How to Dazzle a Duke (44 page)

Dutton snorted, a most unattractive sound. “Hardly.”

“You know very much of it, having not attended.”

320 CLAUDIA DAIN

“Rumor only, which I fi nd most usually reliable, don’t you?”

“I couldn’t say,” Edenham said, not at all impressed. Dutton

hadn’t always been such a sot, had he? It didn’t seem so. But then,

he and Dutton had never run in the same circles beyond the

boundaries of White’s.

“If Sophia starts the rumor, then it’s solid, is what I’ve

found,” Dutton continued, staring across the room to where

Sophia stood. “She might make it up, but she makes it true. Even

tually.”

Nonsense, most assuredly.

“Who’s she caught in her net, now? Who’s that girl? Do you

know her?” Dutton asked, drinking again.

Edenham looked again and saw a girl. The girl.

She was exquisite.

He had never seen her before.

She was remarkable.

He took a step in her direction. And then another. And

another.

Iveston and Penelope moved off to another group, making

their rounds of the room, spending time with each of their guests.

Quite right. Most hospitable of them.

Edenham stood where Iveston had stood, Lord Ruan suddenly

at his side, two Americans before him, cousins to the Blakesleys,

that’s all he got of the connection, but it was a good one, wasn’t

it? It would be a good match, though it was a bit surprising to

fi nd that she was an American.

Miss Jane Elliot.

He would marry Miss Jane Elliot of New York.

He couldn’t make a bit of sense of the conversation, was

vaguely aware that the men were captains of merchant ships,

that Miss Elliot might or might not be staying in Town, that

Sophia wanted Miss Elliot to stay.

Yes. Stay.

How to Daz zle a Duke

321

I’m going to marry you.

It would not be difficult. He was a duke, after all, and he could

marry anyone he chose, within reason. Miss Elliot was most

definitely within reason. She was related to the Duke of Hyde,

and that was good enough for him.

He stood, murmuring the right words at the right moment,

aware somewhat dimly that Miss Jane Elliot did not seem at all

impressed by him. She had not heard of him, surely, which was

to his benefit, wasn’t it? No gossip to soil her ears, turning her

against him before she even got to know him. She would not be

afraid. There would be no hesitation.

Miss Elliot and her brothers were snatched up by Cranleigh,

and they walked across the room to some distant spot. Miss Elliot

had not seemed at all unhappy to walk away from him. No, she

had gone readily enough, no lingering looks at him, no shy

smiles, no virginal blushes as she endured his stare.

It must be the American strain. Certainly Sophia was very

similar in her responses to men. Odd behavior for a woman

when she held a duke’s attention, but he was prepared to discount

it as a result of her early environment and certainly nothing so

serious as a flaw in her nature.

Somehow, and it seemed to take an age, he got rid of Ruan

and got Sophia alone in one of the corners of the room. There

were still too many guests to have his conversation with her

freely, and it was not wise in the least particular, but he could not

seem to stop his tongue.

“I want your help, Sophia,” he said.

“Of course. Anything at all, Edenham,” she answered

promptly.

“I want to marry again.”

“But how lovely! And of course you should. Do you know

whom yet?”

Edenham blinked. He could actually feel himself blink. He

322 CLAUDIA DAIN

hesitated only a moment and then he said, “Miss Jane Elliot. I

will marry Miss Elliot.”

Sophia held herself very still, and then she nodded once,

slightly, and said, “But darling, haven’t you only just met her?”

Of course, it sounded ridiculous when said outright that way.

But it happened every day, didn’t it? A man saw a woman he

admired or even merely desired, and he took her. There was

nothing especially complicated about it, was there?

Naturally not.

“I have. And I have decided. She would make me an ideal

wife, I believe. I am, you will be forced to admit, a good judge of

women. Haven’t my three previous wives been exemplary?”

“They have,” Sophia said solemnly, but her eyes were shining

mysteriously. He was entirely suspicious of anything mysterious.

“Yet I must point out that you were not married for any great

length of time to any of them. Through no fault of your own,

naturally.”

“Thank you,” he said, gazing across the room at Miss Elliot.

She radiated beauty and sound breeding, her skin and hair and

eyes . . . well, he could go on and on, but what was the point? He

would marry her, that was all. “Since you agree with me, and

since it is clear to me that you have some warmth of acquaintance

with the Elliot family, I would ask you to help me present my suit

to her.”

Sophia nodded, looking at some middle distance between

himself and Miss Elliot, plotting, no doubt. He was entirely ap

proving of plotting, as long as it got him Jane Elliot.

“That may prove difficult,” Sophia said, looking up at him.

“Why, if I may ask? I am in the pink of health and possessed

of every attribute a woman seeks in a husband. I am a duke,

after all.”

Sophia nodded again, this time her smile escaping her com

pressed lips. “Yes, darling, and that is precisely the problem.

How to Daz zle a Duke

323

What does an American girl want with a duke? They have no

use for them, you see, not you personally, you understand, but as

a concept, as an ideal. To her, you are simply a man far older

than she, living in a country that is foreign to her, with three dead

wives and two small children to his credit. Why, my darling

Edenham, would Miss Elliot want to marry you?”

To his absolute horror, he could not think of any reason that

did not involve his being a duke of England.

Claudia Dain
is an award-winning author

and two-time RITA finalist. She lives in the

Southeast and is at work on Sophia’s next

highly successful attempt at matchmaking.

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