Chapter 7
Adam was fairly certain that Lady Hortense Larkin’s mother was going to murder him. Certainly, if a withering stare could kill, he would have dropped down dead upon the Duke of Rivers’ beautiful inlaid wood ballroom floor.
He wasn’t supposed to be dancing with another lady.
He was supposed to be dancing with Lady Larkin’s daughter. In truth, he could understand Lady Larkin’s frustration. After all, a certain plan had been made, and he was not sticking to it.
To people like Lady Larkin, plans should be adhered to. Actually to him, plans should be adhered to.
All his life, he had been very good at adhering to plans. That’s how people kept wealth. That’s how people kept power, and he’d seen far too many lords throw away their wealth and their power because they couldn’t stick to a plan.
Whether it was at the gambling house or in trade deals or just poor spending, most people, even those born with it, struggled to keep power and money.
They loved to get rid of it, but not himself and not his family.
And so this action, said action being dancing with Miss Allen, felt quite jarring to his soul, but he had to do it. Something in him, like a fierce cry from his soul, had taken over his limbs and overridden his usually very logical brain.
He’d been so close to leaving Rivers’ house.
He’d already put one foot in the foyer and was just about ready to call for his coach because she was too tempting.
She was everything that Westfort dukes did not want for their duchesses.
She was affable. She was funny. She was irreverent.
She was beautiful. She was from a family that was far beneath his and, frankly, had a great deal of eccentric ideas.
He’d heard about the Allens. After he’d left her company, he’d recalled their name and their rather odd ideas about education, children, and life.
And yet, here he was with her in his arms.
“You have the strangest look upon your features,” she mused, her blue eyes sparkling as if she found him to be terribly amusing. “Have you smelled something quite odd?” She leaned forward and whispered sotto voce, “I promise it’s not me.”
He choked on a guffaw. “I beg your pardon?”
“Let me be plain, since my playfulness did not work,” she began. “What is it that is causing you so much distress?”
“You care about my distress?” he found himself saying. No one had ever really observed his distress. He was excellent at concealing it.
She made a pfft sound. “How could I not care about your distress, or anyone’s?”
“You’ll find most people do not care about others’ distress.”
“I am not interested in the behaviors of the masses, unless I wish to help improve them.”
He gaped at her.
“This dance with me? We can cease if you wish. I never meant to bully you into it.”
“You? Bully me into something?” He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that quite took him by surprise, for she was in complete earnest. “Not possible, my dear.”
“Then why did you return and ask me to dance in such a way, if I had not somehow bullied you into it?”
He leaned down ever so slightly, studying her sensual pink lips. “I came back because I didn’t want to leave a lady disappointed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Somehow, that is worse. You came back because you felt guilty? Why do I feel like you’re more than capable of leaving a lady disappointed? No doubt half the ladies in this room will be disappointed by you. What makes me special?”
“That is a very terrible thing to say,” he exclaimed, taken aback. “I promise you I have never left a lady disappointed… Unless I didn’t know about it.”
She snorted. Then snorted again. “From what I see, gentlemen are always leaving ladies disappointed, but the ladies are always trying to protect the gentlemen from their own feelings, lest he throws a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old.”
He arched a brow, not quite knowing what to make of her and finding that he enjoyed it immensely. Was this how people of her ilk talked?
“No one has ever asserted that I was a grown-up child before.”
“Are you?” she asked.
He laughed again. “No. I don’t think I am.”
“Nor do I, but many men are.” She tilted her head to the side. “But do not think that you haven’t raised the hopes of many ladies just by existing as a duke.”
He blinked, finally understanding. “Are you referring to all of the hopeful mamas and their daughters? Because really they never should have gotten their hopes up. Becoming a duchess is an incredibly difficult thing and quite rare,” he said factually, and without the need to apologize for his assessment.
“The work that goes into becoming a duchess has nothing to do with the meeting of a gentleman and a lady in a ballroom. Not really.”
She gave a melodramatic sigh as he whirled her around the room. “Well, I see I can count myself out then.”
He was fairly certain his eyes bulged. “Forgive me, I didn’t know that you wanted to be considered for the position.”
And the truth was he could see her in several positions.
All with him worshiping her. All with them tangled in his bed, on his floor, on any number of tables.
She singed his blood and made him ache. And if she was his wife, he could have her all day, every day, and in any way.
Suddenly, the need to pull her tight and feel her against him and never let her go was so entirely overwhelming he almost couldn’t breathe.
He bit his lower lip, trying to make himself focus.
But all he could think of was her, in a duchess’ coronet, wearing nothing else, as he made her cheeks turn pink from a very different exertion than a mere waltz.
“Are you applying?” he growled.
As if she could somehow sense the change in him, his desire, his body’s need for her, she let out a peep of a noise, one that sounded as if she wasn’t certain if she should run or surrender. “I don’t know. Should I?”
Every part of him wanted to drag her off that ballroom floor, then show her why he should make her his. “You certainly aren’t suited to the position,” he managed.
Her lips parted and her breasts rose and fell in rapid breaths, as if her own body longed for what his wished, but her mind? Her mind was clearly rioting and ready to retaliate.
He absolutely loved it. Loved how she looked. Loved how she looked ready to give as good as she got.
She pursed her lips, sniffed, and replied, “Well, that’s quite insulting.”
“It’s not,” he said. “As you said, it’s just the truth. You were not raised to be a duchess. Most people aren’t. Most people don’t really want to be duchess. Most people wouldn’t really want to be a duke. Everyone thinks about how wonderful it would be, but most dukes are miserable people.”
Her eyes searched his face and he saw the question. Are you miserable then?
But she did not ask it.
Rather, as he turned her under his arm and they circled each other, she said quite frankly, “Yes, actually Cora and I were just discussing that, and she seemed to think it would be lots of good fun to have as many horses and coaches as you do.”
He sighed. “I do think horses are magnificent. I do have several good coaches. I have large houses that are very cold most of the year around and quite drafty,” he added. “My clothes are superior, and I can aid a great many people, but I don’t think that most people would really want my life.”
“What’s so terrible about it then?” she prompted. “Enlighten me so I know that I’m lucky when I escape your clutches, rather than disappointed.”
“My clutches?” he echoed, moving them about slowly, trailing his hand up close to her face, turning her again under his arm so that their arms made a window for them to gaze through as they turned.
She licked her lips as she tilted her head back. “Yes, life is only worth living if one can be a trifle dramatic about it.”
“Am I to be the villain in this drama, then?” he asked as he turned her out slowly and rotated back, allowing his fingertips to skim her side ever so slightly through her silk gown.
“No, no,” she rushed, even as her eyes searched over his face.
“The hero, then?” he murmured.
“In dramas,” she pointed out, “the hero also often does rather questionable things, like kidnap the lady of his desire.”
“Do you wish to be kidnapped?” he teased, but shockingly the idea was very much in line with his whole fantasy to drag her out of the ballroom and teach her exactly what he longed for them to do together.
“It could be fun for a fortnight,” she teased. “If I was in a play or a book.”
“And then you’d want to go back to your regular life?” he mused.
Her brows rose ever so slightly. “You seem to think that I would prefer my regular life to being with you. And I think this conversation alone likely precludes me from being a duchess. I cannot have boring conversations. But I wish to know. Tell me why most would not wish to have your life.”
The truth was if she was a duchess, she could say whatever she liked. And suddenly, he loved that idea. Loved it in a dangerous and irrational way. What would it be like to see someone like Miss Allen with such an opportunity?
He sucked in a breath. “I get up before the sun comes up. I splash my face with cold water, and I immediately go to work. I run most of what’s going on in Parliament with a few other dukes and lords. I try to keep control of the situation with the king.”
Her eyes flared. “Oh dear, can you tell me about the situation with the king?”
“No,” he said swiftly. The last thing anyone who was close to the king could do was share how extremely tenuous things were.
“Everyone thinks he’s going mad or that he could go mad or that something’s not quite right, and everyone is terribly worried about Prince George.”
“Prince George is a very complicated figure, and you have a great deal of opinions,” he said.
“Of course I have opinions.”
“Well, you look like a bonbon. And most unmarried ladies do not voice opinions in their first Season, lest they be branded bluestockings.”