Free One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe

of a handful of young ladies to be given prime consideration for the honor of bearing a future ruler of England.
    It hadn’t seemed real until now.
    Numbly, she walked out the parlor doors and down the stairs to the library. Her kid soles seemed to swish the same message on each pair of steps: “Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks.”

Eight
    Georgette chattered nonstop through Grosvenor Square. She changed topics several times and barely paused for a breath. All that was required of Nate was an occasional grunt of agreement or merely a nod if she happened to glance his way. As the cab neared the Mayfair establishment of Madam Reynard, the exclusive modiste who clothed the Yorkingham women, along with a few select others from among the top tier of the ton, Georgette launched into a second rehashing of her mother’s recommendations for the color of her new gown. She didn’t seem to recognize that there was only so much one could say about red.
    Nathaniel let her talk. She obviously needed to.
    Besides, he enjoyed hearing her voice, even if the words were running together and one sentence spilled onto the next without a proper break. Obviously she was excited about the upcoming ball, but he sensed it wasn’t simply girlish anticipation. He detected a glint of terror in her eyes each time she mentioned the royal duke. Finally he stopped her by pressing two fingers to her lips.
    “I collect that you’re wound up, Georgette. Women generally are when a ball and a new gown are in the offing,” he said. “But something tells me you’re vexed as well.”
    Her brows tented in obvious consternation. “It’s that apparent?”
    “Probably not to anyone but me. But then, I am attending to you rather closely.” Against his expectations, he liked paying attention to Georgette. The mercurial change of expressions that flitted across her features made her face a constant feast for his eyes. “Now what’s bothering you?”
    She gnawed her lower lip for a bit, long enough for him to wish he could suckle it as well.
    “I simply don’t know how I’ll manage it,” she finally admitted.
    “Manage what?”
    She looked out the window, but he suspected she wasn’t interested in the foot traffic on the street. She was avoiding his gaze.
    “Well, if you must know, although my parents are all agog with the idea, I’m not particularly keen on the match with the Duke of Cambridge.”
    He snorted. “Most women would be in raptures at the thought of becoming royalty.”
    Part of him was very glad Georgette wasn’t “most women.”
    “I suspect the entire business of being royal is a great deal of trouble most of the time, but I suppose I could get used to that ,” she said as if becoming a princess were as fine a thing as developing a bunion.
    She was so different from any other woman of his acquaintance. He shot an approving grin at her.
    “Then if it’s not the bother of being addressed as ‘Your Royal Highness,’” he said, “what is it that troubles you about the match?”
    “Other than the fact that I know next to nothing about the duke himself, you mean?”
    “What is there to know? The Duke of Cambridge is King George’s sixth son. His Christian name is Augustus Frederick, but no one calls him that.”
    Nate could have added that the duke had already tried to marry Lady Augusta Murray twice, but each time the secret liaison was set aside because King George refused to approve it. If Georgette didn’t know that the Duke of Cambridge had already sired a couple of recognized bastards, that was all to the good. It certainly wasn’t the sort of information that would calm her fears.
    “The Duke of Cambridge may not ever wear the crown himself, but if all goes as he plans, he’ll put his progeny on the throne after Prinny,” Nathaniel said. “That’s all most women would care to know.”
    He might have imagined it, but he thought she shivered a bit.
    “That’s not nearly enough information. There’s an ocean of