How to Dazzle a Duke (12 page)

upon me at some distant point, I have not anticipated it eagerly.

Until recently. Having seen two of my brothers so blissfully wed,

I can now begin to imagine wanting a bit of bliss of my own.”

Oddly, most oddly, the moment the words were out of his

mouth he felt the truth of them. He’d been avoiding marriage for

almost as long as he could remember. But Blakes and Cranleigh

were so nauseatingly blissful that it did make the whole concept

of marriage slightly more bearable. Indeed, even attractive.

But of course, both Blakes and Cranleigh had married for

love. As the heir to a dukedom, he didn’t suppose he’d have that

luxury. In truth, he hadn’t ever considered it. His entire idea

concerning marriage, and he did have just the single idea, was to

avoid it for as long as he possibly could, which surely was a most

reasonable position and very much as Tannington had stated

it. Though it did sound rather harsh when expressed, merely

proving the point that some things should never be expressed.

An idea Miss Prestwick was clearly a stranger to. She seemed

unable to keep herself from expressing all over the room.

“How beautifully phrased,” Sophia said.

“If nonsensical,” Tannington said.

“Perhaps not so much nonsensical,” Penelope Prestwick said

with all the studiousness of a Latin tutor, “as highly emotional. I

do believe, indeed it seems quite obvious, that the best marriages

are made without undue emotion. Emotion makes everything so

very cloudy.”

“If one dislikes clouds, that is a disadvantage,” Edenham said.

Little Miss Prestwick sat back on her chair and closed her

mouth into a fi rm and very sultry pout. It was quite charmingly

done, which was quite odd of her, wasn’t it? She wasn’t the charm

ing sort at all, quite the opposite.

80 CLAUDIA DAIN

“I thought everyone preferred a day without clouds,” Mr.

Prestwick said, very nicely coming to the aid of his sister.

“Cloudy nights can be quite romantic,” Edenham said,

“though I don’t presume to think there is a universality of opin

ion on that. Perhaps it is an acquired taste.”

“As so much is,” Sophia said mildly.

“And the longer one lives, the more tastes one acquires,”

Ruan said. “Or perhaps it is only that one learns to be adept at

pretending to have wide and varied tastes.”

It wasn’t so much that Ruan was staring at Sophia, but that

Sophia reacted so unusually to his remark. She came quite close

to bristling. It was a fact well established that Sophia did not

bristle.

“To what purpose, Lord Ruan?”

“To please a man, Lady Dalby,” Ruan answered promptly. “A

woman will do much to please a man.”

“Only if a man has already done much to please her,” she

countered.

“My mother often gets into these sorts of conversations,”

Dalby said casually, looking about the room. “I learned early on

to only listen to every third word. I kept my innocence until

nearly the age of ten.”

Sophia laughed and broke the brittle spell that had risen up

between herself and Ruan, patting Dalby on the knee. “At every

third word, you would have formed very strange ideas indeed. I

know for a fact, Markham, that you are still very much the in

nocent about very particular things.”

“But not in regard to pleasing a woman,” Dalby replied, his dark

eyes alight with humor, “because I learned that from Father.”

“A most adept teacher,” Sophia said.

“Most,” Dalby agreed. “Father made certain I understood

that the way to please a woman is to give her what she wants.”

“And so we are back to where we started,” Edenham said.

How to Daz zle a Duke

81

“But what is it that a woman wants?” Iveston asked. “Very

often I am not convinced they know themselves.”

“Do you think we all want the same thing?” Penelope asked

sharply.

She looked at him directly and he returned her look, suddenly

aware that very few women of marriageable age ever looked at

him directly and certainly not with the sort of impassioned, de

termined, studious look that Penelope Prestwick was in the habit

of displaying over the most inconsequential of topics. Yet this was

not one of those, was it? This was a topic near to her heart and

he found he could not much blame her.

“No, Miss Prestwick, not precisely the same thing,” he an

swered, looking into her dark eyes. “But close enough, yes? Do

you know what you want?”

“Of course I do,” she answered instantly, her eyes fl aring.

“And you can explain it? Put it into a single sentence?” he

prodded, wondering what her eyes would do next.

“Naturally. I have given it a great deal of thought, as you can

well imagine,” she said. Her eyes did the oddest thing then, they

got very wide and soft, like a cloudless summer night.

“And?” he prompted, his voice gone quite soft, to match her

eyes, actually.

“I want to get married, Lord Iveston,” she said, her own voice

as soft as his.

The moment stretched out between them like a silken cord,

until Sophia said, “Of course she wants to get married, Iveston,

but why shouldn’t she? Yet best not to ask whom she wants to

marry as that would be in extremely poor taste.”

Iveston did not ask. But Penelope, who did have the worst

aptitude for this sort of thing, looked instantly at Edenham. And

then she fl ushed.

And that was answer enough.

Seven

AS a matter of courtesy, the party, while not departing Dalby

House, did split into various groups. It was an awkward time of

day for callers as it was well past time for the preparations to

begin for their various evenings out. Still, they did not leave, not

a one of them, and Sophia was hardly in the habit of throwing

people out onto the street. Or that was the rumor. Even Sophia

might be pushed to throwing if the circumstances required it.

“We should leave,” George Prestwick whispered to Penelope,

after he had dragged her to one of the front windows of the white

salon.

“I’m not leaving!” she whispered in response. What could

George be thinking? Edenham was here, now, and not another

woman in sight, if one discounted Sophia, which she would and

did. When would a chance like this ever come again?

“It would look better if you did, Pen,” George said with a bit

more force than was usual for him. What on earth had gotten

into him? Was it possible that he was distressed at the thought of

her imminent marriage? It had better be imminent. “We have

quite outstayed our welcome, I am certain. Lady Dalby can’t

How to Daz zle a Duke

83

have expected half of London to pop into her salon, particularly

at this time of day.”

It
was
late. It was past seven and everyone was at home pre

paring for their evenings out. Everyone who wasn’t in Dalby

House, that is. If Edenham wasn’t leaving now, then she wasn’t

leaving now. It was as simple as that. What was wrong with

George that he couldn’t see the obvious?

“Why should we be the first to leave?” she snapped under her

breath, eyeing Edenham from across the room. He was talking

to Sophia’s brother, Mr. John Grey, about what she couldn’t

imagine. “No one else is leaving.”

“True,” George conceded, turning away from her to look

across the room. “Do you think this happens often to her? That

people come and refuse to leave her?”

“Her? You mean Lady Dalby?” Penelope said on a huff of

disbelief. “I shouldn’t think so. Why ever would you suppose

that, George?”

“They’re staying for some reason, Pen, and I don’t think it’s

because of us, do you?”

Well. Actually, she had hoped so.

6

“DARE I hope that we may leave now?” Cranleigh said to

Iveston.

“You need to learn to enjoy life more, Cranleigh,” Iveston

replied, looking about the room. “Relax.”

“I have a new wife at home, Iveston. Relaxing is the farthest

thing from my mind,” Cranleigh said, shifting his weight slightly.

They were all standing now, even Lady Dalby, the afternoon

visit having turned into something more resembling a formal At

Home. Iveston glanced around the room again. Miss Prestwick

looked somewhat agitated. He thought he could deduce the reason

why. Very difficult to catch a man’s eye when the room was simply

84 CLAUDIA DAIN

clogged. He ought to know as women had been trying to catch

his eye for years. All except this one, this little Miss Prestwick

who obviously had more money than breeding. Certainly, for

wouldn’t a woman of careful breeding make it a point to chat him

up? Wasn’t he the most desirable, that is to say, most eligible man

in the room?

He most certainly was.

Peculiar little thing not to act upon that fact. One did wonder

how badly addled she was, to have missed the mark so. It had

not escaped his notice that her brother was very nearly her

keeper, smoothing the way for her as best he could. Given that

she was so odd, he clearly had a time of it. Iveston didn’t envy

the man his task. Penelope Prestwick would exhaust and exas

perate the most devoted of men, which George Prestwick cer

tainly appeared to be.

“Peculiar, isn’t it?” Cranleigh said softly at his side. As they

were both looking at Miss Prestwick, Iveston thought the ques

tion remarkably apt. “She may be the first unmarried woman to

ignore you completely. How does it feel, Iveston? I should think

you’d be relieved.”

Iveston looked askance at Cranleigh. Marriage had done

something to him, something quite unappealing. Why, his

brother now had a sense of humor. Most inconvenient, particu

larly at the moment.

“I am.”

Cranleigh grinned. “You look it. Truly.”

Iveston lifted his chin and said, “She’s obviously some sort of

imbecile. Why, she can barely hold her own in Society.”

“You think so?” Cranleigh replied casually. “I had a nice

conversation with her at the Prestwick ball and found her very

entertaining.”

“Trained bears are entertaining.”

“Oh, come now. She’s not anything like a trained bear. You’re

How to Daz zle a Duke

85

just being vicious, likely because you’re not accustomed to being

ignored by a likely female.”

“Which is my entire point,” Iveston said in a low rumble of

annoyance, “she’s not a likely female. She’s the most unlikely

female I’ve ever encountered.”

“Get her talking about her roses,” Cranleigh suggested, a per

fectly lovely smile on his lips. As Cranleigh was not in the habit

of putting on perfectly lovely smiles, Iveston, naturally, was in

stantly on his guard. “She delights in them. I should think you’ll

be as entertained by her as I was.”

“I don’t care to talk to her about anything. She appears quite

preoccupied at the moment in any regard,” Iveston said stiffl y.

“Oh, well, if you’re going to wait for her to stop twittering

about Edenham, you’ll never find your chance. Of course, that

may very well be just what you intended. Is it?”

Cranleigh, really, was the most obstinate, most . . . well, his

wife had named it best when she’d called him a bully. Normally

Iveston was not bothered by it for the obvious reason that Cran

leigh’s bullying had never before been so forcefully focused on

him. It was quite a nuisance now, and he wasn’t enjoying it in the

slightest.

“I have no intentions at all regarding Miss Prestwick.”

“And she has none regarding you,” Cranleigh countered. “It’s

quite remarkable, isn’t it? Usually they fall all over you and

now . . .” Cranleigh shrugged in the most insulting manner

imaginable. “I suppose you’re afraid to approach a woman who

hasn’t got her children by you already named. Lack of practice

and all that.”

“Are you implying that I can’t manage women?”

Iveston was not at all amused, which he assumed was more

than apparent by his frozen expression. Cranleigh, more than

any of his brothers, with the possible exception of Blakes, who

really was too observant for anyone’s good, was quite adept at

86 CLAUDIA DAIN

reading him. Why, Cranleigh had very nearly made it his life’s

work to protect Iveston from all sorts of trouble, usually of the

female sort, and Iveston had got quite used to it. Perhaps too used

to it?

“I think you manage them very well,” Cranleigh replied

softly, eyeing Miss Prestwick from where they stood. They were

very near the door into the front hall, which Iveston suspected

was not at all accidental. “As long as by managing you mean

avoiding them entirely. Now that I think upon it, you haven’t

managed very many, have you, if by managing you mean actu

ally interacting with them.”

“I suppose you’re trying to be funny? You’re failing mis

erably.”

“I suppose you think I can’t add? How many, Iveston? How

many women have you . . . managed?”

“More than enough. More than you, certainly. You’ve been

at sea rather a lot in the past few years, haven’t you?”