LITMIR.BIZ

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merely wish to visit my stepmother?”

      The duchess’s response was a sniff of contempt. “Was the woman married? Is that why you have to slink off into the countryside and disturb us here?”

      “She was not married, but that is not why I have come”.

      “Why, then?”

      Hester saw a flash of temper in the Dark Duke’s eyes, yet he remained perfectly motionless, which was not what she would have expected from his passionate reputation. “I have every right to come home,” he said evenly.

      “I’m not surprised you had to leave London. I suppose there was another duel.”

      “Suppose what you like, Your Grace,” he replied, using the most formal of addresses. “I am going to trouble you only a little while. Where is Elliot?”

      “Mercifully, still in France.”

      “Ah. When do you expect him home?”

      “Any day, Adrian, any day. I must say, I am delighted he is still abroad. He does not need to be tainted by another scandal involving you! Do you never think of us? Do you never think of your brother? No, don’t trouble to answer! It is perfectly obvious! You only think of yourself!” The duchess glared at him and Hester shifted uncomfortably, wishing she was not present.

      The duke rose slowly. “If you will excuse me, I shall retire to my room.”

      “I have not finished with you! I want to know what you have done now!”

      The Dark Duke looked at the duchess, and Hester detected more than slight scorn in his black eyes. “As much as I am convinced your interest in knowing the details of the latest scandal is genuine, I am finished with you, Your Grace. My opponent was not the only one who was injured, and unless you wish me to get blood all over the carpet—” both women gasped, but the duke remained coolly calm “—you will not detain me. Lady Hester, I give you good day. Your Grace, my compliments.”

      “Would you like me to call for a footman?” Hester asked, hurrying past him toward the door.

      “Hester!” the duchess called out. “I need you.”

      Adrian watched with slight amusement as his stepmother’s latest companion—or slave, as he always thought of these unfortunate creatures—hesitated. Then, to his very great surprise, Lady Hester did not immediately return to the duchess’s side. Instead, with a determined expression manifested by a slight downturn of her full lips, she said, “If you will excuse me. Your Grace, I will be but a moment,” and left the room without waiting for an answer.

      Adrian would have smiled with satisfaction to see his stepmother disobeyed, except that he knew such a reaction from him would only inflame his stepmother’s anger and make things more difficult for Lady Hester.

      Why would a young woman of wealth and privilege waste her days tending to the duchess? he wondered. She must have more opportunities than that, even if she wasn’t a beauty.

      Pimblett. He knew that name, and recalled the daughters, although not a Hester. Helena Pimblett was reckoned a great beauty. He had seen her once at the theater, and thought her a vain, stuck-up creature. It was said by men of his acquaintance who could be expected to know such things that the younger sister was a beauty, too. However, he had never seen or heard of another sister, and it was fairly obvious why, for this young woman could never attract much notice in London.

      Still, there was a certain wholesome prettiness to her. Her eyes were the friendly blue of cornflowers, fringed by lashes of soft brown that matched her chestnut hair drawn into a plain and rather severe knot of a bun. Her complexion was excellent and he had little doubt that she had been raised in the country, for her skin had the satiny texture of a country-bred lady. There was a delicacy to her features that he found interesting, and she had a nose that no woman need be ashamed of. She was simply and plainly gowned with good taste, and her figure was more than acceptable.

      Judging by her response to the duchess, she must also be a rather uncommon young woman. He would not have said there was a young lady in all of England who would not be intimidated by his stepmother, yet apparently there was and, he realized with pleasure, she was in the duchess’s company.

      Lady Hester appeared in the doorway, followed by Jenkins and two footmen. By now Adrian’s wound was aching badly and he could feel the blood seeping through the bandage. Nevertheless, he did not feel quite so decrepit as to need the assistance of three grown men.

      “I took the liberty of sending for the surgeon to tend to the duke, as well as Dr. Woadly,” Lady Hester said in a voice as friendly and pleasant as her countenance. She spoke to the duchess before looking at him, whereupon she regarded him steadily, as if he were a specimen in a bottle.

      He returned the scrutiny, more out of curiosity than anything else, and then decided to conduct his own experiment upon this unusual woman. He smiled at her with all the charm he could muster. “Thank you, Lady Hester.”

      She did not blush or look away with false modesty or stare at him with impertinent curiosity. She simply resumed her seat.

      Her reaction, or nonreaction, didn’t mean anything, Adrian told himself. Why should it, when she was nothing to look at? And it could be that, sick and pale from the loss of blood, he was not at his best. Yes, that had to explain why a woman of her age would not respond to his charm.

      He decided to ignore her, and limped toward the door. “Jenkins, if I may lean upon your arm, you may dismiss the footmen. Send the surgeon to my room as soon as he arrives.”

      “Lady Hester!” the duchess said. “Please fetch the smelling salts.”

      Without so much as a glance Adrian’s way as he left the room, the young lady hurried to his stepmother’s side.

      “I must indeed look sick,” Adrian muttered as he made his way toward the stairs, keeping most of his weight off the elderly butler, using Jenkins only for balance.

      “Look at what, Your Grace?” Jenkins asked.

      “I didn’t say anything.”

      “Yes, you did. Your Grace” Jenkins corrected. “You said, ’Look at it.”

      “I meant my father’s portrait. I think it needs to be cleaned.”

      They paused and surveyed the portrait of the late fifth Duke of Barroughby—in his full regalia for the House of Lords—which was hung on the landing. Beside it was a smaller portrait of Adrian’s mother.

      “Ah, those were good days,” Jenkins said with a sigh. “I was younger then.”

      “So were we all,” the sixth Duke of Barroughby noted as he passed them by.

      “Don’t look so glum, John,” Adrian chastised the surgeon, who was applying a fresh bandage to the wound in his leg. “I’ve had worse.”

      “What caused it?” John Mapleton asked. The stout man puffed a little from the exertion of bending over Adrian’s elevated leg. “Not a sword.”

      “Pistols at twenty paces.”

      “Ah!”

      “It bled terribly, but no lasting damage, the London surgeon said.”

      “Lucky for you.” Mapleton straightened with a grunt. “Lucky again. One of these days you’re not going to be lucky. You’re going to be dead.”

      “I didn’t have very much to fear from my opponent. I was far more concerned that his shot not hit my second or some innocent bystander.”

      “Huh.” Mapleton began repacking his black bag. “What was the cause? A woman?”

      “Yes.” Adrian lifted his foot and placed it gingerly on the thick carpet. On the table beside the brocade chair was a basin full of bloodied water and a cloth the surgeon had used to clean the reopened wound, items that seemed distinctly out of place in the ornately decorated room with its expensive

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