Free The Duke of Christmas Past by Kim Bowman Page B

smile
twisted into a scowl.
    She'd spotted the solicitor.
    And nothing was going to save the lovers now.
    Lady Wotton tugged on Anne's slender arm, and the two
ladies prepared to abandon their teacups. But as they rose, His
Grace started to his feet as well. They'd been introduced at Lady
Forester's rout earlier in the year, so he wouldn't flout propriety
by speaking with them.
    Not that he'd ever allowed that to stop him. And
indeed, no mother with a marriageable daughter would allow his
attentions to come to naught without a fight.
    And so the game began.
     
    ****
     
    The man couldn't be serious.
    Anne didn't dare breathe as the most notorious rake
in the ton lifted her hand and kissed the air a hair's
breadth from her glove. She couldn't feel the actual touch of his
lips, but he may as well have scorched her with his heat, and her
entire arm threatened to quiver in his hand. His admiration took in
her hair, her face, the fur around the neck of her pelisse, her — attributes, and she would certainly die before he was
done. The atmosphere in the coffee house thickened, deepened, and
she didn't have to look to know every eye in the place followed his
assessment, seconded his assessment, with avid interest.
    Forget him. Her mother couldn't be
serious.
    And thankfully Mama's lips started to purse, her
smile to wane, and her eyes to narrow. The Rake — well, His Grace,
the Duke of Cumberland to the world, but The Rake in effect
— finally released her hand, murmured something — was it
"Delightful" or "Delicious"? couldn't be certain — and asked—
    —and asked Mama if they'd be at Lady Baldwin's
concert tomorrow.
    Had he ever actually pursued anyone before
consuming them? Didn't he rather corner innocent young ladies (like
her) in boxes at the theater or opera and there did whatever it was
he did with them that utterly ruined their reputations? If he
pursued her first, did that mean—
    No. It couldn't possibly mean he was serious. He was
a rake, The Rake, he'd earned the sobriquet as surely as
Messrs. Harding and Howell of Pall Mall carried the most exquisite
muslin within miles, and if she asked around doubtless she'd find
herself provided with names and horrifying details. Why she hadn't
asked before now, she couldn't imagine. She should already know all
about him, and—
    —and behind him, sweet, adorable Frederick watched
the spectacle with agony etched into his brown spaniel's eyes.
    Oh, it was all beyond mortifying, and seeing
Frederick hurt gave it an extra layer of mortifying-ness. Truly, it
was like something from a really good Gothic romance — standing in
a coffee house under assault by a notorious duke, indeed — and once
Frederick wrote that one, it would compete with The Romance of
the Forest, The Castle of Otranto, The Old English Baron . With
any of them. Frederick's romances were always the best. He could
call it The Wicked Duke and the Baronet's Daughter . After he
finished the one he was working on, of course. He'd described his
current progress last week as "grimly pushing ahead" and the
printer had been awaiting the completed manuscript for more than a
week now.
    Hopefully this agony would give him a stimulating
creative push, rather than a push down.
    And surely she contributed something, something
somewhat intelligent, while Mama and His Grace exchanged
banalities. But the very ordinariness of their conversation
completed its transformation as it drifted past into a horrifying,
distant, buzzing blur. His Grace was precisely the sort of match
Mama had been seeking for her. As if she were incapable of
selecting a suitable husband for herself. Merely because Mama was
no longer willing to even discuss Frederick and had forbidden Anne
to see or speak with him, making their assignations all too brief
and far between. He'd met her behind some trees in Hyde Park last
week, and for a few blissful minutes, it had been heaven on
earth.
    What was a duke, any duke much less this one, in comparison to