Page 44 of The Duke Undone

A fine impasse, this. There had to be another way.

As the silence stretched, her hand drifted up and she rubbed her temple with two fingertips, then twisted an errant strand of hair. Nervous. She’d been nervous all along. He found the knowledge oddly affecting. She’d held her own with Lavinia, with Yardley, with him, and the whole time she’d been thrumming inside, frantic to save her home. Now she was considering the sacrifice of her most cherished dream.

Blast Mr. Teed.

The curl she twisted—it was just the one he would have caught between his own fingers, to test the spring of it.

“Forget your little scheme,” he said, voice oddly hoarse. “Neither of us gains by that route. Let’s see if we can’t come to an arrangement.”

The idea rose in his mind, fully formed.

“This aunt of yours,” he said. “She costumes actresses?”

She blinked, thrown off by the line of questioning.

“She does,” she said, then corrected herself. “She did. Business has slowed. She doesn’t have the name recognition she deserves. Mrs. Thistleship is credited with the most famous designs, as Miss Yardley pointed out.”

Her mouth curved down. She had a mobile mouth, wide and lush. She scowled to great effect. But her kisses . . . they were more effective still. They’d burned through him. They’d blurred his senses like a drug.

“I take it Mrs. Thistleship receives more credit than is her due.”

“My aunt never claims so. I wouldn’t know myself if I hadn’t found her sketches. She’d be angry I spoke at all. I don’t know why I did.”

He knew. Lavinia’s superiority used to provoke Effie to no end.

“Miss Yardley has a certain way about her,” he said. “My sister claimed she’d goad a barefoot friar into bragging about his shoes. They were always locked in some contest.”

She snorted. “I thought we’d come to blows when I dripped ammonia on her skirt.” Her hand moved on her own skirt, smoothing it over her thighs. “This was adapted from a stage dress. My aunt was a visionary, in her day. I always wear some version of her designs.” She made a face. “I don’t do them any favors.”

The invitation was too good to pass up. He permitted his gaze to slide down her throat to her neckline and lower, lingering on points of interest. That simple bodice didn’t pad, stiffen, or constrict her upper body. He could see her diaphragm swell as she drew a breath and held it, aware of his inspection. When he found her eyes again, he noted that her cheeks had flushed.

His voice rasped. “There we disagree.”

“I spot them with paint.” She crossed her arms protectively beneath her breasts. The chrysanthemums embroidered on her sleeves matched the russet sash. “I wasn’t after your flattery.”

“But you had to expect it.” He smiled, a smile that widened as her eyes dipped to his mouth.

She ignored him, squaring her shoulders as she looked up, leveled him with a glare. “What arrangement do you have in mind?”

Her tone—it challenged him to ask for something despicable. That’s what she thought of him, what anyone would think of him. A man who brawled on the steps of brothels, broke stained-glass windows, flopped naked in the mud—such a man should not hesitate to demand of a woman any prurient act that answered to his desire.

Touching, how she stood bolt upright, prepared to hear some vile, degraded request. Perhaps prepared even to acquiesce.

Touching, and shattering. He felt his throat closing, locking back the nausea that swelled from the pit of his stomach.

To keep her from seeing the horror in his eyes, he turned abruptly, walked to the desk, not his father’s desk anymore, his desk. And yet, there were no decanters on the desk, no studbooks or racing calendars, just pens, a writing pad, a lamp, the blue books he’d yet to open. His mouth felt dry as sand.

He wished he were wetting his lips in the glasshouse. Burning away this heavy, sick feeling with the remaining whiskey. Washing down the whiskey with rum.

He slipped a key from his pocket and unlocked the desk drawer.

He took from it a small oval portrait framed in gilded ormolu. Miss Coover observed him with a mixture of dread and hope.

This arrangement he’d propose—she would find it to her satisfaction. She’d run to her Mr. Teed’s greasy print shop, eager to avert their mutual ruination. Hope restored by his promise of help.

But Anthony suspected that, in the end, he would fail her.

With Mabeldon, a word from him meant nothing.