Free This Duke is Mine by Eloisa James

was beginning to struggle. He moved toward the drawing room only to realize that the fire in that room would be banked for the night. But there was a coal stove in Cleese’s silver room that was easily stoked.
    “Where are you going?” she said indignantly as he changed direction. “The coachman is out there in the rain and—”
    “Cleese will arrive in a moment,” he told her. Her lips were fascinating: full and plump, and a deeper rose color than any woman’s lips he’d seen before. “He’ll take care of your coachman.”
    “Who is Cleese?” she demanded. “And—wait! Are you taking me into the servants’ quarters?”
    “Don’t tell me that you’re one of those ladies who has never been through a baize door,” he said, turning so that he could back the two of them through the door, and then keeping it open for the dog. “Your dog looks rather like a rat thrown up on the banks of the Thames,” he added. The silver room was just to the left, so he kicked the door open.
    “Lucy does not look like a rat! And what does that have to do with anything? I am Miss Olivia Lytton and I demand . . .”
    Olivia. He liked it. He looked at her eyelashes and her plump lips. Her eyes were a beautiful color, a kind of pale sea green—or was it the color of new leaves in the spring?
    “Put me down, you rudesby!” she was saying fiercely, and not for the first time.
    He didn’t want to do that. In fact, he felt very strongly about the question, which was unlike him. Generally, he didn’t care strongly about anything other than polynomial equations. Or light. But Miss Lytton was rounded . . . beautifully rounded in all the right places. She felt right in his arms. He particularly liked the soft curve of her bottom. Not to mention the fact that she smelled wonderful, like rain and, faintly, of some sort of flower.
    “I shall inform your master!” She had a definitely threatening tone. Rather like a queen.
    He placed her gently on Cleese’s sofa, then threw a shovelful of coal into the stove and gave it a stir. Yellow flames surged up just as he swung the stove door shut, and they threw out enough light so that he got a good look at her face. She was furious, eyes narrowed, arms wound around her chest as if he were a ravisher.
    He would be happy to oblige.
    Her dog had hopped onto the sofa as well, and was perched next to Miss Lytton. The beast was only slightly larger than a Bible, but she had the fierce eyes of an attack dog.
    In fact, Lucy and Miss Lytton had a certain resemblance, though not in the nose.
    A person would always know what Miss Lytton was thinking, he realized, lighting the Argand lamp on Cleese’s sideboard. At the moment, her eyes were full of rage.
    “If you don’t fetch your master this very moment, I shall have you let go. Dismissed, and without a reference!”
    Her dog barked a sharp underline to that threat.
    He felt a strange sensation bubbling up in his chest. It took a second before he realized it was laughter. “You’re going to have me dismissed?”
    She leaped to her feet. “Stop looking at me like that! If you had a brain that was bigger than a mouse’s willy, you’d realize that I have been telling you something important!”
    At that he surprised himself with a laugh. His mother was not going to appreciate Miss Lytton’s colorful use of the English language. “I cannot lose my position. I was born to it.”
    “Even a family retainer should not be tolerated if he oversteps the bounds of propriety.”
    That sounded faintly familiar, probably because it was the sort of thing his mother said. It created an odd contrast to mouse’s willy . He’d never met a lady who’d admitted to knowing terms of that sort.
    Following his gut instinct, Quin took a step toward her, just enough so that he caught her enticing scent again. He expected her to scream at him, but she didn’t.
    “I am not a footman,” he stated.
    Their eyes met. The world of logic and reason—the world that Quin