Page 36 of It's All About the Duke
“What’s her name?” Griffin asked, swirling the small amount of drink in the bottom of his glass.
“Marlena Fast. She’s from a respectable family. Her dowry is small, but I’ll enhance it.”
“Is she pleasant to look at?” Hawk asked.
Very, and spirited, and wholesome, and quite bold.
“Yes,” Rath answered.
“So you have no reason to think you’ll have a problem helping her make a match?”
Rath swallowed hard. Miss Fast getting married wasn’t something he wanted to think about, either. It didn’t matter that doing exactly that was his primary duty for her welfare—finding a husband to take care of her therest of her life. He turned his head and gazed at the fire through the brandy in his glass. It reminded him of the colors that heightened her cheeks. When he’d touched them, they were as soft as he’d imagined they’d be. None of the scents in Miss Lola’s shop could compare to the natural, womanly scent of Miss Fast.
He probably shouldn’t have told her he wanted to kiss her, but he was glad he had. She needed to know he was attracted to her. It was best she be wary of him. A nudge of admiration flared through him and along with it a hint of a smile. She was clearly up to the task of keeping him away—with a handkerchief!
“There should be no reason she can’t make a good match,” Rath said with no enthusiasm for the task. “She does have a determined streak. If she decides no man will suit, I have no doubt she won’t accept any offers no matter how good they might be. But I gave up long ago trying to figure out a lady’s mind.”
“Yet you went into a ladies’ shop today,” Griffin said casually. “Did you hope to find some answers in there?”
At last his friends had gotten around to the real reason they were in his home.
“You do know what you did was tantamount to a lady entering a gentleman’s club and walking around looking at all the men assembled there, don’t you?” Hawk added.
“If I didn’t, I certainly do now,” Rath quipped, making light of his venture into the private world of ladies’ underclothing.
“You do also know there are just some places a man and a woman shouldn’t be seen together?”
Rath had no idea how much Esmeralda and Loretta had told their husbands, but he was fairly sure Griffin and Hawk hadn’t wanted him watching their wives looking at unmentionables. He had to admit that part of their meeting was a little disconcerting to him, too. He thoughtof the duchesses as he did Hawk and Griffin’s sisters. Having no siblings of his own, they were his family. Otherwise, he would have never annoyed them, but done the proper gentlemanly thing and walked past them without showing a smidgen of recognition.
In truth, he didn’t think they would have liked that any more than he would have.
“My father tried hard to make a gentleman out of me, but as no one knows better than you two, he didn’t succeed.” Rath shrugged. “Besides, if they only wanted certain people to enter the shop, they should put a lock on the door or station an attendant at the front to keep out interlopers and lurkers as the clubs do.”
Griffin snorted. “They probably thought there’d never be a chance in hell a gentleman would ever be brave enough to walk through the door of such an establishment.”
Hawk smiled. “Why the devil did you?”
His best friends were having a good time at his expense. He’d done the same to their wives so he really couldn’t say anything. Rath would let it pass and take his due. Besides, it was better than them being fighting mad at him.
“Smelling salts are for ladies,” he defended. “I needed some and it seemed the perfect place to get them.”
“Did you think about stopping by the apothecary?” Hawk asked. “Or asking your housekeeper to take care of getting them for you?”
No, to both questions.
“It was an impulsive decision,” Rath admitted with no shame. “I was walking by, saw the sign, and entered. Damnation, do you think I’d have gone inside if I’d had any idea that your wives would be entering later? Or that the shop had such, such—”
“What?” his friends said in unison.
Thinking quickly, he said, “—an array of smellingsalts and sachets, which is exactly what I went in for.” He would not mention the sheer fabrics and mountains of lace fashioned to titillate a man’s natural desires. “However, I’m sorry if I embarrassed and upset either of Esmeralda or Loretta by being in there and talking to them rather than passing by as if they were not right in front of my eyes.”
“Upset?” Hawk questioned.
Griffin huffed a laugh. “They weren’t upset.”
“Loretta was laughing when she told me about the expression on your face when you saw her holding an undergarment, and she tried to hide it from you.”
My face? What about hers?
