Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,75

be seen with them and behave as suitors did. Then everybody would begin to talk about the wild and wicked Duke of Ashmont wooing and winning the formidable Miss Pomfret—and doing it properly, under the family auspices. That would become the big story, and the Curtain Scene would wither from memory, he hoped.

Meanwhile he had to actually win her while she fought him every step of the way.

He’d slept poorly, thanks to lascivious dreams about her that ended badly. Now he couldn’t even hold her hand, or any other part of her. His primary task today was keeping his temper, no trivial assignment when all about him riders were behaving stupidly, and he couldn’t murder any of them.

He rode Jupiter, a large, intimidating black stallion. Like his half brother, the carriage horse Nestor, Jupiter was, in fact, a gentle, rather sensitive fellow. But he looked dangerous—or perhaps seemed so because of the man in the saddle.

Between his apparently satanic stallion and his reputedly satanic self, Ashmont had pushed his party through the crush of vehicles, equestrians, and pedestrians at Hyde Park Corner without the difficulties others faced, and to whose difficulties he added, compelling those in his way to get out of the way as best they might. Thence he and the ladies proceeded to Rotten Row.

To relieve congestion, all carriages but the sovereign’s had been barred from the Row. Matters today did not seem much improved. Clumps of dandies, military men, MPs, lords, esquires, bumpkins, and what seemed to be every clerk in London clotted the bridle path.

That was only the male part of the crowd. Add to this the female contingent, the scores of riders who had no business anywhere near a horse, the maladjusted horses who had no business being ridden, the hordes of gawkers at the railings, and, to provide an extra dose of unpredictability, the children and dogs—all of this taking place in the heat and dust of a July afternoon.

He was part of a performance, Ashmont told himself. The larger the audience, the better.

“This is ghastly,” Miss Pomfret said. “One can scarcely move. Mainly because of Hyacinth. No wonder my father hated letting her out of the house.”

Morris’s adored one and Lady Charles were now in front of them, where Ashmont could watch out for lust-crazed young men.

“She’s doing us a great favor,” he said. “She draws the crowds, which means more witnesses to our perfectly proper courtship.”

“Lady Bartham will be furious.”

“There’s one happy thought.”

“Maybe she’ll turn up,” she said. “That would make this ordeal truly worthwhile.”

“Then we might gaze adoringly at each other and make her wild, because that’s the way courting couples ought to gaze at each other.”

“I’m not sure I’ll go that far,” she said. “I gazed at you adoringly last night, and recall what happened.”

How could he forget?

“I took advantage,” he said. “Couldn’t help myself. There you were, all worshipful and everything.”

“Worshipful!”

“Yes. Don’t do it here. Can’t answer for consequences.”

“I shall do my best to be resistible,” she said. “I always assumed I was expert at it. No, I know I am. It’s only that you’re perverse.”

“And Owsley? Why can’t he keep away?”

She considered. “Obstinacy? Last night was the first time I’ve seen him since his lecture. I wondered why he approached me. Now I suspect he wants to win me over so that I’ll stop making trouble for him. He sees me as a threat. Which I am.” Her full mouth curved a very little. “I and the Andromeda Society. We won’t be silenced.”

It was on the tip of Ashmont’s tongue to point out that she’d be a greater threat as a duchess. But he’d rushed his fences last night, and she’d withdrawn. She’d kissed him so passionately. She’d let him hold her hand. But afterward her mood changed.

She’d had second thoughts.

I don’t trust you.

He told himself to be patient. He had no choice, but patience wasn’t something he’d practiced, and it didn’t come easily.

“If you could bring him round to your way of thinking, what would you want him to do?” he said.

“Throw wholehearted support to the bill for reducing working hours for factory children.”

“What about Stanley’s antislavery bill?”

“According to my father, the canting hypocrites are outnumbered on that one, and it will pass easily.”

“He’s certain of it?” The antislavery bill wasn’t the only piece of Parliamentary business Ashmont was trying to come to terms with. So much went on at Westminster, and he’d never paid attention. He’d skimmed over those parts of the various periodicals or skipped