Free Four Nights With the Duke by Eloisa James Page A

Paul’s, is it?”
    There was something endearing about his brown eyes, muzzy or not. Mia stepped away from Vander’s hands and the first genuine smile of the day came to her lips. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Cuthbert.” She curtsied.
    “You can call me Chuffy,” he said, listing a bit as hebowed. “You’ll be my—my—my niece , after all. I must have met you before, haven’t I? I mean, back when your father was diddling around with my sister-in-law?”
    “Uncle,” Vander said from behind her, his tone flinty.
    Chuffy squinted at him. “What? Are we pretending that we’ve never met the gal before? Though I don’t know as I did meet you, m’dear. Vander’s father was my brother, though his brain was all higgledy-piggledy.”
    “She knows that,” Vander stated.
    “Don’t mean that we should just stand about and stare at her as if she were a potboy dressed up in a vicar’s cassock,” Chuffy said. He managed to get himself upright and made a wobbly swipe at his head that made his hair fly into the air again. “How’s every little thing, Villiers? Didn’t expect to see you here, I must say.”
    It was interesting to discover that the most discriminating peer in London apparently counted a drunkard among his friends. “I had no idea you were in the room, Chuffy,” Villiers said, with a bow and a warm smile.
    “Well, I ain’t going to lie,” Chuffy said. “I took a little nap once I realized that the two of you were standing around nattering about the bride-to-be.”
    Mia bit her lip. It was one thing to imagine she was facing the guillotine and another to have it confirmed that people were muttering ‘Off with her head.’ So her future husband had been standing around and making fun of her. What had she expected?
    Surprisingly, Chuffy came to her defense. “You should be ashamed of yerself, Leo,” he told the duke. “You were not exactly the catch of the season yourself,you know. I never did figure out how you talked that lovely lady into accepting you, what with all those bastards of yours. Nearly a dozen of ’em, wasn’t it?”
    Villiers’s countenance had eased. “Only half a dozen. And now I have one legitimate son as well.”
    “Am I supposed to congratulate you on sowing seed in your own field?” Chuffy demanded. “You’re not one to call the kettle black, or however that goes.” He took a step closer to Mia, like an unsteady knight in tarnished armor. “Now I ain’t going to stand for any more gibble-gabbling around like a bunch of old women.”
    The Duke of Villiers nodded and said, “Chuffy, you’ve made me feel ashamed of myself.” He looked at Mia and said, “I’m sorry that you were made uncomfortable, Miss Carrington. I have known His Grace since he was a small boy, and the circumstances of his betrothal are not what I hoped for him.”
    Mia took a breath. “I apologize for those circumstances,” she said, and she meant it.
    The duke waited, as if for Mia to change her mind, simply because a duke—another duke—didn’t approve of blackmail. But she couldn’t. Charlie’s welfare was paramount, and far more important than the Duke of Villiers’s opinion.
    “ I understand why this gal wants my nephew,” Chuffy announced. “She has good taste. The boy speaks any number of languages word for word without so much as a book in the room—”
    “No, I don’t,” Vander said quietly.
    “He’s not the best looking,” Chuffy said, ignoring his nephew entirely. “But he is a duke, and comes with a title. The problem is that he’s a great quarreler.”
    Mia could see that Vander was growing angry.
    “Not like his father, though. My brother—God rest his soul—couldn’t keep his temper. But that was the fault of his brains and not he. He was a great eater of beef, and I believe it did harm to his wit.” He paused and looked expectantly at Mia.
    She nodded. Was she supposed to play name-that-quotation? She recognized the text, but it wasn’t an