How to Dazzle a Duke (29 page)

rake who must bargain a woman into dallying with him.”

He was no longer amused. Not even remotely.

“Have a care, Miss Prestwick, or I shall be moved to true

anger. You would not enjoy that.”

206 CLAUDIA DAIN

Penelope shrugged slightly and looked about the room. “You

have no idea what I would enjoy, Lord Iveston.”

“From your own lips, kissing hapless grooms, for one.”

“He was far from hapless, which I think annoys you consid

erably.”

“If I believed it, perhaps it would.”

He did so enjoy taunting her. He couldn’t think why, although

the fact that she intended to use him to attract another man

might have had a bit to do with it.

Penelope lowered her chin and stared hard into his eyes. “You

think I would lie?”

“I think you, indeed any woman, would embellish the truth

to get what she wants.”

“And what do I want from you, Lord Iveston, that I do not

already have? You have agreed to play a part. For money. I need

not lie to you about anything. As to the groom and his sultry

kisses, only my future husband need be kept in the dark about

that. While I did it for him, I am not such a fool as to think he

will appreciate my efforts to please him. No, I told you. Because

what you think, Lord Iveston, does not matter. Can you possibly

have believed otherwise?”

He could feel his blood roaring through his veins, pulsing like

a drum through the chambers of his heart and belly. Lower, and

lower still. Never had a woman treated him this way. Never had

anyone sought to anger him when soothing and petting him

would have been the better choice. All of his life, he suddenly

realized, he had been petted and protected, sheltered and coz

ened. He was Hyde’s heir, beloved son, esteemed brother, eligible

bachelor. Until Penelope, who saw him only as a tool to be

wielded to attain a better man.

There was no better man. And he would prove that to her on

her very skin.

“You did it to please him?” he said in a hushed voice. “It

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207

did not please you, then? You kissed a man and found no plea

sure in it?”

“I did not say that.”

“You almost said that,” he taunted. “I think, Penelope, that you

may be the sort of woman who cannot find pleasure with a man.

With any man. How do you think Edenham will react to that?”

“As long as I am the Duchess of Edenham, I don’t care.”

“You don’t care that he leaves you at his estate, alone, while

he stays in Town, finding his pleasure with a woman who can

share it?”

“I am not that sort of woman!”

“Prove it,” he said softly. “Prove it upon me, with me, now.”

She looked like a landed fish, all gaping mouth and staring

eyes. “What? You’re mad.”

Iveston shrugged as casually as he could manage. “I know

Edenham, and I like him. He has had troubles enough with his

various wives. I’ll not send you into his life so that you may give

him trouble of a different sort.”

“I am going to be the ideal wife! Anyone with any intelligence

can see that.”

“Convince me of it. Convince me you will be a warm and

lively wife for Edenham.”

“Good heavens, you really are pathetic, aren’t you? Now

you’re trying to bargain me into your bed. Is that the only way

you can get a woman?”

He swallowed his rage and said, “You fl atter yourself,

Miss Prestwick. I do not want you in my bed. I only seek to pro

tect Edenham, and to judge for myself how experienced you

truly are.”

“Of course, you couldn’t manage it the normal way, could

you? Seduction is far beyond your skills.”

“Why should I trouble myself to seduce what I can merely

demand?”

208 CLAUDIA DAIN

“And I’m to deliver myself up to you? Honorable, aren’t you?”

“It is still within the parameters of our bargain. I will not ruin

you. I don’t seek a wife. I only seek satisfaction.”

Penelope laughed mirthlessly. “Yes, of course you do. You are

a man, by all reports.”

“By your report, very soon.”

She eyed him carefully, the wheels of her mind turning furi

ously. Hardly any artifice at all, had Miss Prestwick. Perhaps

she actually had kissed a groom. His mind spun just consider

ing it.

“A few kisses,” she said cautiously, “a sign of some warmth

on my part, that is all you require? You shall not ruin me. You

shall not ruin my chances with Edenham. That is the sum of our

agreement?”

“The sum total.”

“And you will stay true to it?”

“You doubt me?”

“Completely. You have shown yourself to be a man, which is

bad enough, but a man of changeable temperament, which is the

worst thing a man can be.”

“Hardly the worst,” he murmured. “It is comments like that

which shout your innocence, Miss Prestwick, but then, there is

the way you kiss which whispers otherwise.”

“Yes, I understand you completely. You are confused. I am

hardly surprised.”

He could not understand why, but he found himself smiling

again. She was such an odd, forthright little thing. It was quite

charming, taken in certain lights.

“You agree to the slight amending of our bargain?” he asked.

“This is to be the last adjustment, Lord Iveston. I can’t abide

these ridiculous amendments made for no other purpose than

your wandering attention and odd conclusions.”

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209

He nodded.

“Then, I will agree.”

“Agreed, then.”

“When would you like to commence? As soon as possible, I

daresay,” she said, looking him up and down. Yes, well, he did

look interested just beneath his waistcoat. It was most bold of him,

but she could just take the blame for that herself. “I would like to

get this behind me so that I may concentrate on Edenham.”

“Now?” he suggested. “Before Edenham arrives would seem

wise.”

“Oh, very well, then,” she sighed. “Now.”

6

“NOW what are they doing?” Lady Paignton asked Mr. George

Grey.

“The same thing they’ve been doing,” Grey said, staring at

Penelope and Iveston as they walked with intense purpose out of

the drawing room. He was not alone in staring. The whole room

was staring. And placing wagers.

Bernadette looked up at Grey with a very considering gaze.

Sophia knew that look well and knew what it boded. Not that her

nephew would mind in the least, though John might. Women

who used men like toys for their pleasure were not to John’s taste.

He was hardly alone in that. Most men, indeed perhaps all men,

liked to be thought of as more substantial than playthings. Of

course, they didn’t mind in the least and certainly never noticed

when a woman was treated so. Why should they? They had, in

most every way, all the power. It was why stripping them of some

of it was such a pleasant pastime.

However, George was her nephew and she wasn’t going to

allow him to become a pastime for a bored woman who dis

tracted herself from unhappiness by romping from bed to bed.

210 CLAUDIA DAIN

“George, I’m certain Miss Prestwick’s brother will want to

know that she has left the drawing room with Lord Iveston. Will

you fi nd him and tell him just that, please?”

Without another word, George Grey left to find George Prest

wick, which would not be at all difficult as Sophia was certain he

was still in the reception room.

“You got rid of him quickly enough,” Lady Paignton said.

“Did you think I would devour him?”

“Lady Paignton,” Sophia said, “what I think is that a woman

with as carefully constructed a reputation as you have should

choose a man who will add to her luster.”

“And your nephew won’t?”

Sophia looked at Lady Paignton almost studiously. She was a

tall, well-formed woman of exotic good looks. She was a widow

of questionable fortune. She was almost devotedly in pursuit of

any man of likely age who happened to pass before her gaze. In

short, she was a woman who was misusing every advantage she

had and failing to gain advantages she didn’t have, which was

very nearly criminal of her.

“Darling, certainly there are more worthwhile men to enter

tain yourself upon. George is simply too primitive for your tastes,

I assure you, and as he is leaving England shortly, how can he be

made proper use of?”

Bernadette, Lady Paignton, looked somewhat surprised by

Sophia’s question, and then she smiled briefly. “You think my

reputation has been carefully constructed, Lady Dalby?”

“But of course. Every woman’s reputation, in fact. What else

is a woman to do with her reputation but to manage it until it

produces the desired result?”

“And my desired result?” Bernadette prompted, lifting her

chin and staring with her remarkable green eyes into Sophia’s.

“Darling, don’t you know?” Sophia said gently. “To be desired.

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211

Are you succeeding, Lady Paignton? Are you as desired as you

want to be?”

Bernadette chuckled, a brief burst of air, and then shook her

dark chestnut head at Sophia. “I’m afraid not, Lady Dalby, but

then I am not done yet.”

6

“BUT I’m not done yet,” George Prestwick said to George Grey,

who stood at his elbow, looking quite as dark and dangerous as

an Indian should look. That he looked it in such a refi ned envi

ronment as Lady Lanreath’s pink and white reception room was

something of a feat.

George Prestwick, who was as dark of hair and eye as George

Grey, but who didn’t look dangerous in the least, was playing

cassino at a table that had been arranged for play in the corner

of the reception room. Lord Dutton, Anne Warren, and Lady

Lanreath played with him. It was a most interesting grouping of

players as it was perfectly obvious to the most naïve of observers,

which Anne Warren was not, that Lord Dutton was trying very

obviously to seduce Lady Lanreath. He was doing it to annoy her,

of that she was equally certain. That Lady Lanreath was consider

ing succumbing to seduction by Dutton was almost certain. Lady

Lanreath was a very cautious player, both at cards and at seduc

tion, which Anne knew by both rumor and observation.

That Dutton was not a bit cautious at anything she knew by

experience.

What George Prestwick knew of the situation as it was being

played out before him, she had no idea whatsoever. If he had any

intelligence at all, it should be perfectly obvious to him. Lord

Dutton was punishing her for marrying Staverton by seducing

within her sight, sound, and scent the completely lovely Lady

Lanreath. That Lady Lanreath was a widow practically confi rmed

212 CLAUDIA DAIN

it. That Lady Lanreath had nothing to lose by an arrangement,

however brief, with Lord Dutton made the whole thing a fait ac

compli. That Lord Dutton had been trying to seduce Anne for

the past month made it very nearly intolerable.

But she would tolerate it and she would do so without any

signs of distress to delight Lord Dutton. Because that’s what he

wanted, to distress her, obviously and perhaps noisily. He would

laugh for a week if she displayed any sort of temper over his

behavior. And she, she would lose Lord Staverton, whom she

genuinely cared for and to whom she would devote her life.

Lord Staverton was an honorable man. He was good and

kind and gentle. He was generous. He was willing to marry her,

a poor and insignificant widow with a questionable past. Ques

tionable because her mother had been a courtesan. On her better

days she had been a courtesan; on her worse, she had been . . .

desperate.

Anne was not going to live a life of desperation. No, she was

going to be more clever and more sensible than her mother. She

was going to marry well and she was going to be a contented wife

to Staverton.

She would. No matter who Dutton seduced, no matter how

his blue eyes twinkled, no matter what roguish blather fell from

off his lips. No matter. She was going to marry Staverton, lovely

Staverton, and if Antoinette, Lady Lanreath, wanted to tumble

into Dutton’s arms, lips, bed, then that was her choice to make.

Anne had already made hers and Dutton had no place in it.

If only she could tell him that. If only she could get him alone,

stare up into his handsome face and tell him that she didn’t want

him and didn’t want him to want her.

She couldn’t tell him, and she wouldn’t. And so she told

him the essence of her thoughts and plans by sitting down to

table with him to play at cards and sat quietly and docilely by

while he seduced another woman right in front of her.

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213

She didn’t care.

By every bone in her body, she didn’t care.

Now, if only he would acknowledge it by breaking out in hives

or something equally dramatic. He had been developing a strong

tendency to drink since her rejection of him and acceptance of

Staverton, but he seemed sober enough now.