Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,49

She knew it meant nothing. He simply did it. He couldn’t help himself.

The trouble was, he was going to come to the meeting, no matter what. When the Duke of Ashmont wanted to get into a place, he got in. She did not want to see him suddenly burst through a door or window or spring out from behind a curtain.

They’d reached the mansion. A footman opened the door.

She said, “Very well, but if ennui sets off an urge to jump out of a window, you must restrain yourself. We have important business to conduct, and not much time. Interruptions are unwelcome.”

“No interruptions,” he said. “I promise.”

“I have a few more rules for you,” she said. “If you break any one of them, I shall personally murder you. And nobody will care. In fact, the ladies will help me hide the body.”

Their chaperon rode on to the equestrian area, where the Baron de Bérenger had set up a carousel ring. There Lady Charles watched the gentlemen display their skill and elegance on horseback. And their manly physiques.

Lady Charles had mourned her husband for three years, a fact that would have shocked her much younger self. She had not married for love. She had married because Lord Charles Ancaster worshipped the ground she walked on, because he was the most suitable of all the gentlemen who courted her . . . and because the gentleman eighteen-year-old Lady Julia Pomfret believed she wanted didn’t know she was alive. She’d married, believing that since her heart was irretrievably broken, it made no difference which man she wed. She’d turned out to be altogether wrong and extremely fortunate.

But Lord Charles had been gone for three years, and it would have distressed him to know she’d grieved for so long. Recent encounters with the three young men they’d more or less taken under their wing, combined with letters from her brother Henry’s family, had only confirmed her intention to rejoin the world.

As it turned out, so did the elegant gentlemen demonstrating their grace and daring on horseback. She was a widow and a grandmother, true. On the other hand, at six and forty she still had a pulse, and a fine masculine physique had no trouble increasing its rate.

Meanwhile the gentlemen, also possessing pulses, were far from indifferent to Lady Charles. While she watched, the equestrians put on more of a show. After their turn at the exercise, three with whom she was acquainted joined her. Some mild flirtation occurred, which she enjoyed very much.

Not long thereafter, as she left the gentlemen and was debating where to go next, she did not pretend to be surprised when Lord Frederick Beckingham rode toward her. He always knew where his nephew was.

Though both had been courtiers for all of their adult lives, in private, with each other, they wasted no time on polite chitchat.

“You needn’t have troubled yourself,” she said. “Nothing untoward has occurred.”

“With him, one can never be sure,” Lord Frederick said. “I’ll admit, I’m terrified he’ll bungle this.”

“If so, it would be for the best. If he cannot rise to the challenge, then he doesn’t deserve my niece.”

“I hope you’ve told him this.”

Her fine eyebrows went up a very little. “Do you imagine I am not capable of managing this sort of thing? Do you suppose I could not do it blindfolded, with my hands tied behind my back?”

“That sounds interesting,” he said.

Lady Charles didn’t blush. Not on the outside.

She only smiled. “And so it might be, I daresay.” She glanced back at the equestrians.

“Indeed.” He returned her smile. “As to my nephew, I believe, this once, he does know his own mind.”

“That remains to be seen. Men often think they do—”

“And discover they’re altogether wrong.”

“True,” she said.

“Most unfortunately true,” he said.

A short, fierce silence ensued.

If Lady Charles believed a bridge had been crossed, she gave no sign. But when he suggested they ride on to the pigeon shooting grounds, she agreed.

Meanwhile

Arms folded, the Duke of Ashmont leant against a window frame at the back of the room. He was not inconspicuous. For a six-foot-plus man who looked like a Greek deity, that was impossible. But he contrived to remain quiet and did nothing to call attention to himself, and after the first few minutes, the club members went about their business, more or less as though Keeffe were there.

They’d heard Keeffe had been injured in a carriage mishap. Cassandra’s simple explanation—that Keeffe had suggested the duke take his place—didn’t surprise them. Neither did the