Truly, there was no other means of describing the sound reaching his ears. It was feminine and outraged. Followed by two sets of footsteps echoing down the marble hall.
“Madam, I beg you,” said Young.
“Beg as you wish,” responded the angry hen who had caused the initial squawking and unrest, “but I shall see the Duke of Westmorland, and I shall see him now.”
What cheek.
What daring.
The effrontery of the baggage…why, it was unprecedented.
The fourth would not last any longer than the prior three, it was certain. Nettled, he rose from his desk, before skirting it and stalking toward the door. The door opened. And there stood a female.
Thefemale.
Behind her hovered an anxious-looking Young, eyebrows raised. A waterfall of protestations rained down upon the moment.
“Miss Hilgrove, I must insist you go. This is quite improper. You cannot disrupt His Grace.”
The last assertion appeared to spur the creature hovering on the threshold into action. She swept forward, small of stature and yet all womanly curves. She was golden-haired, pale of visage, and delectable of form. Her gown was dour: ebony and gray, conservative silk bereft of ornamentation.
But beneath it all hid the lush body of a woman. Her breasts were large and full. Her curves were plentiful, the sort that could not be hidden by plain dress. She was, all of her, from head to toe, woman.
And his cock sprang to life. Feminine curves were his sole weakness, and he knew it.
“Your Grace,” she greeted him.
Though to call her address a greeting was perhaps granting too much. She spoke with icy formality, dipping into a puritanical curtsey as if she were lowering herself to be in his presence.
Intriguing.
“Miss Orange Grove, was it?” he asked, deliberately baiting her as he stood and swept into a mocking bow.
Twin spots of pink flared to life in her cheeks. “It is Miss Hilgrove, Your Grace.”
He glanced to his perturbed butler, who was glaring at their unexpected interloper. “Thank you, Young. That will be all.”
When he needed to toss out this brazen woman on her rump, he would see her to the door himself. But first, he intended to amuse himself. Why not? He was already having a devil of a day.
“Of course, Your Grace.” The servant bowed elegantly, and then discreetly closed the door behind him.
Linking his hands behind his back, Benedict strolled toward the latest offering sent to him by the Ladies’ Typewriting School. She was not conventionally beautiful, this woman. But there was something about her prim bearing and tightly laced, conservative dress that intrigued him. She had the body of a Venus, and a face that was…interesting.
That was the word for it. Her eyes were too wide, and as he drew nearer, he discovered they were an astounding blue, fringed with thick lashes a shade darker than the almost wintry gold of her hair. Her lips were a full, puckered pout, her nose charmingly retroussé. But for all the softness of her face and figure, her mien was prickly as a rosebush. She held herself stiffly, rather in the fashion of an effigy at Madame Tussaud’s Waxwork Exhibition.
Her nostrils flared. “Have you finished, Your Grace?”
She referred to his unabashed perusal of her. She was bold,by God.
He liked it.
“No, I have not.” He raised a brow at her and paused, with a scant few paces separating them. “Turn.”
“I beg your pardon?” she demanded, with all the ice of a queen.
He wondered if she had ever been a governess, with that rigid spine and perfect tone of disapproval. Toying with her was proving amusing. Just the distraction he was in need of, making him forget, momentarily, about the plague that was menacing London.
A plague he was expected to purge.
