The Wicked Duke (32 page)

“I am not merely one of the patrons. I am one of the
owners
.”

“I assumed you would not want that well-known. It so smells of trade, when you get down to it. To have made an exception and brought attention to you in that way among the staff—well, I thought you would prefer I not do that.”

He had to admit that made a certain amount of sense. Damnation, but she was a fast thinker.

“In the future, please do not worry about such extreme discretion, Miss Fairbourne. Of course, there will be no cause for it, now that the final auction has been held, albeit without my permission.”

She blinked twice at the word
permission
, but she did not otherwise react.

“It went well, it appeared,” he said, stopping his pacing and trying to sound less severe. “It should provide enough for you to live until the business is sold, I expect. The staff did a commendable job with the catalogue. I found no obvious errors in attribution. Mr. Nightingale's contribution, I assume?”

Her expression perceptibly altered. Softened. Saddened. Her voice did as well. “Obediah's contribution, not so much Mr. Nightingale's. Obediah often helped my father with the catalogue and much, much more, and has an excellent eye. Although, to be honest, most of the catalogue had been completed before Papa's death. This
auction was just sitting here, almost all prepared and ready to go.”

She looked up at him directly. So directly that her gaze seemed to touch his mind. For a moment that lasted longer than time would count, his thoughts scattered under that gaze.

He found himself noticing things in detail that his perceptions had absorbed in only a fleeting way before. How the light from the window made her skin appear like matte porcelain, and how very flawless that skin actually was. How there were layers to the color of her eyes, so many that one felt as if eventually one could see right into her soul. How that black dress, so simple in design, managed with its high waist and broad ribbon under her breasts to suggest a form that was womanly in the best ways and—

“I thought it made no sense to hand all those consignments back when it was only a matter of opening the doors and letting Obediah do what he does so well,” she said.

“Of course,” he heard himself muttering. “That is understandable.”

“I am so relieved to hear you say that, Lord Southwaite. You appeared angry when you walked in here. I was afraid that you were most displeased by something.”

“No, not so much. Not angry at all. Not really.”

“Oh, that is so good to know.”

He exerted some effort to piece together his normal self. As his thoughts collected, he took his leave of Miss Fairbourne. “I am going out of town,” he said. “When I
return, I will call on you to discuss . . . that other matter.” He had some difficulty remembering still just what that other matter had been.

“Certainly, sir.”

He returned to the exhibition hall. Ambury fell into step beside him.

“Are we finally ready to ride?” Ambury asked. “We will be at least an hour late meeting up with Kendale, and you know how he can be.”

“Yes, let us go.” Hell, yes.

“Did you come to a right understanding with the lady, the way you said you must?”

Darius vaguely remembered blustering something of the sort before he barged into that storage chamber. His mind, all his own again, sorted through what had actually happened after that.

“Of course I did, Ambury. If one is firm, right understandings can always be achieved, especially with women.”

While he mounted his horse, however, Darius admitted the truth of it to himself. Somehow Miss Fairbourne had turned the tables on him in there. He had roared in like a lion and bleated out like a lamb.

He hated to say it, but that woman may have made a fool of him today.

Madeline Hunter
is a two-time RITA award winner and seven-time finalist, and has twenty-seven nationally bestselling historical romances in print, including
Tall, Dark, & Wicked
,
His Wicked Reputation
,
The Accidental Duchess
,
The Counterfeit Mistress
, and
The Conquest of Lady Cassandra
. A member of RWA's Honor Roll, her books have been on the bestseller lists of the
New York Times
,
USA Today
, and
Publishers Weekly
. More than six million copies of her books are in print and her novels have been translated into thirteen languages. She has a PhD in art history, which she teaches at the university level. You can contact Madeline through her website or Facebook page: MadelineHunter.com and facebook.com/MadelineHunter.

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