Jealousy and esteem warred within as he stared at those insubordinate coal eyes. “But like a mild doe, some women require delicate handling. Spitting cats, I have found, need firmer treatment, a strong hand at their scruff.”
Her eyes flared and his whole body coiled in anticipation, awaiting…
“And churlish, covetous wolfhounds need a tight leash and muzzle. Mayhap I should purchase both for any future encounter we may have. Preferably in black to match your foul moods and clothing. Good night, Your Grace.”
Rakecombe watched Miss Quinlan sashay across the terrace and into the light, a saucy swing to her hips.
So, she’d seek to tame him with a leash, would she? He wanted to laugh out loud but that wasn’t very ducal.
“You can come out now, Bluey,” he barked instead.
A lathy man materialised from behind a topiary cockerel, a smirk on his foxy face, and Rakecombe’s eyes crossed as he attempted to observe both the retreating Miss Quinlan and the emerging informant.
They had agreed to convene here as Bluey had business in the area – he wouldn’t ask what – and he himself had promised to accompany his mother home from this ball. Dearmaterwas bound to have a litany of complaints in the carriage regarding his absence from the ballroom, his unmarried state, his disappearances, but at least it was only a short ride back to Grosvenor.
But then, as fate would have it, he’d spied the tame Sherburn drooling over the wild Miss Quinlan and temptation had beckoned.
“My apologies, Bluey, for the delay.”
“No worries, Guv. I would’ve done the same. I likes a woman with bottom. And what a bottom,” he said with appreciation.
Rakecombe momentarily considered poisoning Bluey with the secondary device in his cane, but he was an inordinately useful informant for the Crown, so instead he followed the chap’s gaze.
The impudent Miss Quinlan swished through Lady Castlethorpe’s French doors, that silk-clad bottom lovingly etched in the candlelight.
Indeed.
Chapter Two
Such a hullabaloo.
“Why did Miss Gibbon faint when I asked her to pass the platter of chicken thighs? Saints and their harps, she nearly toppled the entire supper table.”
In answer to her question, Aideen received an exasperated purse of the lips from her friend Cordelia and a voluble sigh from Mrs Beckford.
Tapping her chin, she asked again, “Should I have requested the footman do it? But the thighs were only at her left elbow.”
Mrs Beckford looked up from her embroidery hoop with puckered brow, a perfect silk lion adorning the material. “You should have requested the services of a footman, yes, but that was not the reason.”
Cordelia, who’d capably sewed a magnificent rabbit, scooted close on the pink-striped sofa. “It was because you used that word.”
“Which word? Chicken?”
“No,” Cordelia replied, smiling wanly, although whether it was at chickens or Aideen’s embroidery efforts, she wasn’t sure. “The…body part,” she whispered. “Body parts are unmentionable.”
Bejabbers.
Aideen had suspected that might be the reason, but really?
Stabbing the white silk with her needle, she added a lolling tongue to her Irish wolfhound, a personal joke at the Duke of Rakecombe’s expense, but the wolfhound jeered at her and more likely resembled a fire-breathing dragon.
They all sat in the drawing room of the Beckford house on Conduit Street, endeavouring to while away the morning fashioning cushion covers.
Never having had the patience for sewing, however, Aideen threw her hoop to one side and watched Cordelia as she dextrously twiddled her needle to produce an elegant French knot.
Without doubt, her young friend was extremely gifted at proper ladies’ accomplishments and ’twas no wonder she’d become betrothed to Viscount Oakdean so early in the Season – embroidery aside, she also sang like an angel, played pianoforte like Mozart and had a peaches and cream complexion.
The only oddity to Cordelia was her mother, who insisted on dressing her in ruffles and treating her as though she belonged in the schoolroom – but no one should be blamed for their parents’ peculiarities.
