Constance stumbled back a step, tripping over the hem of her dress and cloak in her bid to get away… or to break this magnetic pull. “V-very well, Y-Your—Connell.” And with that, she collected her skirts and fled.

  “Until tomorrow,” he called.

  There was a good deal more wickedness in her soul than she’d credited, for as Constance made her escape, she found herself eager for their first day together.

  Chapter 5

  The following morning, Connell, stationed at the floor-length windows of the garish front parlor, puffed away upon his newly inherited pipe. Around the cloud of smoke left by the little ivory instrument, he peered down at the quiet streets below.

  Just as he’d been peering for the better part of two hours.

  Not that he was eager for Constance Brandley’s company. Not at all.

  She was… simply a diversion. Nothing more. This anticipation was really just a product of his boredom, one that suggested he’d be wise to seek out the old haunts and past pleasures he’d once found in London.

  So why did the idea of endless nights drinking and carousing at his wicked clubs not stir the same eagerness as the prospect of sparring with the tart-mouthed, feisty minx?

  Connell took another slow puff.

  They should have settled on a time. After all, she’d left him waiting around all day.

  Not that he’d otherwise had plans this day… or any day, which had been an idleness he’d preferred.

  That, however, had been before his unlikeliest of afternoon visitors.

  He straightened, his gaze catching on a distant fleck of a figure on the horizon. That same pea-green cloak, which stood out stark and bright amidst the dreary gray London landscape, wasn’t in the manner of color that would spare her notice.

  In fact, it was a hue and quality better suited to an older matron than the full-cheeked, bright-eyed beauty who’d come here yesterday.

  She drew nearer, walking with a brisk, determined clip, and he caught sight of his visage reflected back. The small grin had come naturally, when he’d not found a reason to smile since…

  Just like that, the brief interlude he’d found this day vanished, replaced with a reminder of his losses. And his new life. One that was so very empty, he found himself hovering about, awaiting the company of a damned lady—a lady who was also his former betrothed’s best friend. And who was coming ’round only because she required assistance with an advice column.

  Now the crystal pane reflected back Connell’s scowl. At that very moment, the lady stopped below, tilted her head back, and found him. She returned his frown.

  Even with the fifty feet of distance that divided them, he caught the way she wrinkled her pert nose before sweeping up the steps and reaching for the knocker.

  She let that gold lion fall once. Twice. And then stopped.

  With an inexplicable spring to his step, Connell made the trek to the foyer.

  Through the gossamer curtains over the window, he caught her standing there, rubbing her gloved fingers together. He hastened his strides and drew the door open.

  Not missing a beat, Constance swept inside, and he pushed the panel shut behind them. “You really do not have servants, do you?” she asked, her voice carrying around the soaring foyer.

  “I’m a duke,” he drawled. “Do you truly believe I don’t have servants?” It wasn’t altogether a lie. He’d two of them. That surely counted.

  From under her big bonnet, she looked at him with bemused eyes. “Have you hidden them all away?”

  “In a way,” he muttered. The pair had hidden themselves away. Jennie and James were now on their second nap of the day. Curiosity piqued in the young lady’s features, and Connell shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

  He needn’t have worried. Dropping her bag at her feet, Constance had already dismissed him. Unclasping the grommet of her heinous pea-green muslin cloak, she removed the article and…

  Connell choked a bit on his swallow.

  The lady’s bustle silk dress, adorned with ribbons and bows and lace and… well, every other damned adornment that might be affixed to a gown, might as well have been pulled from the last century. Green silk brocade shoes with straps for buckles peeked out from under the hemline. And yet, garish as the dress was, the raised, fitted waistline brought all focus to the low neck that put her voluptuous bosom on display.

  Connell’s mouth went dry as a wave of lust bolted through him, and in a bid to control something, anything, he took another puff from his pipe.

  The lady gave a toss of her impressive curls, sending a sad feather flopping over her eyes. “Do you have a problem with my attire, Your Grace?” she asked, shoving that puce monstrosity back into place.

  His ears going hot, Connell whipped his gaze up to her affronted one. “I have a greater problem with your still Your Gracing me.” Although, he’d an equal problem with his absolute fixation on her beautiful bosoms.

  “I’m something of an eccentric.” The lady adjusted her feather adornment, her fingers toying with her voluminous golden curls and stirring up more of that unwanted appreciation and awareness of the proper miss. “I prefer classic clothing.”

  And by classic, the lady meant garments in vogue when she was in the cradle. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I… see that,” he said through the little cloud of white. And Connell rather found himself with a preference for her out-of-mode choice of dress. Or, more specifically, her in it.

  Her thick lashes swept low, and her annoyance spilled through the pinpricks of her eyes.

  She’d mistaken his words and study of her as unfavorable, and the gentleman he’d been long ago would have disabused her of that affront. He’d have pointed out that it was a wicked rogue’s desire and appreciation for her lush form that earned his focus. “Shall we?” he said instead, holding an arm out.

  With another little flounce of her curls, she started forward with a purposeful step so that he was left staring after her, at the V formed by the fabric that gave a nice little point down to the lady’s buttocks. As if further attention needed to be drawn to that well-rounded flesh, four buttons had been sewn into a little square, framing that delectable sight. Each sideways sway of her hips as she walked was a further enticement. One that tempted. Taunted.

  With his spare hand, Connell loosened his cravat.

  Constance tossed a glance over her shoulder, and it jolted him into movement. Jolted him into thinking of anything other than the sight or sway of her generously curved hips.

  It had been too long since he’d had a woman. That was all there was to it.

  He was in London. A lover would rectify this inexplicable lust for a lady who dressed like a woman from bygone times. A proper spinster at that, working on an advice column. Yes, he’d see to that. Not her column, but a woman to fix in his bed. A warm, willing, eager widow.

  One who didn’t scowl and wrinkle her nose as the lady laying command of his halls.

  So why would his mind not focus on the thought of anyone but the tart-mouthed little general who’d somehow gotten him to agree to five daily visits?

  Unnerved and eager to get this day started and then over with, he gave silent thanks when they reached his offices. Her little satchel swinging as she went, Constance marched the length of the room. “After you,” he said dryly, sweeping an arm out toward the seat she’d already claimed opposite his desk. He shut the door behind them.

  Head bent, she proceeded to rummage around in her sizable bag, the leather mail satchel as odd a choice as the lady’s dress, or the woman herself.

  As Connell took up the place beside her, the lady paused in her searching and turned a frown up at him. “What are you doing?” she blurted.

  Connell took another slow puff of his pipe. “I think it should be fairly clear.” He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “I’m sitting.”

  That adorable frown puckered the place between her eyebrows. “Yes, I can seeee that,” she said, managing to add two extra beats to that word. “I mean, what are you doing… there?” She waved a pencil in his general direction.

  “And where should I be seated?”

  Constance jabbed the writing utensil as sorry as her feather at the other side of the desk.

  Connell followed her gesture. He opened his mouth, but called back the droll response as an understanding dawned. Why, not unlike his unnerving response to her, the indomitable minx wasn’t immune to him, either. He set his pipe on the arm of his chair. Well, this was interesting. Finding a renewed enjoyment with this unlikely arrangement, Connell crossed his arms and rested them behind his head. “Just why do you expect I should sit… there?”

  “I…” Her cheeks pinkened. “Why don’t we just begin, then?” she countered instead, digging around her peculiar bag once more. Constance withdrew an old leather notebook, flipped through page after page filled with a sloppy childlike scrawl.

  Making a show of gathering his pipe, he squinted at her recordings.

  As if feeling his stare on her work, the lady whipped her head up. She turned another frown on him before angling the aged book closer to herself and away from his scrutiny. “Why don’t we begin with what manner of pleasures you enjoy?”

  Connell promptly dissolved into a paroxysm.

  And yet, there had been nothing suggestive in her tone or in her expressive eyes. In fact, those eyes revealed nothing less than annoyance.

  “Are you choking on that horrific smoke? Or have I said something to amuse you?”

  “Th-the latter,” he said when he’d regained the ability to draw proper breath.

  By the slight parting of her full lips, that frankness had not been what Constance had been expecting.

  Connell abandoned his relaxed repose, and sitting up, he leaned closer to her. “Do you really wish to know the manner of… pleasures I enjoy?”

  Her mouth formed a perfect circle as wide as her rounded eyes as his meaning set in.

  “You are still a scoundrel,” she muttered, and Connell found himself grinning as she scribbled something in her little book. He would have traded his soul to know just what she’d written there.

  “Ah, love, but I never presumed to be anything but,” he purred.

  The color deepened on her cheeks, a delectable bright blush that should have annoyed him because of its innocence. And yet, he was only further enticed.

  “How do you prefer to spend your time? That is, other than smoking on a pipe, as all old dukes do?”

  He blinked slowly. “Old dukes?”

  “Squinting. Smoking on a pipe. Surly and snarly.” As she spoke, she directed every last charge not at Connell but at her musty little book. “And given your faltering hearing, I’m fairly certain you’ve met all the requisites for proper ducal behavior.”

  And here one would believe that quick-fire cataloging couldn’t be more insulting.

  “I assure you, my hearing isn’t faltering,” he clipped out.

  From under her breath, she said something that sounded very like, “That can certainly be debated.”

  Connell straightened in his chair. “What was that?” he barked.

  She lifted her head once more, this time to flash a triumphant smile. “Precisely my point.”

  Connell’s eyebrows shot up. The damned imp.

  “Continuing on,” she said. “You were sharing your pleas—pastimes.”

  Pastimes.

  His gaze slid over to the heavy gold curtains, drawn neatly back and tied, letting in the bright afternoon sun.

  How very different that answer would have been to the man he’d once been. Riding, carousing, drinking, wagering. A dissolute lifestyle was the only existence he’d known until he’d met Emilia. And then after Emilia? More specifically, after he’d ended it with Emilia, everything had changed. All his joys, his every pleasure, had centered around the pair he’d inherited.

  His morns had been spent playing shuttlecock and battledore with a child whom no governess had managed to tame… and whom he’d not wished to see tamed.

  His rides had been in the company of a little girl.

  His card matches had been replaced with spillikins and other child’s games.

  “I trust there is… something you enjoy?” Constance ventured. Only, this query was stripped of the earlier sarcasm. And was all the worse for the gentleness that lined her question.

  “Of course I enjoyed… things.” Connell shifted on his seat, and the leather groaned, a tell marking him as the liar he was. For the truth was, he couldn’t think of anything. His life had been so entwined with Iris and her mother that his identity and even the joy he’d taken had been fused with others.

  “Enjoyed,” Constance said in a quiet voice, pulling Connell’s attention back to the woman responsible for this increasing disquiet.

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t…”

  Constance rested her book on her lap. Then, catching the underside of her chair, she dragged it around so they faced each other and then closer so their knees brushed. “You said ‘enjoyed.’ You spoke in the past tense.”

  Those words belonged to one who saw too much. Her piercing gaze saw even more and left him exposed before this woman who was indirectly linked to his past. “I didn’t,” he said coolly, setting his jaw. “I assure you there are many enjoyments I find.”

  She pursed her mouth. “Aside from your carnal pleasures.”

  Carnal pleasures.

  It was hardly an illecebrous way to describe the act of lovemaking.

  And yet, those two words dripping from her pursed mouth sent a heat through him.

  “I never said ‘carnal pleasures,’ Constance,” he reminded, walking his two middle fingers up her forearm, only the ancient fabric of her dress a thin, barely there barrier between them. With their legs touching as they were, he felt the tremble that worked through her body.

  “V-very well. Th-then, what do you enjoy?”

  Being with her. Sparring with her. He found an inexplicable and inordinate enjoyment in that, too. And aside from this unlikeliest of pleasures, there really was nothing. It was a pitiable, sorry truth he’d never dare admit to her. Or anyone. He searched his mind, considered her question, thought about who he’d once been and then leaned still closer. “Do you want to know what I enjoy, Constance?” he murmured.

  She gave a shaky nod, and that feather adornment affixed to her hair bobbed its agreement.

  “Dancing.”

  Their gazes locked. Her eyes lit, and then with a wide smile, she forgot him, and the only thing that mattered was her notebook. “Splendid. Do you have a favorite dance?”

  A favorite dance?

  He’d teased at seduction, so what accounted for the very real irritation that she’d so easily switched her focus over to quizzing him?

  He shifted once more in his seat. “I do.”

  “And which set is it?” she returned as she scribbled.

  What in hell…?

  “Are you… interviewing me?”

  She paused midwriting and finally looked at him again. “How else did you see this going, Conn—” Her words ended on a sharp gasp as he plucked the book from her fingers. “I beg your pardon.” Fire flashed in her eyes, and it was a fluid shift from businesslike interviewer to feisty virago.

  “You’re forgiven,” he muttered, reading the heading at the center of the page and the handful of sentences she’d recorded under it. He’d not really given too much thought before this moment to how their five days together would be spent. But he’d expected it to be deucedly more interesting than sitting like he was in sessions at Eton again. And all Connell knew was he preferred them teasing to… working.

  “I’ll have you know, I most certainly was not apologizing.” She grabbed for her book.

  Connell held it beyond her reach. “Mrs. Matcher’s Guide to Landing the Heart of a Duke,” he read aloud. He glanced up.

  Abandoning her rescue attempts, the minx folded her hands primly on her lap and at least had the good grace to blush. “It’s not the article,” she said. A defensive note crept into her voice. “Not yet.”

  “No, it most certainly isn’t.” He resumed his reading.

  Mrs. Matcher’s Guide to Landing the Heart of a Duke. Rule one: It is essential to find out the gentleman’s pleasures interests.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you?” he asked without inflection.

  Even so, Constance bristled with indignation. “I beg your—?” The lady caught herself, stopping midsentence. She proceeded to tug off her leather gloves, the articles as old as the book in his hands. Then she set them on the arm of her chair.

  She didn’t speak for several moments, just smoothed her palms along the white petticoat displayed down the center of her dress. “And you know so very much about writing an advice column?” she asked evenly.

  “I know that enumerating points isn’t going to grab anyone’s interest. I know that readers wish to be pulled in and then stay there on the pages of whatever you’ve written and…” He looked down. “Mrs. Matcher’s Guide to Landing the Heart of a Duke. Rule one: It is essential to find out the gentleman’s…” He held her gaze. “Interests.”

  “Well, when you read it that way,” she mumbled, slouching in her chair.

  Another of those unexpected grins tugged at his lips. “I trust the advice you give is generally direct and straightforward?”

  “Those mean the same thing,” she muttered.

  “And you’re always this clinical,” he spoke over her interruption. Connell stood.

  Constance tipped her head back. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re done here.”

  “We’re done?” Her face fell, and it was hard not to feel some lightness inside at that response. Even as that response was likely driven largely—or only—by the help she’d sought from him.

  “In here,” he clarified. “If we’re going to speak on my fondness for dancing, we’re going to have that discussion where it should be had.”

  Constance’s throat worked slowly. “And… where is that, Connell?”

  He grinned. “Why, the ballroom, of course.”

 

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