The Duke of Morewether’s Secret (3 page)

“I can’t believe I haven’t heard about it,” Christian’s mother said, adding herself to the group gathered around the table, staring at, well at bawdy art, no matter if it was classical or no.

“Are these people gods?” Anna asked, gesturing with an outstretched hand Christian thought for all the world was damned near desperate to stroke the black pottery.

“No, although many amphorae do depict one god or another.” Miss Ashbrook lifted the vase with gentle hands and brought it higher to nestle in her arms, all the better for her to lecture on its timeless beauty. “This gentleman here with the tail —” Christian noted she did not mention the most rampant feature of his anatomy “— is a satyr. The lady is a maenad. I believe it is from somewhere between 500 and 600 BC, although I won’t know for certain until I get it home to Greece and consult Father’s texts.”

Anna exhaled an awed breath. “So old? Really?”

Christian made every effort to be unaffected by Miss Ashbrook’s fascinating brain as he did her breasts which swelled over the top of the neckline of her vivid blue gown. “You said it was a
rescue
.”

Miss Ashbrook smiled at him, her eyes more gray than green, enhanced by the deep azure of her gown. “I found this one by accident, but it inspired me. I rescue Greek treasures whenever I find them.” The smile left her eyes and was replaced with an intensity that was even more striking. “Treasure hunters rape the temples and bring the spoils here and the rest of Europe. When I find them, things like this amphora here, my heart breaks. I know it sounds silly, but it’s like I’m collecting my family and bringing them home.”

“That’s commendable,” his mother said, though she seemed distracted by the salacious scene played out on the red and black surface of the vase.

“Would you like to have a tour? I’d be happy to show you the others another time, Your Grace,” Thea told them, her invitation enhanced by a promising smile. “Not all the pieces are as provocative as this piece, however.”

Christian wanted a tour, and he didn’t care how the rest of her collection was decorated.

“Oh,” his mother murmured, and then the meaning of Miss Ashbrook’s statement sunk in and she quickly stood. “Oh, of course not. I’m only interested in the history.”

“Me, too,” Christian shared a knowing smile with the young lady before she looked away. Was there a blush? He’d feel much better about his own behavior if she was indeed blushing and if it had been his feeble flirtation that had put it on her cheeks.

“Hmmmm.” Anna remained bent at the waist, peering intently at the vase cradled in Miss Ashbrook’s arms. “I’m interested in the art.”

Christian breathed in the husky lilt of Miss Ashbrook’s laugh. With the exception of her Mayfair address and perhaps her wardrobe, there was nothing to liken her to the breed of woman with which he was so notoriously familiar. She was infinitely more interesting than her contemporaries. As far as he had been able to tell, she used no artifice to impress others — something he and his family were acutely sensitive to in their lofty social position. Someone somewhere was always trying to ingratiate themselves into his family’s good graces.

“I’d be interested in seeing what else you’ve recovered, Miss Ashbrook.” Christian laid his hand against the small of his mother’s back in an effort to steer her through the parlor. The air in here was too thick and full of portent, and he wanted out, needed out, before someone got wind of his burgeoning interest. Someone like Anna who could smell gossip at twenty paces.

“Shall we say tomorrow, then?” Miss Ashbrook encompassed the three of them in her invitation. She placed the vase gently back on the table. “Come for tea, and I’ll show you more lost Greek treasures.”

Anna grinned and linked her arm with her fascinating friend’s. “Shall I bring Frankie?” Anna asked, referring to Christian’s sister. “She’ll be most intrigued with your collection as well.”

The four of them climbed back into the carriage. Anna made a big show of sitting next to Christian’s mother, leaving the bench seat vacant next to Miss Ashbrook. Christian hesitated for a heartbeat and gave Anna a narrowed glance which she responded to with a knowing twitch of her lips. By all the heavens, the chit was worse than his true sister ever was.

He settled onto the velvet seat for twenty minutes of torture. He heard the feminine conversation, but he didn’t listen. Christian leaned back into the leather of the darkened, carriage, and made an effort to relax. Miss Ashbrook’s scent and the lilt of her voice engulfed his consciousness. Heat emanated from her, warming his leg, hip, and arm, forcing an unwelcome awareness he didn’t want to acknowledge in a carriage occupied by his mother.

Christian let the darkness soothe him, inhaling deeply through his nose, an ill-advised plan. Her distinct scent, warmed by body heat in the close carriage, assailed his senses and his body responded in the most inconvenient way possible. He stifled a groan and a curse as the vehicle came to a stop.

Christian leapt from the carriage, ostensibly to lower the step and assist the ladies, but it was a desperate bid for self-preservation. What was it about this woman, this particular female, that put him on the alert so fully? How much attraction could she possibly hold for him, for any man, actually, during two such brief interludes? Interludes, he might add, that were chaperoned by his near-sister and later by his mother? Granted, he’d flirted shamelessly the first time to no avail, so he was already lost by the second conversation. He was so infatuated by the time he found out she collected pornographic art in the name of preserving history that her entire family tree could have chaperoned the conversation in her parlor and it wouldn’t have mattered.

What Christian found the most disturbing and disheartening was that Miss Ashbrook didn’t seem to be affected by him in any way whatsoever. Once again, his
libido
suggested the need to prove his masculinity with any willing female. Any other willing female. The Duke of Morewether had not lost his touch and, by God, he’d prove it — at least to himself.

However until he could make a graceful exit from a dinner he’d forcefully invited himself to, he would keep his distance from the chit. Clearly, Grecian women were immune to his charms, and he did not feel any perverse pressure to continue torturing himself. She and her stimulating mind and seductive accent and winsome beauty — dammit, he was going to ignore her for the rest of the evening.

Chapter Three

Thea was desperate to get out of the carriage and was prepared to make a jump for it by the time it rumbled to a stop on the pavement. When the duke finally roused himself from his lazy position next to her she was finally able to inhale a deep breath. Till then, she’d been leaning as far to the right as possible so as minimize the feel of herself pressed up against his leg. Honestly, it was just a leg, and hers was separated from it by scads of fabric, linen and wool, cotton and silk, yet the heat was still there. The heat and a very unnerving awareness.

He’s just a man, Thea. A man with a reputation that makes him more than a little unlikable.

She gave herself a mental nod, agreeing wholeheartedly with her sage inner-voice. She was here to make friends with influential members of the
ton
, not to be distracted by a man too handsome by half. She’d be very smart not to forget why she was in London at all.

Except that man you so desperately want to ignore is just as influential.

True, she admitted.

Fine. She wouldn’t ignore the duke. She’d simply avoid sitting too near or being close enough to smell his shaving soap. His scent had been intoxicating mixed with the fine leather of the carriage, a spicy, masculine aroma that made her want to run her cheek along his lapel like one of the many cats from home.

Thea let Anna and the duchess alight first before emerging from the dark, safe cocoon. If she waited until last, the duke might go forward and escort his mother to the house, leaving her to avoid having to take his hand to step from the carriage. No luck. The god Momus certainly mocked her when the long fingers that reached out for her own did not belong to the gloved hands of a footman or carriage driver, but that of the duke himself. Of course he’d wait for her. The man may be a wolf when it came to women, but he played in the society she was wooing and that meant he would certainly be a polite wolf.

There was no way around it, and she slipped her fingers into his palm and gracefully descended. Only she didn’t. She was so busy concentrating on ignoring him, her heel caught the lip of the carriage, and she stumbled forward.

She let fly a curse in her own language. The duke caught her in time before she had a chance to fall in earnest. He righted her, keeping a steadying hand on her elbow. The instinct to look at him was too great, even though she suspected there would be a self-satisfied air about him that would grate her nerves.

But the damnable look wasn’t there after all. His dark eyes shone with a gentle smile and no flirtatious quip slid from his lips. “Quite all right, Miss Ashbrook?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “How trite, don’t you think?”

He tucked her arm into his elbow and followed the other ladies along the walk. “What do you mean?”

“You must have ladies falling into your arms all the time.”

“Oh, yes. They are fairly flinging themselves out of trees and off balconies constantly.” The duke’s tone was droll, and he affected a comical parody of
tonnish
ennui. “It never does grow old.”

Her laughter wasn’t forced. Like all the world’s notorious rascals, he had the gift of putting a lady at ease and off her guard. They had scarcely divested themselves of their wraps and hats when a squealing blur slipped past them and launched itself at the duke.

“Unca Chris.” The blur dissolved into the shape of a boy not more than three years old. The child wore a nightdress and bare feet.

“Well, little man,” the duke said, and gathered the boy in his arms. “What’s new, chum?”

“I have a frog.”

The duke’s eyes grew wide. “A frog? Where?”

“In the garden. He’s green. Want to see?”

“Do I get a hello?” the duchess asked with a laugh.

The child glanced about him, finally acknowledging the other people in the foyer. “Hello, Gramama,” he answered sheepishly. “You want to see the frog, too?”

His grandmother kissed the child’s cheek and squeezed his knee. “No, lovey, that’s quite all right.” She turned to Thea and explained. “He can see no one else once his Uncle Christian is in the room.”

“And if Anthony knows his uncle is coming over, he can’t be contained in the nursery either.” The new voice belonged to a lovely flame-haired lady, a younger version of the duchess introduced to Thea as Francesca, Countess of Harrington. “Back to bed with you,” she told her son.

Before the boy worked up a good protest, the duke assured him, “Show me your frog, and then I’ll tuck you in.” The finely tailored Duke of Morewether, fabled lover of women and rogue extraordinaire, ascended the stairs with the boy in his arms, the child hugging his neck, chattering away with each other. “What do you call your frog?”

“Herbert.” Their voices grew fainter as they made the next landing.

“Herbert? Why Herbert?”

The boy shrugged. “That’s what he said his name was.” The two of them disappeared but she plainly heard the man’s answering chuckle.

She stared up the stairs at the curve in the wall where she’d last glimpsed the duke. Well, she hadn’t expected that. Not that she could ever have imagined the scene she witnessed, but if the scenario had ever occurred to her, the duke’s devotion to his nephew would not have been the expected reaction from the man whose reputation suggested he thought of little beyond the pursuit of pleasure.

Lady Harrington merely laughed at Thea’s look of confusion. “Christian is a doting uncle. I’ll be impressed if we don’t eventually have to send a footman to the nursery to fetch him for dinner.”

“Really?” Thea blinked at the lady.

Suddenly a look of dread altered the lady’s happy countenance. Lady Harrington looked to her mother and Anna. “You don’t think … He wouldn’t … Not to my sweet Anthony.”

Anna’s tinkling laugh filled the room as she slipped between Thea and Lady Harrington, linked their arms, and propelled them further into the townhouse, three abreast. “I’d check under my covers well tonight, if I were you.” Then, in answer to the puzzlement surely showing on Thea’s face, “Christian used to put frogs and such in Francesca’s bed at night when they were children.”

Thea couldn’t help but laugh. “His Grace wouldn’t really tell the boy about that, would he?”

“Yes,” Lady Harrington answered emphatically. “He was a wretched brother.”

Lady Morewether tsked at her daughter. “No worse than any other brother, Frankie. Besides, you must admit he’s a conscientious uncle these days.”

“Precisely why that result seems completely plausible,” Lady Harrington argued.

“What result is that?” A baritone voice inquired once they entered what must be the family parlor. An overflowing basket of embroidery and a gaily painted ducky pull-toy sat on the floor next to a stuffed chair. A stack of the daily news sheets lay near a massive leather arm chair.

Thea turned towards the voice to see another dark-haired giant. This one was delivering a glass of amber liquid to a third man, one with golden hair, who immediately rose from his seat when the ladies entered the room.

Lady Harrington introduced the dark man as her husband, Earl of Harrington. “Anthony is showing Christian his new frog.”

“Herbert,” Lord Harrington interrupted with a chortle.

“Yes,” the lady continued in irritation at her husband, “and Anna reminded me how you two used to leave your frogs in my bed.”

“Ah.” Lord Harrington made no effort to diffuse his smile. “And you’re afraid he’ll convince your son to do the same.”

The lady then sighed heavily before turning back to face Thea. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the rabble.”

Right on cue, a petite lady entered, proceeded in the room by her enormous pregnant belly. “What a lovely cloak room, Francesca. I adore how you redecorated.”