Page 20
Unlike the mincing pups and foppish dandies she’d encountered on the Continent, James possessed an impressive physique. Well-muscled, his face a healthy shade, rather than pasty, and his fingers ink-stained and slightly calloused.
As he opened the door and poked his head out, she made her way to the sofa. She dropped her gloves and reticule on the table centered before the manly piece of furniture and then on impulse, removed her navy-blue bonnet. After placing it beside her other possessions, she flattened a palm over her fluttering stomach and sank onto the unexpectedly comfortable cushion.
Stop it, Regine Daphne Philippa Maberly! she scolded herself. You aren’t a green schoolgirl.
James turned from the door and giving her another incandescent smile, he winked. Roguish and charming, and wholly unexpected. But oh, so very welcome.
Her ragged heartbeat quickened into a gallop, and the sun itself seemed to ease into the room, filling the space with golden warmth and radiance.
Instead of taking one of the chairs across from her, he settled beside Regine, his sculpted mouth kicked upward at the corners.
Why did James have to have such a lovely mouth?
She glanced downward, only to have his defined, muscular thigh catch her attention. A groan almost escaped her. The carved marble and stone masterpieces she’d viewed in Grecian temples had nothing on the virile man inches from her. So close, in fact, his sandalwood and shaving lotion aromas wafted past. She curled her toes against an overwhelming urge to bury her face in his corded neck and breathe him in.
Duchesses didn’t sniff men.
Nay, but country lasses might.
“James.”
“Regine.”
They spoke simultaneously and then gave a short laugh.
“Ladies first,” James said with a gallant dip of his head.
However, before Regine could tell him what had been burning in her heart, a quiet rap preceded the entry of a fresh-faced clerk bearing a tray.
His ears glowing red, the young man very carefully paced to the table, and ever-so-slowly bent and deposited the tray. He breathed out an audible sigh of relief when he straightened.
“Thank you, Bentley,” James said with an encouraging smile.
“Will there be anything else, Mr. Brentwood?” Bentley slid Regine a side-eyed, inquisitive glance.
“No, thank you.” Hilarity colored James’s denial, but in no way did his expression reveal his amusement.
After bending into a stiff bow, Bentley let himself out.
“I believe, Your Grace, you have conquered another male heart.” Rubbing his nose with his forefinger, James chuckled. “I’ll wager there is a long queue of males from pimply-faced youths to doddery decrepitudes awaiting a kind word or a smile from you.”
Regine flashed him an astonished glance. “There is no such thing.”
Would she have noticed if there were?
No, for though she might’ve been married to one man, her heart had remained faithful to another. It always would.
More because she needed something to do, or she might stupidly blurt her feelings and embarrass them both, she examined the refreshments. Her eyes rounded, and she shot James an astonished glance. “Maid of honor tarts?”
And shortbread and Naples biscuits. All of her favorites.
“Yes.” His eyes twinkled with familiar jollity.
Oh, how she’d long to see that gleam there.
He’d planned this, and joy sluiced through her.
“James.” She waved a hand over the tray, her smile a trifle unsteady, and a sheen of moisture blurring her vision. “You remembered.”
