Free How to Dazzle a Duke by Claudia Dain Page A

house, Miss Prest
    wick? Or do you keep them in all year?”
    Every eye in the room was fixated upon Miss Prestwick, who
    did not look at all pleased by the attention. Most peculiar girl.
    Penelope Prestwick looked first at Cranleigh, then at her
    brother, giving him something of an accusatory glance, then
    looked stonily at Sophia Dalby. Sophia returned the look and
    made no effort to reply. Indeed, the entire party was waiting in
    near comical anticipation for her reply about the summer loca
    tion of her roses.
    They were very nice roses. He’d been in the conservatory
    during the Prestwick ball and seen them. Very nice. It was actu
    ally a point in her favor that she could tend them so well, a full
    bounty of them, too. The room nearly filled to bursting with red,
    pink, and blush white roses. One would think she’d be eager to
    display her talent for roses, but Miss Prestwick was decidedly
    unpredictable in her responses to the most straightforward of
    prompts, one being her romantic and marital inclinations.
    He was in his absolute prime.
    Miss Prestwick seemed to collect herself, gathering a rather
    How to Daz zle a Duke
    59
    firm breath, and then said in a rush, “I put them out on June the
    first, Lord Cranleigh, and then promptly back in on the fifteenth
    of September. I have them on a very strict schedule that is de
    signed to both give them ample opportunity to flourish under the
    gentle summer sun and to protect them from an erratic wind. I
    have yet to lose a single bush.”
    Why she sounded so martial about it, he had no idea.
    Her brother coughed and straightened himself on his chair,
    keeping his gaze on his feet.
    Cranleigh recrossed his legs and nodded amiably. Cranleigh
    never did anything amiably. Iveston knew in that instant that
    something was very amiss regarding Miss Prestwick and the
    Prestwick roses. Given that he was in his prime and she appeared
    blind to that fact, he decided to probe the wound, even if
    lightly.
    “And your lovely roses weren’t damaged the night of your
    ball, Miss Prestwick? I believe that many of your guests enjoyed
    the beauties of your conservatory that night, myself included.”
    Miss Prestwick fixed him with a glittering glare. Her eyes
    were quite dark, nearly black, and glittered quite spectacularly.
    “Roses have thorns, Lord Iveston, and therefore protect them
    selves most effi ciently.”
    Which, naturally, brought the subject round to Amelia’s torn
    gown and the haggard mess of Miss Prestwick’s shawl. Most stu
    pid of her to mention thorns, unless she wanted to muddy Ame
    lia’s name. But with Cranleigh in the room? She couldn’t be that
    backward, could she?
    It did seem possible.
    “But not from an erratic wind, it would seem,” Sophia said
    into the somewhat brittle silence. Miss Prestwick did seem to
    do that to a conversation. Could it possibly be intentional on
    her part?
    Ridiculous notion.
    60 CLAUDIA DAIN
    Iveston glanced at Edenham. Edenham, far from looking put
    off or even bored, looked very nearly jolly. Was it possible . . .
    could it be that Edenham and little Miss Prestwick had formed
    an attachment of sorts? But when? And more to the point, why?
    Iveston looked at her again. Yes, yes, she was pretty enough,
    the shape of her face quite nice and her brow a thing of true
    greatness, but her nose . . . it was a bit small and wasn’t it a bit
    like a dairymaid’s in pertness? Not at all the thing. Still, her
    mouth wasn’t at all bad and her bodice filled out more than
    respectably.
    But Edenham’s latest duchess?
    Impossible.
    Fredericks, Sophia’s butler, entered at that moment to an
    nounce another caller.
    “Viscount Tannington is calling, Lady Dalby,” Fredericks
    said, surveying the room with a nearly amused gaze. How odd,
    but then, Fredericks had that reputation.
    “At this hour?” Sophia said. “It’s half six. But he does owe
    me money, so let him enter, Freddy. A man with coin is always
    welcome.”
    “It’s how I got