as well.

The duke appeared amused by her confounded response. His lips twitched and he captured her hand. “Until tomorrow then, my lady,” he murmured. He placed a final kiss on the top of her hand.

Couldn’t there be shivers of awareness, like she felt at Harry’s touch?

Couldn’t there be the warm fluttery sensations in her belly she’d read about in her Gothic novels?

Couldn’t there be—
something
?

“I look forward to your visit,” she said softly. All the while, Harry’s hard gaze fairly burned a hole into her person.

The Lady Westmorelands returned to the front of the hall, signifying the beginning of the next set of performances was to begin.

The duke released her hand after a longer than appropriate amount of time. “Stanhope,” he said, his tone harder than before. He bowed to the other gentleman and then bid the remainder of her party a good evening.

“Well,” Katherine said, a smile on her lips.

Anne sank back into her seat. “Well, what?”

Her sister sat and whispered, “The heart of a duke. It appears you are on your way to the title of duchess, sister.” She made a face. “Oh, dear. That sounded rather mercurial. I’d not have you wed a duke unless your heart is engaged. Nor any gentleman for that matter or—”

“Hush, Kat. This isn’t the place.” Her sister appeared ready to launch a full-defense of her earlier words. Then something only twins shared, passed between them and Katherine gave a solemn nod.

As she settled into her uncomfortable chair, she thought she should feel a giddy sense of victory, yet all she felt at the duke’s interest was oddly hollow. He did not know her. He’d not even spoken but a murmured greeting at all the functions they’d attended together. Until the ribbon.

Until Harry and his blasted advice.

Advice she’d sought.

And welcomed…

But… She didn’t want the duke to want her for her…her…
endowments
alone. “Silly,” she mumbled.

“What was that, sweet?”

“Don’t call me sweet, Harry,” she said, not taking her gaze from the front of the hall where Lady Leah Westmoreland reclaimed the pianoforte bench.

“What would you have me call you? Duchess?” Thick sarcasm underscored his question.

She flinched at his deliberately placed barb. “Must you be so odious?” She blinked back foolish tears of hurt and glared at him.

Instead of properly chastised, Harry quirked another golden eyebrow. He leaned close so his brandy-scented breath fanned her lips. “Isn’t that what you want, sweet?” he said, almost tauntingly. “Title of duchess and by Crawford’s interest in that,” he jerked his chin at her satin ribbon, “golden ringlet—”

“Which is not silly,” she cut in.

“Which
is
silly. Well, then I’d wager all my coffers in the book at White’s that you’ll be carrying the duke’s heir by next Christmastide season,” he said, a biting edge to his prediction.

She gasped. Her fingers twitched with the urge to slap his smug, rude, arrogant, condescending face. Katherine looked over with a question in her eyes. Anne shook her head and her sister returned her attention to the performance.

A spark glinted in Harry’s hazel eyes.

With his roguish cynicism, Harry judged her interest in the duke and sought to taunt her for those efforts. She’d not allow him that satisfaction.

Anne relaxed her fingers. “Then your lessons on seduction should come in quite handy, my lord.” She sat back in her seat and promptly dismissed him.

~*~

At Anne’s rebuttal, fury thrummed through Harry’s veins, hot and volatile. By God, that he should school her in the ways in which to use her body and charms to catch another gentleman while he himself remained ignorant as to the color of the nipples atop those generous swells, or the pleasure of her touch, or the sound of her damned laughter, infuriated him.

He steeled his jaw. This sudden, inexplicable interest in Lady Anne was merely about sex. He’d never before noticed her lush form and now, well hell, now he did, and he wanted to know all of her. In the physical sense. Margaret’s deception had shown him there was nothing else to know of a woman outside of the pleasure to be had in her arms.

He might mock Anne’s efforts to land Crawford, but the reality was Harry had well-learned the way of their calculated world eight years ago. He’d given in to the emotion of love, given his fool’s heart to the sweetly innocent, beautiful Miss Margaret Dunn. He’d risked his very life, his reputation in a duel against Lord Rutland for the honor of the lady’s love. In the end, she’d chosen neither of them. She’d chosen wealth and status. And Harry? He had pledged to neither love nor feel again.

He didn’t care about the damned Lady Anne, tempting vixen with her sharp tongue. He pulled out his watchfob and consulted the time. He should leave. Hell, he should have left when Anne herself had made the suggestion a short while ago. A steady staccato pierced his thoughts. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

The tip of Anne’s slippers peeked out the front of the gown and beat a rhythm in time to the current song selection. All the hardened anger he’d carried since Crawford had come over and interrupted whatever this was between him and Anne, lifted. An odd shift occurred. There was something so whimsical, so endearing in Anne’s innocent gesture.

The lady enjoyed music.

Other than the fact that silver-flecks danced in her eyes when she was annoyed and that a little muscle ticked at the left corner of her lip when she frowned, Harry knew next to nothing about Lady Anne Adamson. But with her talk of contraltos and lyric sopranos, and her fixed interest in even the horrid performance of the Westmoreland girls, he found she cared about music.

He who made it a habit of not learning anything about a lady’s interests, outside of the bedchambers, that is, knew this of her. When one knew a lady’s likes and dislikes and what made her smile or laugh, and even frown, then one could no longer see merely a supple body to bed.

Christ. What was next? He’d begin sprouting sonnets about the sun-kissed golden hue of her silken ringlets?

He gave his head a hard shake and stood.

Anne looked up at him with a question in her wide-blue eyes.

He gave a curt bow and without a backward glance took his leave. The echo of his boot steps blended with the squawking squeal-like song of Lady Marissa Westmoreland. When at last he exited the palatial townhouse, he tugged at his cravat and sucked in a much-needed breath of air.

His driver hopped down from atop the black lacquer carriage and opened the door.

Harry strode over as fast as his bachelor legs could carry him and leapt inside. “To my clubs,” he said curtly.

The driver closed the door behind him and then the carriage shifted as he scrambled onto his perch.

Harry pulled back the black curtain and peered at the white stucco townhouse bathed in candlelight, unable to account for this desire to return to the too small, prim Klismos chair beside Lady Anne. The carriage sprung forward and he let the velvet fabric flutter back into place. He drummed his fingertips on the tops of his thighs, suddenly reminded of a different tapping. Specifically, two delicate slippered feet beating away a staccato rhythm upon the Italian marble floor.