How to Dazzle a Duke (25 page)

cient in their thinking, and she was therefore almost certain not

to marry one, but as she was not going to marry Iveston she did

him the honor of speaking plainly to him. It was simply so like

a man not to see honesty as honorable.

“What else do you do well?” he asked, looking down at her

quite sternly.

This is what came of honesty with a man: stern rebuke. ’Twas

no wonder that no one of any intelligence enjoyed talking to a

man for any length of time.

“I could ask the same of you,” she said, sounding a bit stern

herself. She did not have to answer to him. Did he suppose oth

erwise?

“But you won’t,” he said.

“Only because I have better manners.”

“Yet not manners enough not to go about kissing men.”

“I suppose you would prefer it if I went about kissing

women?”

She’d got him there. Iveston looked thunderstruck. He was

even going a bit white around the corners of his mouth. If she kept

at it, she might reduce him to a pillar of salt, and wouldn’t he just

deserve it? He’d been the one to kiss her, after all. She hadn’t run

him into a deserted room and kissed him for no reason.

As to reasons, why had he kissed her?

Then again, why had he stopped?

“You are in the habit, Miss Prestwick, of making the most

awkward remarks. I can’t think that it suits a future duchess.”

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177

“And I, Lord Iveston, can’t think that dragging innocent

young women into quiet rooms to kiss them can possibly suit a

future duke.”

Iveston blinked. The white smudges of outrage around his

mouth faded away and his expression once again veered toward

being pleasant and even amused.

“Only one woman, Miss Prestwick. As to her innocence, I

believe that is something of a mystery.”

“It is no mystery to me, Lord Iveston,” she said, pulling her

glove up firmly. Iveston noted the movement and grinned. Typi

cal. “And it is no concern of yours.”

“I fear that is untrue,” he said. “I cannot possibly endorse

a match with the Duke of Edenham if your innocence is in

question.”

“It is not in question!”

“It is if I say it is,” he said, smiling pleasantly, as if he had not

just said the most hideous thing imaginable.

“What are you implying, Lord Iveston?”

“Only that as I am conspiring with you to snare Edenham on

the wrong side of the altar, that it would be good form for you to

be honest about your innocence.”

“I am being honest!”

“I’m afraid I require the particulars, Miss Prestwick. I must,

for my own honor, make my own judgment upon what might be

the meandering quality of your innocence.”

He was enjoying this. It was perfectly obvious from the

very lurid gleam twinkling from his very blue eyes. She smiled

with all the stiff formality of a duchess and sat down upon a

gilded chair. Iveston sat in a matching chair with a most amused

expression.

Amused, was he? Well, if he wanted particulars, perhaps he

would not be amused for very much longer.

There was a strange satisfaction to be found in that. She was

178 CLAUDIA DAIN

going to enjoy this. Meandering quality, indeed. She was cer

tainly more innocent than he was.

“As you require particulars,” she said, “I will most cordially

provide them, under the stipulation that our agreement is intact.”

“Did I say otherwise?”

“You threatened otherwise.”

“I am certain I did not.”

“Are we to argue about this as well, Lord Iveston? Such a row

over a simple affi rmation does look so suspicious.”

Iveston stared her down. She stared him down in return. She

had a brother. She knew how this game of male domination was

played, and she was quite accustomed to winning it. George was

no Iveston, true, being far more amiable in general and more

specifi cally inclined to want her happiness. Iveston only wanted

particulars
.

“I never engage in rows, Miss Prestwick,” he said, studying

her from beneath his golden brows.

“How lovely for your duchess. Your marriage will be most

convivial.”

His golden brows rose fractionally. “I am not at all certain

that is what I desire most in a marriage, Miss Prestwick. I think

I may prefer a more spirited relationship.”

“I can’t think why this is any of my concern, Lord Iveston.”

“I think you can, Miss Prestwick.”

And then, quite beyond all decency, Iveston reached out and

took her hand in his. She allowed it. She was merely being con

vivial, that’s all.

Looking with some curiosity at her arm, she watched as his

hand slid up it by slow degrees. It sent a shiver across her breasts

and up the back of her neck. She suppressed it admirably.

Iveston’s gaze was also on her arm, his blond lashes sparkling

gold against the deep azure of his downcast eyes. And then his

hand slid down her arm, slipping her glove down, down, over

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179

her wrist and to the midpoint of her hand, her fingers and thumb

still trapped within.

She shivered again. She did not suppress it, not admirably.

Not at all.

He lowered his gleaming blond head and kissed the base of

her thumb. With an open mouth. With heat and teeth. And then

his eyes lifted to hers, bold blue and burning like a cloudless

summer day.

She gasped.

He smiled.

She pulled her hand from his mouth, from his heat, from his

assault.

He released her.

“Another innocence breached,” he said softly, studying her

face. “You look none the worse for it.”

“I shall judge what is the worse for me, Lord Iveston, not

you. You are very casual about robbing women of their inno

cence, I must say. At this pace, you will find yourself married

very soon.”

“Do you think so?” he asked, smiling. “I cannot see it.

I am very careful, you see, as to how and where I capture an

innocence.”

“But not upon whom, I gather,” she snapped. “As I have no

interest in marrying you and you have none in marrying me,

your . . . activities seem very misplaced. I can’t think why assault

ing me is so very entertaining for you.”

“Can’t you?” he said in a low voice, his gaze quite intense of

a sudden.

He was such an unpredictable man. His poor future wife

would be positively exhausted in trying to keep abreast of him

and on top of his many moods.

That unfortunate confluence of words, entirely unintentional

on her part, caused a most violent fluttering deep within her.

180 CLAUDIA DAIN

“You are a most illogical man, Lord Iveston. I don’t suppose

you realize that, do you? You ask for one thing and do an

other. You are angry and suspicious, demanding proofs and

explanations, and then without a word of warning become most

peculiarly . . . playful.”

“Playful,” he repeated, pulling her glove from off her hand

and wrapping it up into a very sloppy ball of fabric. “You think

me playful?”

“Very,” she said. “George gets like this sometimes, often when

the weather has been wet for days and he is feeling cloistered. He

behaves much as you are now. My conclusion, which I’m certain

you must agree with, is that it is important for a man to get out,

to walk about, to stretch both his legs and his mind. I am certain

you will feel the better for it. George always does.”

“You’re comparing me to your brother,” Iveston said. He

seemed rather put out by the comparison.

“Of course,” she said placidly. The look on his face was

delightful. He looked nearly miserable.

“I am supposed to believe that your brother does to you what

I have done?”

He looked perfectly dejected. As well he should, playing

about when she had a duke to catch. Really, Iveston had become

so distracted and it didn’t do her a bit of good. Of course, as

he had become distracted by
her
, she wasn’t as annoyed as she

ought to have been, but there was no reason to tell him that, was

there?

“Lord Iveston, can you be such an innocent? Is kissing the

hand of a woman a mark of something dire and dangerous? I am

more sophisticated than that.”

It was truly something to behold. Iveston looked quite fully

angered. His jaw clenched. His mouth flattened into a grim line.

His eyes blazed hot and then shuttered against her.

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181

She could hardly keep from smiling at him. He was such fun

to bedevil, and naturally, being a man, he had no idea how en

tertaining he was, particularly if she discounted the effect upon

her of his kisses, which she should, and did, and would purge

from her memory until she was married to Edenham and could

safely indulge in a proper nostalgic appreciation for a kiss that

was so seductive and compelling as to cause her heart to fl utter

and her pulse to skip. But that was for the future. For now, she

kept her fluttering to herself.

“I believe you, Miss Prestwick. You are entirely sophisticated.

Perhaps to an unflattering degree,” he said, his hands lying

against his thighs, looking relaxed when he had no business look

ing relaxed. Hadn’t he just insulted her? “Why don’t you tell me

how thoroughly sophisticated you are?”

“I shall do just that, Lord Iveston. My innocence and my so

phistication are in question. I shall defend them both.”

“I don’t see how you can effectively defend them both.”

“You shall,” she said smoothly, putting a finger into the hem

of her remaining glove and toying with it. Iveston’s eyes blazed,

his look riveted to her arm. Delightful fun. “On the occasion of

my twentieth birthday, I decided with extreme forethought that

it was time that I was kissed. Properly kissed by an improper

man.” Iveston sat forward on his chair. His hands did not look

nearly as relaxed as they had done. Penelope resisted a sigh of

pleasure and continued on. “At Timperley, the Prestwick estate,

there was employed a certain groom of quite handsome appear

ance. I always found him to be extremely amiable and so it was

that,” she said, shrugging, “I arranged for him to kiss me.”

Iveston’s eyes had gone quite wide and his breathing appeared

to have stopped. Oh. There. He seemed to have got hold of him

self and gulped in a ragged breath.

“Arranged? How did you arrange?”

182 CLAUDIA DAIN

“Oh, Lord Iveston,” she said, “you must know how simple it

is to lure a man into a simple kiss. A look. A smile. A quiet stable.

It took very little effort on my part at all.”

And then she smiled and tugged on her glove.

Iveston looked ready to strike something. Since he couldn’t

strike her, it was all quite entertaining.

“As I have never kissed a man, I had no idea it was so simple.

I take your word for it.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Shall I continue? You did say you

wanted details.”

“There’s more?”

If she had a single merciful bone in her body, she’d stop the

carnage right now. But she didn’t. So she wouldn’t. She hadn’t

had this much fun in years.

“Of course there’s more, Lord Iveston. You can’t think that I

would be so slipshod as to arrange to be kissed and leave it at

that. No, I wanted to be taught, to be tutored, to be inspired.”

Iveston looked quite white about the gills. Both sides. A clear

white spot had appeared just below each ear. Well now. Perhaps

she could tell him enough so that his white-tinged anxiety wound

into a snake of outrage. And all of it true, mind you. She was no

deceiver. Far from it. She was the most forthright woman she

knew, not that she knew any forthright women at all. It did seem

to be a most telling failing of her sex.

“Inspired to do what?” Iveston asked softly.

“To be honest, I wasn’t quite certain at the time. But now,

having been inspired, I am. I wanted to be inspired by passion

so that I could inspire it in others, my future husband, to be

precise. I am not certain I have mastered it, of course, but I did

try, and I do think the duke should applaud my efforts to please

him, don’t you?”

Iveston was nodding, a most peculiar gleam in his eyes.

He crossed his legs and leaned back upon the narrow confi nes of

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183

the gilded chair and said, “I can’t wait to hear every detail, Miss

Prestwick. I see that we are no longer alone, but I trust that won’t

keep you from continuing your tale?”

“My tale? You don’t believe me?” she asked, noting as well

that guests were drifting into the drawing room from the single

door to the reception room. A cursory glance revealed the Lords

Penrith and Raithby, Lady Paignton, and her brother George,

among others.

“I believe you have been kissed. By whom, I dare not guess.”

“There’s no need to guess. I’ve told you plainly. It was a groom

at Timperley.”

“And his name?”

“I have no idea. If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten it completely.