Tall, Duke, and Dangerous (Hazards of Dukes #2) - Megan Frampton Page 0,61

find her—he didn’t necessarily want to speak with her, but he wasn’t going to make an ancient lady travel when he could use his own two legs to find her.

So that she could scold him or annoy him in some way.

“There you are,” she said. Her lady’s maid’s expression was as disapproving as his grandmother’s tone. “We spoke about the need for you to obtain some manners—”

“You spoke about it,” Nash interrupted.

“And I have time now.”

No question if he had time, he noticed. Although he did, so he had nothing to gripe about.

Except the entire and complete intrusion and upending of his life.

“In here?” he said, gesturing toward his study.

The dowager duchess scowled. “Not ‘in here.’ You should say, ‘Would you care to come inside?’ or something more polite. And no, not there.”

Nash rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond as he normally would.

“Would you care to go to the ballroom, then?” he asked, making his tone deliberately formal.

“Better. And yes.”

His grandmother turned, taking her lady’s maid’s arm and making her way back down the hallway to the ballroom.

Nash followed, having to keep his stride about half what it usually was because of his grandmother’s pace. Look, he wanted to say, I’m accommodating you now, only you aren’t even registering it.

Humph.

He waited as his grandmother was settled on one of the low sofas that hugged the edge of the room.

He rarely came here; this was where parties were held, and Nash did not hold parties beyond having Sebastian and Thaddeus over for whiskey.

This room was where his father had spent many evenings, which meant that Nash had an instinctive dislike of it. Even now he could picture his father—red-faced, loud, and frequently angry—standing in the middle of the room bellowing out orders as people scurried to obey.

Nash hadn’t been old enough to actually attend the parties his father threw, but he had snuck out from his bedroom and watched the guests arrive. Mostly gentlemen like his father, with a few ladies he later realized were not of the aristocracy at all. He hadn’t thought about it then, but he wondered now if his father and his friends had hurt the women. He didn’t doubt it. He wished he could find them and make reparation, but he supposed it would have to do to hire as many of his father’s bastards as he could find.

“What are you doing?” his grandmother said. “Standing around gawking at what?”

Nash shook his head. “Nothing.” He felt his hands clench into fists, and couldn’t help but start pacing, the fury inside him roaring to life.

The dowager duchess thumped her cane. “Come sit. I can tell it is not nothing.”

Nash suppressed a sigh—a sigh! Him!—and sat beside her, careful not to jostle the sofa cushions too much with his weight.

She turned to him, folding her hands in her lap. “He wasn’t a good man.”

“What?” Nash said, startled.

“Your father.”

“How did you—?”

“Because you looked like he used to. Right before—” She stopped suddenly, and he got a chill up his spine.

I look like him when I get angry.

“That is why I want to make certain that your heir does not inherit. He gets that look also, and I have heard of things he has done . . .” She trailed off, and he felt his chest tighten. This was why it was so important he not care. Because caring led to violence. His father had shown that.

“But at the moment the only lady who seems as though she might accept you is Lady Felicity, and while she would be suitable, she is not ideal.”

Nash’s eyebrows rose. “What makes you say that?”

His grandmother made a dismissive gesture. “She is a bit obvious.”

“Because she wants to be a duchess?” Nash snorted. “Isn’t that what all of them want?”

His grandmother raised her nose in the air even higher than usual. “Yes, of course. But it is not something a lady should exhibit.”

I want to kiss you.

She said what she wanted. He liked that; otherwise, how would he possibly know? He was obviously terrible at figuring things out, since he’d never tried before. Certainly not with a lady. His friends told him what they wanted from him also: usually more whiskey, or for him to stop being an ass.

He could oblige them on the former but not always on the latter.

Marrying and fathering a child was his chance to right the wrongs that his father had done. That his cousin would do, if given the title.

“All right,” he said, taking a deep breath. “What