Free Mad for Love by Elizabeth Essex

the absolutely fearless Mr. Andrews sauntered over to her. “My dear Miss Blois,” he said as if he had happened upon her purely by chance. “Good evening.”  
    “Oh, no. You.” She would have made her escape, but the duke had left her in a corner, in more ways than one.  
    “Me. Now that’s not a very cordial greeting for an old friend.” Mr. Andrews had no shame—he smiled easily, as if he attended such exclusive events every night. “I went to some considerable trouble to remove your inconvenient suitor for a few moments.”
    “Inconvenient? For whom?” The cheek of the man was absolutely astonishing. “Who let you in?”
    “Lovely to see ye as well, Miss Blois.” He took the hand she had not offered, and raised her glove to his lips. “Suffice it to say, I make friends wherever I go.”
    Oh, he was the most charming of gentleman rogues, there was no doubt about that. “There is, I suppose, no accounting for taste.”
    He was such a rogue that he laughed in agreement. “Quite. But there is something I must tell ye. Why don’t we dance?”  
    “No.” She instantly refused. God forbid she be in a thief’s confidence—any more than she already was. “There is nothing I should like to hear from you, sir.”
    “It’s important.” He steered her a little deeper into the corner, and looked around in his furtive, thief’s manner, as if he, like the duc , wanted to impart some great confidence. “Oh, damn his eyes, he’s coming back. There’s no time.” Andrews backed toward the long glass doors at the end of the room. “Ye must meet me. Come to Brooks’s,” he suggested.
    “A gentleman’s club?” Mignon was even more astonished at his cheek than ever. “You are mad.”
    “Probably.” He flashed that sparkling grin at her, and she felt all the irresistibility of his charm. “Brooks’s!” he whispered once more before he slipped away into the crowd.
    “Ah, my dear mamselle.” Duke of Bridgewater had returned in all his pomp and glory. “Now, where were we?”
    Mignon gathered what was left of her tattered her composure and threadbare courage to withstand the coming blow. “You were telling me about my father and his collection.”
    “Ah, yes.” The duke himself took a deep fortifying breath. “I hate to have to tell you this, Miss Blois, but I arranged our meeting.”
    It was just as she feared. Dread seeped like cold sea water into her lungs, slowly drowning her. But still she had to ask, “Why, sir?”
    “Because I must have it. I must. I am utterly possessed by it. It has permeated my spirit—it haunts me.”
    Mignon was all confusion—this was not at all what she had expected to hear.   Perhaps the duc was being a gentleman, and trying to break the news to her gently? “What haunts you, Your Grace?”
    “The Verrocchio Diana, of course.”
    “Oh.” It took a long, nerveless moment for her brain to send the news to her lungs before she felt she could breathe again. Mignon took a gratefully deep breath—she did not know when she had been so relieved not to feel special.
    “I am sorry for such an ungentlemanly behavior, but I am not myself,” the duke admitted in apology. “I am a man obsessed. You must make him sell it to me. You must. I’ve offered him ten thousand guineas.”
    “You poor man.” She shook her head, both in relief, and willing him to understand. “The Verrocchio is not for sale. It never shall be.”
    He frowned at her in complete consternation—like a fish out of water, wide-mouthed and gasping. Uncomprehending that anything he wanted might not immediately become his.  
    “I wish it were in my power to simply give her to you.” Mignon was so relieved, she patted his hand in consolation. “You poor, darling man.” And then she leaned up and placed an impulsive kiss upon his cool, ruddy cheek.
    “Why, Miss Blois!” His Grace, Monsieur le duc was all astonishment—he put a hand to his cheek in disbelief. “You…kissed me.”
    She did