“Of course, my dear,” he reassured her grimly. “It is impossible not to attend you when you are shouting at me.”
“I amnotshouting!”
The echo of her voice in the chamber was a stark rebuttal.
He had never seen his otherwise impassive grandmother exhibit such a frenzy of emotion. She was in fine dudgeon now, twin patches of angry color on her cheeks, eyes sparking with fire.
“I apologize for the child’s unexpected arrival,” he said. “I’ll send someone to fetch her now if you’d prefer it.”
“She is a child, not a parcel.”
There was no pleasing his grandmother today.
And unfortunately, at that moment, the strains of the final aria fromLa sonnambulapierced the vexed silence that had fallen. Brandon winced, quite having forgotten that the famed soprano, Madame Auclair, had accompanied him home the previous evening. Any hopes he’d harbored of bedding her had died when she had begun to snore on the short carriage ride, the chanteuse having apparently consumed far more champagne than he had realized. He had seen her to a guest chamber.
Grandmother’s eyebrows rose. “What is thatsound?”
Dear God.What was Marie doing? The singing—whilst beautiful—was growing nearer. Where was Shilling, damn it? He relied on his butler to save him from such unfortunate circumstances.
Brandon tugged at his necktie. “Ah, opera, I believe.”
“Ah! non credea mirarti,”Marie sang.
The horror etched on his grandmother’s face would have been comical had the situation not been so disastrous. “There is anopera singerin your house?”
She may as well have said there was a rat in his house, so thorough was her disgust.
“Perhaps,” he offered noncommittally just as the drawing room door burst open.
“Sì presto estinto, o fiore.”
Marie was wearing one of his dressing gowns, her long, dark hair flowing in waves down her back. Judging by the swaying of her full breasts and her bare feet and ankles, it would appear she was completely nude beneath it. Her voice warbled at the sight that presented her—an august white-haired woman and Brandon fully dressed, a tea service between them—and then her song died entirely.
“Forgive me,” she said in heavily accented English. “I didn’t realize you had a guest.”
Grandmother’s tea fell to the floor, the delicate porcelain breaking into shards.
CHAPTER 2
“I’m afraid I must decline the generous invitation to your home, Lady Grenfell.”
Lottie stared at the Duke of Brandon, certain she had misheard him in the noise of the ballroom crush. Tonight wasthenight, she had told herself as she had prepared hertoiletteearlier that evening. The night she persuaded London’s greatest lover to accompany her home so that she might experience his legendary bedroom prowess herself. They had been dancing about each other, traveling in the same circles, Lottie having been invited to not one buttwoof Brandon’s balls.
The time had come for more.
She moved subtly nearer to him, knowing all too well the way her latest corset from Mrs. Loveton put her ample breasts on display in her daring evening gown. “I must have misheard you, Your Grace. The ballroom is so dreadfully loud. What did you say?”
His startling green gaze dropped to her decolletage for only a moment before meeting her eyes again. “I said I must regretfully decline.”
She felt like a sail ship in the absence of wind.
“Decline,” she repeated stupidly, heat creeping up her throat to her cheeks.
Oh, blast her red hair. Nothing made her more cross than her uncontrollable propensity for blushing whenever she was embarrassed.
But then, this went beyond mere embarrassment. Utter humiliation, she thought with grim self-loathing, would be a far more apt description of her present state.
“Indeed, I fear I have other engagements this evening that preclude me from joining you later.” Brandon smiled, and the effect was as devastating as ever, despite his easy dismissal.
