Chapter Two
The last manshe had expected to see at the country house party being held by Lady Emilia Winter and her husband Mr. Devereaux Winter was the Duke of Warwick.
Lydia had been avoiding him with great success for the last few months, but as she watched him bearing down upon her with her brother in tow, she found herself frozen, unable to escape. Why had Rand not told her Warwick would be in attendance?
Because he had likely been too busy with his paramour of the moment.
Her beloved brother was a libertine of the first—and worst—order.
“Warwick, for instance,” her mother continued in the midst of the matrimonial prospects diatribe Lydia had been doing her utmost to ignore, “would make an excellent match. Though I daresay he will ask for Lady Felicity’s hand, or perhaps even one of the dreadful Winter girls, he has not yet done so. It is not too late for you. You must smile, and you must endeavor to never speak of any of your odd notions. Do not mention thatstarpoppycock, I beg. You could have a coronet. Just think of it, a coronet, my dear. Here he comes. Oh, do smile, Lydia.Smile.”
Her mother said the last through gnashed teeth.
Lydia ignored her, steeling herself against the weakness a man as breathtakingly magnetic as the Duke of Warwick produced in her. She would remain indifferent. He was a rake like her brother. A flirt. He was not interested in her, though it occasionally amused him to act as if he were.
She was not the mouse to his cat. Indeed, she was no mouse at all. She would far prefer to be a mastiff, chasing his cat away where he could no longer torment her. Up a tree, perhaps.
As he reached her, she fixed him with her sternest glare.
A smile flirted with his sensual mouth and he bowed with his inimitable, sleek grace. Why, he even moved like a cat. “Your Grace, Lady Lydia.”
Not Freckles this evening, then. But she ought not to be surprised, and so she squelched the throbbing surge of awareness that made her pulse leap. Of course, he would not dare to refer to her in such improper fashion whilst in public and before her mother. As he straightened, the full effect of him slammed into her with the force of a blow.
Had all the air been stolen from the ballroom? And was it her imagination at work, or did his gaze slip to her lips for a heartbeat before rising? He was insufferably handsome, his jaw pronounced, his nose straight, his lips full and sinfully carnal, his eyes blue and bright, cheekbones high. His dark, tousled hair only added to the allure.
In short, he was so beautiful it made her ache in odd places. Places she had never had cause to notice before him.
Pity that he was a rascal who preferred witless ninnies like Lady Felicity to ladies of wit and substance. Not to mention, that he had witnessed her doused in pond water, along with an innumerable series of unladylike events over the years of their acquaintance.
“Lydia,” her mother ground out,sotto voce, as she pasted a beaming smile to her face and curtsied like a schoolgirl.
Apparently, no lady was immune to Warwick in his superfine coat, buff breeches, and immaculate white cravat tied in the American fashion. She had to admit he cut a debonair figure, and he quite took her breath simply by standing before her. It was not fair for a man to be so glorious to look upon.
Belatedly aware she stood mooning over Warwick as though she too were besotted by his good looks—she wasnot, she vowed—she swept into a curtsy. “Your Grace.”
His solemn gaze lingered upon her, intent and seeking, and the smile that had seemed poised to dawn over his features did not come to fruition. “Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, Lady Lydia?”
“You need not dance with me,” she said, her meaning clear.
She would not accept his pity.
“Oh, la, Lady Lydia.” Mother laughed as if she had just delivered the cleverest sally. “You do possess the most originalsens de l’humour. Of course, the duke needs to dance with you.”
“No, he does not,” Lydia denied.
The Duchess of Revelstoke’s gaze could have pierced the Spanish armada as she glared at Lydia. “Yes,” she insisted, keeping an unnatural smile affixed to her lips. “He does.”
“Do not go into high dudgeon, Mother. This is deuced awkward.” Rand’s brows snapped together as he looked from Lydia to Warwick. “Warwick has agreed to dance with Lyd as a favor, in hopes it may encourage other suitors, which she is already woefully wanting.”
Their mother’s face went scarlet. Lydia’s stomach dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her delicate slippers. She knew her brother did not realize he was occasionally an unfeeling oaf, or that he was making a cake of her before the last man in England that she wanted to think her a hopelessly on-the-shelf spinster.
But he was.
The thought gave her pause. Why should she care what the Duke of Warwick thought? Of course, she didn’t. But for some reason, she was once more ensnared in his gaze, and she swore she saw a glimmer of connection there. A lone spark kindled into a flame within her. She could not look away.
“It would be my honor to dance with you, my lady,” the duke insisted quietly, his expression serious.
She did not see pity in his gaze.
