A Duke of Her Own

Page 35

“She’s exquisite,” she said. “I would marry her, too.”
He raised an eyebrow at the detachment in her voice. With luck, that meant he hadn’t guessed that she was lusting after him with embarrassing heat.
“I wouldn’t marry a woman for her beauty,” Villiers said. She caught just a trace, just the smallest trace, of the unlovely boy thrown over for his handsome friend. “I need a mother for my children.”
“Lisette loves children,” Eleanor said, meaning it. “She truly loves them.”
“I can tell. And she does so much work with those orphans. I believe that she wouldn’t be put off by illegitimacy.”
“Absolutely not. Lisette would never think twice about a person’s origins.”
“She could teach them to care as little about society as she does,” Leopold said. “I asked her why she was never presented, for example, and she just laughed. She didn’t care.”
“Lisette has never cared for convention. It’s not in her nature to kow-tow to someone because he is of high rank.”
“I’ve seen that in Quakers. But never in a woman of the aristocracy. It’s unexpectedly alluring.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said, gathering her wrap. “Lisette is definitely alluring.” She was not going to say anything about Lisette’s inability to care for anything for very long. Or, for that matter, about her betrothal.
“Do you really mean it?” he said. Now he didn’t look like a Leopold any longer: she was faced once more by the Duke of Villiers.
“Mean what?”
“That we might treat our betrothal as something of a…temporary state, perhaps to be dissolved by either of us.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “I am certainly looking forward to Roland’s visit tomorrow.”
“So he is Roland. And I?”
“Villiers,” she said.
He didn’t like that. His gray eyes turned cold, and she was glad that Roland had made an appearance, glad that she didn’t care too much.
“You are the Duke of Villiers,” she told him.
That glare of his probably withered other people. Those who cared more.
But she was determined not to care—in fact, never to care that much about any man again, she reminded herself. “That’s not to say that I’m not interested in marrying you.”
“Then call me Leopold.”
“Perhaps, if we decide to marry,” she said, standing up. “But I think that you are far more Villiers than you are Leopold. My mother always calls my father by his title.”
“And yet you refer to Roland by his first name.”
She took her time winding her wrap around her breasts, even though Villiers had never given her the satisfaction of knowing that he was looking at them. “Roland is a Roland,” she said finally.
“And I’m a Villiers?”
“Lisette is a Lisette,” she pointed out. “It’s a lovely, flirtatious name, perfect for someone with flyaway curls and a giggle.”
He raised an eyebrow at that description. “Remind me not to cross you. Does your name suit you?”
“Oh, Eleanor,” she said. “I’m certainly an Eleanor.” Or at least she was from her mother’s point of view.
“Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and Queen of England,” he said, sounding amused again.
That didn’t make her amused, so she said her good-night and retired to her chamber.
Chapter Fourteen
Knole House, country residence of the Duke of Gilner
June 18, 1784
Villiers never woke early in the morning. Finchley, his valet, knew better than to even appear at his door before eleven. His ideal day consisted of playing chess most of the afternoon and then making love most of the night. He never paid calls, and he had discovered as a youth that a gift for chess translated into a gift for numbers; he gave his estate manager an hour a week, and within a few years his net worth had grown to one of the greatest in England.
He pulled himself out of sleep thinking that someone was beating down the door, only to suppose groggily that rain was crashing against his window. A moment later he realized that mere rain couldn’t be causing that amount of noise. The window seemed about to shatter.
It must be hail. The worst hailstorm to hit southern England in years.
Villiers threw back the covers, fought his way through the bed hangings, and staggered out of bed.
Another blast of hail hit the window, shaking it so hard that the drapes actually shuddered. He walked over to the waiting basin of water and thrust his face into it. Then he straightened up and shook himself, chilly droplets flying in all directions. Finally he pulled back the drapes, expecting a sour gray light.
But instead there was sunshine. He closed his eyes and raked his hands through his hair. No hail. That implied…
He grabbed his towel and wound it around his waist, unlatched the door, pushed it open and stepped onto the stone balcony that looked over the gardens.
A thirteen-year-old boy was standing on the grass below, eyes bright.
“For Christ’s sake,” Villiers snarled, squinting down at Tobias. “What hour is it?”
“Late,” Tobias said cheerfully. “You don’t have any clothing on.”
He leaned against the balustrade and stared down at his progeny. “What in hell’s name do you think you’re doing?”
“Waking you up.”
“How did you know which window was mine?”
“Lisette told me.”
“Lisette? Lady Lisette told you which window to throw rocks at? You could have broken the glass.”
“Actually, she threw quite a lot of them,” Tobias allowed. “She just went around to the side of the house.”
“What is happening out here?” came a smoky voice.
He actually started. Eleanor wandered from her window onto what he now understood was a shared balcony—her chamber, it appeared, was next to his. Unlike him, she was swathed in some sort of thick wrapper that went from her collarbone to her toes.
Yet her clothing didn’t matter. There was something about her that made him want to nibble her all over. It had to be the dissolute appeal of her. Her hair tumbled down her back, not in pretty ringlets, but in the kind of wild disarray that a man wants to find falling around his face as he thrusts up and—
Villiers jerked his mind away, suddenly aware that his towel had tented in front.
Now Eleanor, too, had discovered that they shared a balcony. She didn’t turn a hair at the idea that he was practically naked. No blushing. The corner of her mouth tipped up and she looked him over, so fast that he would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching her at precisely that moment.
Villiers had no problem being surveyed. He had no illusions about the beauty of his face. His title and money brought women to his bed, but his body kept them there.
But Eleanor turned away as if he were no more interesting than a grasshopper and called down to Tobias. “You’re cracked if you think someone like the duke is going to get up this early.”
Tobias smiled, a bit shyly. “We thought—”
“We?” Eleanor asked, straightening up.
“Lady Lisette thought that the duke might like to go riding,” Tobias said.