Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,79
way. Or he was bored. Discontented. Blue-deviled. Confused. Pride hurt.
Every last time, in other words, he wasn’t perfectly content.
And he was stunned that she didn’t trust him? Indignant she didn’t want to be shackled to him for life?
What an arsehole he was. What a conceited thickhead.
He was lucky she hadn’t killed him when she had the chance. He was lucky she let him within a mile of her.
Her father despised him, but hadn’t demanded the privilege of shooting him. The father had no doubt kept the brothers at bay as well.
Lucky.
Five thousand nine hundred and ninety-six points remaining. Not a jot less.
To be a tolerable human being. Fair enough. Even generous.
Ashmont got onto his horse and rejoined the ladies. He escorted them home in good humor. No brooding. No sulking. He was fortunate far beyond what he deserved to have come this far. He had better not forget it.
At deGriffith House, he waved off the groom and helped Miss Pomfret dismount. He took some minor liberties in the process, because, after all, he wasn’t a saint.
She didn’t kick him in the head.
She didn’t mind the liberties, he realized. It was the marrying part she minded.
He understood now.
When she stood on the pavement, he said, in a low voice, “I do understand. About trust. Will you give me a chance to earn it?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at him and sighed. “Duke.”
“I like it better when you call me Lucius,” he said.
“Don’t push me. Ashmont.” She smiled a very little.
“Very well. Small steps.”
Her aunt and sister were walking to the door. But one of the advantages of courtship, real or pretend, was, the chaperons allowed a measure of privacy. Not much. He and Miss Pomfret would be allowed a few words before the lady was required to go in.
“This is supposed to be a pretend courtship,” she said.
“I know, and you can pretend all you want. All I have to do is move a mountain or two. Push the great rock up the hill and hope it doesn’t roll back down on me. What I’m saying is, I understand you make no promises. When the day comes, and you decide you’ve had enough of me, I’ll do something dreadful, as I said I would. Then you break it off, and nobody blames you. Nobody blamed Olympia, did they?”
“But.” She glanced back at deGriffith House, where her father no doubt watched from a window. “There’s always a but.”
“But I’m asking for a sporting chance. You know. Labors of Hercules. That sort of thing. Move mountains. Slay dragons.”
“Ah, yes. You can’t resist a challenge, I know.”
She knew him too well, far too well.
Ye gods, this was going to be hard. Impossible.
“We’d planned to carry on the pretense until Parliament rises,” she said.
While Ashmont paid as little attention as possible to Parliament’s doings, he was aware that upper-class London thinned out in late summer. It wasn’t much time for moving mountains.
“Yes, that’s what we agreed,” he said.
“Very well,” she said. “A sporting chance. No promises.”
“No promises.”
She nodded and walked to the house.
He did not kick the nearest lamppost and swear. He did not throw his hat down and stomp on it. He wanted her and he wanted her now, and being unused to not getting what he wanted when he wanted it, the Duke of Ashmont wanted to kick and stomp and punch something or somebody. He didn’t.
He climbed back onto his horse and rode home. There he wrote a note to Miss Pomfret’s friend Mrs. Roake. He and she had had a brief but enlightening conversation last night at the theater.
Then he spent two hours in his library, looking for a book Mrs. Roake had mentioned.
He did not get drunk. He did not go to Carlotta’s or Crockford’s.
He began reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
On Monday, the duke escorted the ladies to Vauxhall for the fête on behalf of distressed Poles. However, the crowd at the Rotunda, where a concert was to be held, was so immense and unruly that even he decided against trying to get in.
As they later heard, too many were let in, too many were kept out, and the resulting uproar made it impossible to hear any of the performers. Pasta and Paganini and the others might as well have stayed home, according to those who did brave the Rotunda crowd. That was the least of it. People were injured in the crush, and the pickpockets had been hard at work.