What I Did For a Duke Page 6

  That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.

  “Well, I’m partial to whores.”

  Her head whipped toward him like a weathervane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or . . . or . . .

  “Whor . . . whores . . . ?” She choked out the word as if she’d just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.

  He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.

  “I . . . I beg your pardon—Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea,” he stammered. “I do wonder what you think of me if that’s what you heard.” He shook his head ruefully. “Horses. Those hooved beasts a man can race, wager upon, plow a field with, harness to a phaeton, and drive at deliciously reckless speeds.”

  She stared at him now as he walked. Those wide eyes went narrow, bringing him into focus, isolating him in a very potent, too intelligent beam of blue.

  “And one cannot do any of that with whores?” she asked softly.

  His turn to drop his jaw. He clapped it shut again.

  She’d pointed that neat profile away from him again. But when the corners of her pale mouth had tightened, he saw—yes, he saw—a dimple. And now he was certain, he was certain she was doing combat with a smile.

  His heart picked up a beat or two. “It’s a frustrating truism,” he allowed resignedly, “but it’s a rare whore who’ll consent to be harnessed to a plow.”

  And with awe he saw her lose her battle with that smile.

  It fought first with one corner of her mouth, then the other, and then it broke all over her like a sunrise. The very shape of her face changed. Or rather, she came into focus at last in that moment; she’d simply been awaiting illumination from within.

  There were dimples, and a pointed chin, and elegant cheekbones. Her face was heart-shaped, sweetly drawn, very alive. She was incandescent with wicked amusement.

  In that moment was an entirely different girl.

  He stared, stunned.

  And then the smile was gone, fading too quickly the way sunrises inevitably do, and she was quiet again.

  Which is when he realized something important: Something or someone had made the light go out of Genevieve Eversea. And what he’d been seeing and walking with and talking with, up until the moment of that smile, was a shell.

  Fascinating realization.

  And possibly very useful.

  Harry turned and came back to her, trailed by Millicent. “Genevieve, you ought to see the sunlight coming down on the folly. It reminds me of the Canaletto we love so!”

  Harry and Millicent glanced toward the duke and smiled politely. Canaletto was an Italian painter, he knew that much, and cared less.

  “The folly is up ahead,” Harry reassured him, and Millicent nodded in eager encouragement. As though he might think it a great chore to walk such a distance.

  The folly is up ahead. He couldn’t help but wonder if those words were prescient as they all crested the hill.

  And it was the last he spoke alone to Genevieve Eversea for the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 5

  The duke took a light supper in his room. He attended to some correspondence related to his various estates, filling sheets of foolscap with succinct and rote instructions for his bailiffs, his banker, his man of affairs at Rosemont. He sealed them; they could be delivered by mail coach.

  But one message was urgent. He dashed off a specifically worded request, sprinkled it with sand, sealed it with wax and a press of his ring, then rang for a footman.

  “If you would kindly find a messenger to take this to Rosemont posthaste, I will reward handsomely.”

  The footman had no doubt such a messenger could easily be found.

  He arrived early for the reception the Everseas were holding for a few guests prior to the ball, a “modest” (as described by Mrs. Eversea) affair attended by local aristocracy and close friends from Pennyroyal Green, a few friends from outlying villages, a few in from London. He was greeted by Jacob and brought from guest to guest for introductions. A few people he was already acquainted with; neighbors in Sussex and fellow members of White’s. Others, particularly the locals, were strangers. He’d seldom seen curtsies so deep or eyes so wide. He was polite; he was cool; he was enigmatic. He was every bit what they expected and wanted the storied Duke of Falconbridge to be, because it amused him to be so.

  In truth, his eyes were on the stairs. He waited with the patience of a cat near a mouse hole for Genevieve Eversea to arrive.

  He almost didn’t recognize her when she did appear.

  Her dress was a glossy silk of midnight blue, cut very low, and the “sleeves”—really scraps of net—clung to her pale, flawless shoulders, as though she’d tumbled down through clouds to get here and brought a few shreds of sky with her.

  Her neck was long. Her collarbone had that smooth pristine temptation of a bank of new-fallen snow. It was interrupted only by a drop of a blue stone on a chain that pointed directly at quite confident cleavage, as if the owner knew full well it was splendid and was accustomed to exposing it. Her sleek dark hair was dressed up high and away from her face, and tiny diamanté sparks were scattered through it. Her face beneath it was revealed in delicate simplicity. A smooth, pale, high forehead, etched cheekbones. Elegant as Wedgwood, set off by that dark, dark hair and those vivid eyes.

  He stared.

  He wasn’t precisely . . . nonplussed. Still, this particular vision of Genevieve Eversea required reconciling with the quiet girl in the morning dress, the moor pony with the determined gait. As though they were not quite the same thing, or were perhaps variations of the same thing, like verb tenses. He felt a bit like a boy who needed to erase his morning lessons and begin again.

  She saw him and composed her face in resignation. Oh, there would come a day when she would do more than tolerate him, he’d decided.

  “Oh. Good evening, Your Grace.” She curtsied.

  “Good evening, Miss Eversea. You’ve stars in your hair.”

  Why had he said that? He was startled. Out it had come. She had on dark blue gloves that hugged her arms up just past her elbows. She touched one to her hair.

  “If you wish. But it wasn’t what my maid called them.” Sconces on the walls and chandeliers overhead lit everyone flatteringly, including him, no doubt, and when she moved her dress shifted like water under moonlight. He very much liked her serious slim brows, he decided then.

  She surreptitiously swept a glance around the buzzing salon and flicked open her fan, rather like a bird rustling flight feathers. She was preparing to flee him.

  “They’re lovely.” He said this because they were, and because he couldn’t simply leave it at “You’ve stars in your hair,” which sounded more like a puzzled accusation than a compliment.

  He found he had nothing else to say. Which was very unlike him.

  As usual, she wasn’t assisting him, either. She was scanning the room, planning her escape strategy, and trying not to appear as though she was.

  “It won’t curl,” she muttered finally. “I wish it would.”

  She brought her hand down from her hair abruptly. She looked abashed, as though she regretted saying it the moment it left her mouth. She bit her bottom lip.

  “Why should you want it to curl?” He was genuinely baffled. He recalled his wife and her maid conferring before balls about how her hair should be done, their eyes locked with great intensity in the mirror, the two of them passionately gesticulating. One would have thought they were negotiating a treaty.

  Genevieve paused, surprised by the question. “Primarily because it won’t curl, I suppose.” She looked just as surprised by her answer, and gave a little laugh, enjoying the absurdity of it.

  He was struck by the peculiar philosophical profundity of this.

  “I suppose we all tend to want the impossible. And sometimes in attempting it we achieve something
near enough to the impossible to elicit satisfaction.”

  Her eyes didn’t glaze over, to her credit. But at the word “impossible” all the light fled her face. The dimming was so instant and complete it was exactly like watching theater lights doused. Her eyes darted to some point across the room, lingered for an infinitesimal hungry second, came back to him and settled upon his face again with a certain stoic resignation.

  Intrigued, he followed the direction of the eye dart. The salon was crowded already with exquisitely dressed sherry-clutching adults, but his eyes lingered on the lovely, glowing young woman, Lady Millicent Blenkenship. He’d admired the back of her at length today. The front of her, particularly in that gown, had much to recommend it, too. Beneath the lamplight her skin had the warmth of a ripe peach and hair shone the color of old gold, and her eloquently curved body was hugged by expertly tailored russet silk. Her cleavage was a thing of majesty. She’d enormous brandy-colored eyes and a very nice, warm laugh, and she was laughing now. A woman a man could bask in, who would probably be a lush joy in bed and not much of a challenge in any other way, which seemed very peaceful to him.

  Next to her was Lord Harry Osborne. He was the one who’d just made Lady Millicent laugh.

  Osborne, he knew, wasn’t a bad sort, and his opinion of him hadn’t changed at all during their walk today. Handsome but not too full of himself, polite to his elders and betters, didn’t leave his accounts with his creditors in arrears, managed not to be dull despite all of these qualities, and the only blot thus far on his reputation involved the organization of phaeton races during which quite a few lordlings lost outrageous amounts of blunt. But of this Moncrieffe secretly approved. Fools and their money ought to be parted. He’d also heard Osborne needed more of it. As a gentleman, he could scarcely engage in a profession. He needed an heiress to keep the modest land he was inheriting thriving.

  Osborne. This was the person who had stolen the light from Genevieve Eversea.

  He would have laid a wager upon it.

  Genevieve couldn’t seem to disentangle her manners from whatever had sent her on a bleak Harry-related reverie. She waved her fan beneath her chin instead, as if movement was a substitution for speech. It was also a warning to him that she was about to take flight. She looked about yearningly as more guests arrived, drifted into the room, took note of the dangerous duke, widened their eyes in amazement, moved on, stared, muttered, and finally relaxed with people of their own rank (moderate) and reputation (benign). It became almost rhythmic, the eye-widening. He nodded, smiled, tried to look as benevolent as he was capable of appearing. Which was even less so than he realized.

  They stood before a painting of a white horse. And Osborne had mentioned Canaletto today. He suspected Miss Eversea was a lover of art.

  And so he said, in order to give a rudder of sorts to this conversation, “I’m delighted to find so many fine paintings in your home. We didn’t have an opportunity to discuss it today, but I find that art moves me.”

  She examined him. “I suspect it moves you in the opposite direction.”

  He bit back a smile. “Oh, now, consider that you might underestimate me, Miss Eversea,” he cajoled. “For example, this very fine painting of a horse by . . . by . . .”

  Damn.

  He did know the name of the artist. He’d had portraits of his horses done, too. A man must commemorate his loved ones, after all.

  “Ward,” she completed dryly. “James Ward.” But he had her attention now. Perhaps she hoped to be entertained by whatever inanity he would next produce.

  He glanced again toward Lord Harry, who was now entertaining and being entertained by a number of young people. He imagined it was where Genevieve preferred to be . . . and yet not to be, to paraphrase the Bard. Hmm. He couldn’t detect any particular devotion to Harry in Millicent. Or of him to her. She seemed to be enjoying all of the young men.

  A few of whom were aiming calf-eyed gazes at Miss Genevieve Eversea.

  Who took no note. It was either that, or she took the calf-eyed admiration as much for granted as the chandelier light. Always present. Nothing to remark upon. Rather like the types of flowers routinely sent to her.

  “Of course. The name of the painter simply eluded me in the moment, as I was lost in admiration of your gown.” He added that simply so she could enjoy an inanity, and the corner of her mouth did tip sardonically. “But I recognized it as a Ward.”

  She didn’t snort. Her eyes did go skeptically wide. If her manners were any less fine she would have rolled them.

  “Very well, then. I knew it was fine, and not, for instance, painted by your six-year-old niece,” he revised.

  This won him a genuine, albeit reluctant, smile. Swiftly there and gone.

  Her mouth was the palest pink, he noticed then. As neat and promising as a rose about to bloom. Dimples appeared when she smiled.

  He tried not to frown. But it was still a bit disorienting. She’d possessed the same mouth this afternoon. It wasn’t something she’d donned along with the gown.

  “You knew it was a horse, which is generally all a painting needs in order for a man to admire it and declare it fine. A horse or a dog. And I haven’t a niece. Yet.”

  He seized the opportunity to steer the conversation toward his objective.

  “But perhaps you will, soon enough. Your brother Colin has wed, I understand. An enviable condition, matrimony. I do still hope one day very soon to enter into it.”

  “He has wed.” She said this gingerly, with something akin to bemusement, as though she still couldn’t believe it herself, and as though the subject was a spiny one. “So has my oldest brother, Marcus, as well. And another of my brothers, Charles, is engaged to marry the widow of a colonel. Ian, on the other hand, shows no sign of shackling himself, as they . . .”

  She trailed off. She was staring at the duke as if she’d seen something multi-legged crawl over his face.

  “As they?” He’d needed to ease his jaw in order to prompt her. It was inordinately tight.

  “. . . as they say,” she completed distantly, on an odd note. A faint puzzled dent took up residence between her brows as she regarded him.

  “It’s a pleasure to hear of the men in your family enjoying matrimony.”

  “Is it?” She said this almost sharply.

  He knew an unfamiliar sensation. Uneasiness. He could imagine her peering at a painted canvas with those sharp eyes, mercilessly scanning it for authenticity, the same way she was examining him now.

  Back to art, then. More comfortable, apparently, for both of them.

  “Who is your favorite painter, Miss Eversea?”

  “I might have to say Titian.” She said this almost reluctantly, as if Titian was something precious she kept to herself. “It’s the luminous quality of the tones of skin, the incomparable reds, the affection with which he paints his . . .”

  She stopped and gave her head a little shake, and a small smile and a half shrug, as though she scarcely qualified to describe the wonder of Titian.

  And because she suspected she was boring him.

  Luminous quality. Titian didn’t particularly interest him. But what he did to Miss Genevieve’s face when she’d described him, in fact, fascinated him.

  “Miss Eversea, it may interest you to know I’ve a marvelous collection of paintings at Falconbridge Hall, all in want of an expert to admire it and teach me more about it. And there are some beautiful works at Rosemont, too.” One in particular he didn’t want to mention, necessarily. Not yet.

  Canvases covered in ancestors, for the most part, was what he had at Falconbridge Hall, row upon row of them with eyes and noses and airs of entitlement all very similar to his. It was like strolling through a gallery of mirrors.

  “Do you?” she said, clearly more alarmed than enthusiastic. Her fan flicked nervously in her fingers. Her eyes darted toward the stream of guests. She was calculating where and when she could dive into it.

  “Oh yes. And many of the pain
tings are by Italian masters acquired by my father. Perhaps one day you’d like to see—”

  With astonishing speed, Genevieve’s arm shot out, seized the arm of a young lady and plucked her from the crowd the way a bear plucks a trout from a stream.

  “Miss Oversham!” she gushed. “Allow me to introduce you to our very esteemed guest, the Duke of Falconbridge.”

  Miss Oversham’s eyes bulged in astonishment at the name. The plume atop her head quivered like a captured bird. “That won’t be necess—that is, I was just—”

  But Genevieve was surprisingly strong for her size, and she had a good grip on the tall Miss Oversham’s elbow. She didn’t even relinquish it when the woman curtsied.

  “We were discussing art,” Genevieve volunteered brightly. “And I know you’re a lover of art as I am. I’m certain the duke will enjoy telling you about his family’s collection of portraits. I didn’t wish to leave him without a delightful conversational partner while I attend to a small pressing matter.”

  And with that, Genevieve Eversea released Miss Oversham, sidled through the crowd, through a doorway, and disappeared, every bit as graceful and purposeful as an otter navigating a bend in the river.

  Wiley minx.

  And so he was left alone with Miss Oversham, who wore yellow but managed not to look jaundiced in it, thanks to a fine head of shiny dark hair and a warm complexion. She was very pretty, he supposed, in that she had even features and all of her teeth, all of which she was showing to him now. She was tall enough to nearly look him in the eye, and the plume, he decided, was a poor choice, as it would be visible through the crowd no matter where one stood. She might as well have planted a flag atop her head.

  She continued beaming fulsomely at him.

  “A pleasure to meet a fellow art lover. What do you think of James Ward, Miss Oversham? Is there a finer painter of horses in all the land?”

  He waited.

  Her smile radiated at him.

  Perhaps she was poor of hearing? He raised his voice and leaned forward. “What do you think of James Ward, Miss Oversham?”