He knew precisely how to tip her over. He gave a shallow bow and said, “His Grace the Duke of Ripon, at your service.”
Her eyes widened into saucers. She hadn’t known his name, but his voice, she would’ve remembered.
He watched in fascination as a riot of emotion marched across her face in quick succession—shock…horror…disbelief—before settling on utter befuddlement.
“You,” she gasped. “Youare the duke?”
Tristan had begun to enjoy himself. Unexpected, that. “I.” A beat. “The duke.”
“Youare the old, decrepit Duke of Ripon?”
Old? Decrepit?He was a virile four and thirty years, if he said so himself. “Perhaps to some?” he allowed.
“Youaren’t old.” She swallowed. “Or decrepit.”
Her gaze remained fixed on him as if he were an oddity descended from the far reaches of the universe. Was it so very odd that he was a duke?
She wasn’t finished. “How on earth canyoube the duke? You’re an ox.”
He snorted. “Oh, I can assure you I’m most definitely a man.” He shouldn’t say what next wanted to fall from his mouth… “I can prove it if you like.”
A too-loud guffaw burst from Archer. “Well done, old chap.”
Tristan hardly noted it. His attention was entirely fixed on the lady before him—the one currently blushing from the tips of her ears to the tips of her toes.
Good.
She looked like the sort of young lady who could use a good blushing every so often.
He could think of a good something else she could be in use of, too.
And how he wouldn’t mind very much giving it to her.
Chapter Three
Ican proveit if you like.
Had the ox—who wasimpossiblytheDuke of Ripon—truly spoken those words to her?
She ought to…she ought to…
Amelia clenched her fists at her sides and stamped her foot.
All that seemed to do was amuse him, judging by the glimmer in his eyes.
She didn’t know how to respond to such words. They sparked outrage, of course, but something else, too. A funny little feeling that crept through her, leaving a trail of heightened sensation, making her a trifle winded.
“I say,” said Archie, her trouble-making, disloyal brother who should be challenging the duke to a duel instead of snickering, “do you know each other?”
“No,” Amelia responded, too quickly. She sounded like she was lying, which of course, she was. Both Archie and Ripon quirked an eyebrow. Oh, she needed to get away from these men.
She directed a shallow curtsy in the direction of the duke. “Meeting you was certainly—”
Awful.The worst thing to happen to her since she left England. But she couldn’t say that. Not in polite company, anyway.
So, she pasted the smile reserved for polite company onto her face and finished with, “Diverting.”
The man snorted.
