Mad About the Duke (12 page)

“Oh, yes, the reports,” James said. “Actually, I have a meeting with a close associate of the Duke of Avenbury later today.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.” He paused, then glanced at her. “Unusual choice, Avenbury, don't you think?”

“Yes, I wondered about him. His entry in the
Bachelor Chronicles
was smudged, and I could only make out the barest bits of information, though I could make out the words ‘most likely.'”

It took James a moment to sort out what she'd said, not that he understood much of it. “The Bachelor what?”

“
The Bachelor Chronicles,
” she corrected, waving off a merchant holding up two gowns for her to examine. “This is so embarrassing, but I suppose it does no good to conceal it from you, of all people. The Duchess of Hollindrake has kept a journal of sorts.”

James felt his head begin to ache. The Duchess of Hollindrake? Now there was trouble in muslin if ever there was. “A
Bachelor Journal
?”

“
Chronicles,
” Elinor corrected. “She's been working on it for years.”

Years
? James cringed inwardly. That meant the former Felicity Langley had probably been keeping
it when she'd been one of Miranda's students. The first time he'd met her, at Jack and Miranda's wedding…

Your Grace, I have some questions about the dukes of your acquaintance…

That impish, busybody female! Now he knew what she'd been up to!

“She's compiled a veritable encyclopedia about all the bachelors in England.” She paused and glanced over at him. “The eligible ones, of course.”

“Of course,” he managed to agree. Good God! That was like giving the devil a list of likely prospects.

Then he paused. Demmit! What did this journal say about him? Enough condemnation apparently that Lady Standon had crossed him from her list.

Or had the duchess's sister Thalia and their cousin Lady Philippa used their lurid imaginations to add a lengthy passage about the Tremont curse of madness? Knowing how those two loved embellishment, such an entry would likely deter even the most desperate of debutantes from giving up her spinsterhood to step one foot into Parkerton Hall as its mistress.

Even to be a duchess.

Not that he was looking.
Not in the least.

“So that I understand this correctly,” he said, “you have based your future marital happiness on the scribbling of a schoolgirl?”

But instead of seeing the sense of his words, she laughed. “A duchess, sir. Felicity Langley is now the Duchess of Hollindrake. As for my future well-being, I haven't any presumption of finding happiness within the bonds of marriage. I'm getting married to a duke, after all.” Then she continued on to join her sister in front of a gaudy display of gowns.

James came to a stop. No intention of finding happiness? Just because she was getting married to a duke?

Well, of all the presumption! That a duke couldn't make a lady happy. Couldn't love a woman to distraction and give her every bit of joy and contentment she deserved.

He could do all that and more. Or so he believed until he stumbled a bit on the uneven cobblestones as a wry thought pierced his convictions.

As you did with Vanessa?

We married young,
he argued with himself. Still, he had to admit that he'd taken his wife's affection for him as genuine without much effort on his part. He had never thought to do
more
…had never thought it necessary.

“You don't think a duke is capable of love?”

She cocked a wry brow. “Sir, I was married to Edward Sterling. My experience says otherwise.”

The lady had a point there. Still…“Was it truly so bad?” he pressed.

Turning her back to him, she chose not to answer. Couldn't answer.

James felt her anguish cut through his own heart. He drew closer to her, resisted the urge to hold her, and said softly, “I am ever so sorry, Lady Standon.”

“As was I.”

Straightening, James felt an overwhelming desire to rise up in defense of himself and his fellow dukes, but then he faltered as he tried to think of what it was exactly he would do to make a wife happy.

Besides the obvious choices of jewels and flowers. It wasn't like he didn't know what to do to make a wife happy…it was just that he hadn't had much practice. Vanessa had died when Arabella was born,
and James had never remarried, her betrayal at the end having torn his trust in two.

Of course, he'd showered his mistresses with affectionate tokens. Yet he winced as he recalled that Winston had taken care of ordering those things up and having them sent over.

He'd done very little.

Actually, nothing at all, if he was feeling honest, much as Miranda had implied the other day.

Then he glanced up, looked at Lady Standon and realized he didn't know any more about marriage than he knew about her and her demmed list.

And, he discovered, she also knew very little about shopping for gowns.

For the lady stood across the crowded lane holding up a crimson gown. Sleeveless and cut low, it was adorned in a froth of gold lace—both expensive and utterly gaudy. It was the most outrageous piece he'd ever seen and he didn't need much imagination to know what she would look like in it.

Or without it.

Nor did it appear that any other man in the vicinity had much trouble envisioning such a sight as well, for several had stopped to leer at the fetching lady and her scandalous choice.

He crossed the lane in about two strides and plucked it from her hands as she held it up for Tia to examine.

“Put this back,” he said in the tone he usually reserved for one of his errant relatives. He shoved the gown at the vendor, who in turn glared back.

“Such a shame, miss. Would look lovely on you,” the seller said, ignoring James's black, scathing looks. “Perhaps you should take it, if you are looking to find
a new one, that is.” His brow wrinkled with disapproval as he glanced at James.

“I am,” she said.

James leaned over and said in her ear, “He thinks you are looking for a new patron. A new lover. Not a husband.”

And instead of being incensed at the insult, Elinor shocked him a second time. “I know well enough what sort of gown this is.”

“You know what you would look like wearing that gown?”

She paused. “You think I would look like a courtesan in this gown?”

“Yes, exactly,” he told her.

“And that it is too enticing?” she asked, eyeing it as the vendor held it up again, hoping to gain his sale.

“Far too enticing, Lady Standon. That gown is anything but proper.”

“So it is,” she said, nodding in agreement.

“Well, that is good news. Here I'd thought perhaps the lessons from last night had gone by the wayside,” he said, with his usual ducal disdain.

And probably a little more pompously than he should have.

Not probably. Far too pompously.

For there in her eyes burned a mischievous light.

She turned to the vendor. “I'll take it.”

 

If Mr. St. Maur thought the gown scandalous, it must be outrageously so, Elinor realized. And that was exactly what she needed.

She hadn't the time or patience for a long courtship. If she was going to entice either duke, Longford or Avenbury, to marry her without the long wait of
banns, she needed a gown that would ignite a man to act.

Quickly.

Mr. St. Maur's puritan reaction to the crimson velvet only solidified her first suspicions she'd had about the gown when she'd spied the hint of red poking out from behind a sapphire brocade.

In it, she'd be a duchess in no time.

“You are not buying that gown,” he told her.

Elinor ruffled at his tone. Slowly she turned around. “Pardon?”

“You are not buying that gown,” he repeated. “How can you when you know exactly what sort of dress that is?” He stepped between her and the vendor.

“Yes. One that makes a man forget himself.” She artfully dodged around him and paid the fellow, who had, in his vast experience in dealing in such gowns, become adapt at wrapping them up quickly and finalizing the sale before an outraged husband or patron could protest.

As she gathered up her treasure, she heard the unmistakable huffy sigh of disapproval behind her.

Elinor was under no delusions that just because she'd bought the gown he wasn't finished with his lecture.

Irritating, arrogant fellow. Who was he to ring a peal over her head? She hadn't been the one to lead him out to the garden last night…to pull him into her arms…to act so scandalously…

Well, she had had a bit of a hand in that last one, but the rest—well, how dare he imply she was the one who needed to be put in sackcloth!

Besides, who would have thought that a man who
kissed so divinely could sound as stuffy as a vicar? Then he spoke, and it turned out he could be the vicar's vicar when it came to being high-hatted.

“What sort of example will you be setting for your sister?”

He dared to bring Tia into this argument? When everything she was doing, everything she was giving up, was for her sister? Oh, this deserved a response that would ruffle the reverend's collar that must be hidden beneath that ill-cut jacket of his.

Elinor grinned wickedly him. “A very married one.”

He threw up his hands and paced back and forth in front of her. “You will not go out in that gown,” he said, wagging a finger at her.

“Mr. St. Maur,” she said, “is that the best you can do? Order me about?”

He yanked off his hat and raked a hand through his hair before he plunked the tall beaver back onto his head. “Yes. It is. I order you not to wear that gown.”

Once again she came right up to him. It was shameless and reckless, for this close it was easy to ignore his tyrannical rant and think of him only as that enticing rake, the dangerous stranger she'd entrusted with her future happiness.

Certainly, he was angry with her. Furious, even, which in itself made Elinor shiver. For there was something all too tempting about provoking this man, to see just how perilous he could become.

His lips, hard and smooth, capturing hers…how his tongue swiped over her lips, demanding entrance…how she surrendered so willingly. The way her body clamored in triumph that this man, this glorious man, was no gentleman.

And wasn't that exactly what she found so fascinating about St. Maur? That he was no gentleman?

Yet she couldn't help but wonder, what then? Discover the truth about how much passion could exist between a man and a woman only to have to give it up for marriage?

Marriage. Elinor's stomach rolled anew, and not just from too much wine. Her marriage to Edward had been a nightmare, and it was only for Tia's future that she even considered reentering that state again.

So she stepped back. “I do not like your tone, sir. You are neither my husband nor my father. You are merely my employee, and as such you need to remember your place. And your obligations. Which, I might remind you, are to help me find a
husband
.”

From the murderous glint in his eyes, she had to imagine he wasn't used to being spoken to thusly. Yet, to his credit, he didn't back down. Didn't even blink at her chastisement. “You'll find more than a husband in that gown. You'll find yourself back in trouble.”

Trouble
. There was a dark, foreboding double entendre to his words.

The sort of trouble that would leave her discovering everything that had been missing in her first marriage.

So what would be worse—discovering the delicious reward that St. Maur's kiss promised, only to forsake such passion for marriage, or marry and never know the truth?

Elinor couldn't risk that—the not knowing. For she had lived a half life up until the moment she'd met St. Maur, and if this was her only chance, she'd regret it to her dying day if she didn't have just one moment in her life when she truly lived.

So she closed the distance between them, suddenly unafraid to confront him. “If I am not to go out in it, then how am I to be seen in it?”

“You shouldn't be seen in it in the first place,” he said, backing up a little, but the crowded lane left little room for him to move.

His unsteady stance empowered her, emblazoned her. “Not be seen in it?” She shook her head and edged closer. “Would you have me go out without it on?”

He looked about to say something, but whatever it was, he changed his mind and finally said, “I have my reputation to think of, madame. I will not continue this assignation of yours if you persist in flouting yourself in front of Society in a gown that marks you as a common trollop.”

“Common? Truly?”

“Fallen, certainly,” he amended.

“Seems a shame,” she mused. “For I am certain the dress will fit, don't you agree?”

“Unfortunately so,” he said.

“And that the color suits,” she said. “Didn't you say just yesterday that such a color would look magnificent on me?”

He nodded, his lips pressed together, as if to say that if he could take those words back, he would.

“I could almost believe that this dress was made for me.”

“Made to drive men mad,” he said, arms crossed over his chest.

“Truly?” she asked, trying to look the wide-eyed innocent. “You think I could drive a man mad wearing this dress?”

“Yes,” he ground out.

She shook her head. “I doubt that very much.”

“Don't.”

This time she sighed. “Oh, I suppose it might fit, and it might drive men mad, but I haven't the least idea of how one wears such a gown. For I think that putting it on is one thing, but to make a gown truly work, you must be able to wear it, if you know what I mean.”

From the pained expression on his face, she knew he understood her perfectly.