The Duke (30 page)

“But surely, I'd not look pretty if ye beat me.”

He managed to maintain a fierce look and at the same time he lowered his voice to an intimate whisper. “Never would I harm yer beauty, Connie, but I would, mayhap, take my hand to yer lovely bottom. Aye, I'd pull ye over my thighs and pull up all yer petticoats and then, well, don't tempt me.” He watched her wet
her lower lip with her tongue. He added quickly, “Perhaps I'll pull ye over my thighs and pull up yer petticoats just because I want to. Just because it would give me pleasure to do it. Just because I'd want to see how beautiful and white ye are, how soft ye feel beneath my fingers.”

She'd turned a delicious shade of pink. Her lips were parted. She was staring up at him as if she'd never really seen him before. He was a genius.

“I think, Connie, that ye'll wed with me—in August, the day after ye turn seventeen. I have no intention of waiting for ye longer.”

She gave him a sloe-eyed look that made him want to strip off her clothes and throw her onto the moss-covered ground. She lightly touched her fingertips to his cheek. She nodded.

He promptly pulled her tightly against his chest and kissed her. Ah, he thought as her lips parted for him, he was indeed a master. And it was only his first try at it.

T
he duke looked about the crowded drawing room. Brandy wasn't here. Where the devil was she? He hadn't seen her all day. What game was she playing now? He found that he was looking forward to seeing what she'd do. He liked being surprised, he realized, and she was good at surprising him. Ian forgot her games for a moment when Bertrand entered, his face a picture of satisfaction.

“My dear fellow,” the duke said with a grin, “can I assume from the jubilant expression on your face that you've won the damsel?”

“Aye, that ye can. But please don't say anything just yet. I want to announce our engagement right and proper at the dinner table.”

Ian realized suddenly that Bertrand was looking past him, toward the door, his mouth agape. “Good God,” he said, sounding utterly nonplussed.

Ian turned about to see Brandy gracefully entering the drawing room. Jesus, he thought, sucking in his breath, staring at her like a benighted fool. She wore the blue velvet gown he had bought for her in Edinburgh. She was walking straight and tall, her shoulders back. Her glorious breasts blossomed above the bodice. She had fashioned her hair high atop her head, threaded with a matching blue velvet ribbon. Two long
curls rested provocatively over her bare shoulders. He was delighted at her transformation. Actually, he couldn't quite believe it. Where there'd been the girl, now there was the woman, and surely there could be no lovelier a woman than she. She'd been right, her cleavage started nearly at her neck. He grinned, picturing her outrage when he would agree with her later this night.

He saw, with some amusement, that like Bertrand, the rest of the family were held for a moment in speechless silence.

Brandy searched out his eyes and drew herself up even straighter at the wicked approval she read there.

Constance found her tongue and blurted out, “Brandy, what have ye done to yerself? How did ye manage to arrange yer hair like that? I thought ye knew only how to plait braids. And yer—well, yer bosom. I didn't know ye had such, well, never mind. It's amazing. Ye're beautiful and so very different than ye were just yesterday.”

Lady Adella gave a sudden roar of laughter. “Shut your mouth, all of ye, and that means ye as well, Claude. Pull yer tongue back in yer mouth and yer popping eyes back into yer head. Well, child, ye're no longer pretending to be a scraggly weed. Come here and let me get a closer look at ye. Goodness gracious, don't ye look just like I did when I was yer age.”

“Surely not,” the duke said. “Never could she aspire to such heights.”

Bertrand, who had long held the belief that his Constance was, at least in the physical sense, far more mature than Brandy, managed to say, “Ye look lovely, Brandy. The dress Ian bought ye becomes ye perfectly, as does everything else.”

“It's damned unsettling,” Claude said. “She was a little girl and now she looks like a damned queen. It makes my poor gout flare. It makes my heart beat
erratically staring at those other parts of her that she's always kept covered until this evening.”

Brandy just nodded and sat down, not at Lady Adella's feet but in the chair next to hers. She knew she'd caused a stir. She'd been scared to death, truth be told, but when she'd walked into the drawing room and seen Ian, that had been all she needed. She was beautiful. All of her was beautiful. Even her breasts. So Uncle Claude's heart was beating erratically. That was interesting. She smiled at Ian. The look in his eyes was worth all of it. Wicked, wicked man.

“Now if ye'll only stop chewing yer fingernails, miss,” Lady Adella said. “Even when I was yer age and looking even more beautiful than ye do now, I didn't chew on my fingernails.”

Only Crabbe displayed no outward emotion upon seeing Brandy. “Dinner, yer grace.”

The duke rose and crossed to Brandy. “May I have the honor, Miss Robertson, of escorting you to dinner?”

“Since ye've asked me with proper respect and deference, yer grace, I suppose it would be very small of me to say nay to ye.”

“Never
small,
” he whispered close to her ear, “and I'll thank you never to say nay to me either.”

Wicked, she thought. Utterly wicked. She loved him dearly.

He said pensively as they walked across the entrance hall toward the dining room, “Did you think me so unwilling last night that you decided you had to take special pains with your outward plumage? Aren't I fortunate to have you both in your glorious gown and in your equally enticing natural state?”

“I was thinking just the same thing about ye, Ian. Ah, that first night when I ran into yer bedchamber and there ye were, standing there for me to admire and even study, aye, now that I really think about it,
ye were absolutely preening for me, just like a peacock. Then I saw you in yer evening clothes. Such a contrast, and yet now that I can have you both ways, I will consider myself as fortunate as ye consider yerself.”

“Have I just been outwitted?”

She gave him a beatific smile.

Ian seated Brandy, then walked to the head of the table. He said in a low voice to Crabbe, who stood at his elbow, “Be so good as to unearth several bottles of champagne, will you, Crabbe?”

Bertrand found that he could contain himself only until Morag and Crabbe took themselves out of the dining room. At a wink from the duke, he cleared his throat and sent Constance a quick, reassuring smile.

“I would like to say, Father, Lady Adella, that in spite of yer infernal meddling and yer crass attempts at matchmaking, Constance has finally convinced me that it is my filial duty to comply with yer wishes and wed with her. In short, she'll be my wife in August after she turns seventeen. Aye, I'm a dutiful son, willing to go to almost any lengths to please my sire.”

“Bertie,” Constance cried. “Ye think yerself so amusing, do ye?”

“Let him crow, Connie,” Brandy said. “Men need to crow and bray. It makes them puff up, like peacocks. I'm so happy for ye.”

“I told ye, Claude,” Lady Adella said with a huge grin, “that it would be more likely that our Connie would seduce Bertie. But it's odd. It doesn't seem to have happened that way at all. What, Bertrand, have you done to my granddaughter?”

“It's what he will do to her,” Claude said, and laughed. “From the look in his eyes, it'll be a long time before the girl will be able to walk properly. It's to be hoped now that our little lass here can keep ye from that trollop in the village.”

Bertrand almost groaned. Damn his father and his loose mouth. He looked at Constance. To his surprise, she was preening, tossing that lovely black hair of hers, obviously pleased with the utterly outrageous remark from his sire.

“He'll nay look at another woman, Uncle Claude, I promise ye,” Constance said, and Bertrand nearly swallowed his tongue. Oh, God, he had to wait until August?

“So ye'll wed in August,” Lady Adella said. She frowned. Then she primly pursed her lips and remarked with her own unique perversity. “I think, Claude, that the child is much too young for marriage. What with Bertie's pleasures in the village, believe ye not that he can wait to wed with her for two or three years?”

“Grandmama, I'll be seventeen.”

“Lady Adella,” Bertrand said smoothly, wondering what the old relic was up to now, “wasn't Constance's mother but sixteen when she wedded yer son?”

“Hoisted on your own petard, ma'am,” the duke said.

Claude looked confused. He looked as if he'd just come into a room and thus didn't understand what people were talking about. “What is this, lady, ye want to butter yer bread on both sides?”

“Aye, and in the middle too,” Brandy said.

“Ye can shut yer mouth, my fine little lady. At least our Constance has secured herself a husband, while ye, ye silly child, will probably hang on my sleeve till ye've got gray hair.” To her surprise, Brandy just grinned shamelessly at her. She turned to Bertrand for better bait. “So, my bucky lad, ye've tied up everything right and tight? May I ask why ye didn't ask my permission or yer father's afore ye approached my little Connie? After all, what can a young girl like
Connie know about the ways of men? Aye, my boy, ye didn't do the right thing at all.”

The duke, who was vastly enjoying himself, said, “Surely, Lady Adella, you could never think Bertrand so remiss? Let me reassure you completely. Bertrand was very proper. Before he approached Constance, he asked my permission.”

“Yer permission,” Lady Adella roared. “Who gives a sheep's offal for yer permission, my fine duke?”

“Why, I'm her guardian, ma'am.”

“Look ye, duke or no duke, ye're impertinent and I don't like it.” She drew up, her expression suddenly wily. “Ah, then as her guardian, my dear duke, may I ask what ye intend to do for her? I'll nay let her go empty-handed to her husband.”

“No,” the duke said, his voice calm as the North Sea this evening, “of course, I have no intention of doing so.” He paused and looked first at Claude, then at Bertrand. “I want you all to listen to me. You remember, of course, that someone wants me dead. Indeed, that person may still want me dead. It only makes sense that what was true two months ago is still true today, whatever that something may be. However, I am as certain in my own mind as I can be that you, Bertrand, were in no way responsible, or you, Claude.”

He was silent for a moment, looking at the sea of questioning faces around the table.

“I'm of the further belief that an Englishman, despite the fact that he holds circuitous blood ties to Scotland, shouldn't hold a Scottish estate or title. I think that I have come to better understand Scotland, its people, and its traditions. A Scottish earldom must have a Scottish master, it's only right and just. Therefore, as soon as Claude and Bertrand have been reinherited under Scottish law, I intend that both the earldom and Penderleigh revert to them, just as it
would have if the old earl had not cut Douglass, Claude's father, out of what was rightfully his. That, Lady Adella, is, I suppose, in part my dowry to Constance. She will someday become the Countess of Penderleigh.”

“That's what ye were so intent upon this morning when I tried to talk to ye,” Bertrand said, so startled that he could think of nothing else to say.

“Yes, in part.”

“I'll be damned,” Claude said, staring at the duke as if he'd never seen him before. “I'll be damned and damned yet again. This makes my heart beat more erratically than looking at Brandy's bos—than looking at the lasses. I'll be damned.”

“Explain yerself, yer grace,” Lady Adella screeched. The duke thought for a moment that she'd hurl her fork at him. Why the devil was she angry?

The duke raised a quieting hand to still the babble of voices. “There's really nothing more to explain, lady, save that, as I said, a Scottish earldom belongs to the Scots, just as it is appropriate that as an Englishman I hold English lands.”

“The English are rapacious bastards, greedy and vicious,” Lady Adella said. “The English don't just turn over property and titles.”

The duke just grinned at her. “Perhaps I have tainted blood that makes me unnatural.”

“But ye've poured
English
money into Penderleigh,” Bertrand said.

“Yes, it was needed. Now that all the raw materials have been fine-tuned, so to speak, Penderleigh will turn a fine profit, particularly, Bertrand, under your fine management.”

“I'll be the earl of Penderleigh,” Claude announced suddenly. “I'll be damned and damned again. I'll be the Earl of Penderleigh.”

“And ye, Connie,” Bertrand said with a quiet smile,
“will some day soon have yer fine clothes and carriages and mayhap even a house in Edinburgh.”

“I shall be a countess,” Constance said. “I'll be damned.”

“Well done, yer grace,” Brandy said. She felt as if her heart would burst, it was so full.

“Yer mother must have played yer father false, Ian,” Lady Adella said, “for never could ye have gotten such an idea from that little creeper she married.”

“Little creeper, ma'am? The fourth Duke of Portmaine a little creeper? I'll have to ask my mother if such a thing was true. However, I remember my father very well, since he only died when I was nineteen. No, ma'am, he was many things, but never a creeper.”

“And what if,” Lady Adella continued slyly, “the Scottish courts do not choose to reverse the disinheritance?”

The duke just smiled at her. “I have the utmost confidence in your abilities, Lady Adella. But, of course, if you appear to be not up to the task, I will be forced to step in and see that the thing is done.”

Did she never give up? She amused him as much as she enraged him. His plucking the power from her hands had to be quite a blow to her. He was on the point of concluding that she had thrown in her hand, finally, when she said so acidly it would burn the polish off the silverware, “And just what, my fine
English
duke, do ye intend to do about my Brandy and Fiona? Now that ye've broken with Lady Felicity, ye've quite ruined Brandy's chances. Poor little girl, she'll be here forever now, attending me, taking care of all my needs, being my little drudge.”