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Four Nights With the Duke(2)

By:Eloisa James


In reality he was a heartless pig.

"You haven't gotten under her skirts, have you?" Oakenrott sounded  gleeful at the prospect. "Her father could take this line about being  lost in your sweetness and pressure you to make an offer."                       
       
           



       

"Never!" Vander sounded so appalled that the word slid over Mia's skin  like a snake. "It's a little odd to think that she's been lusting after  me. What sort of fifteen-year-old girl thinks in these terms? Though I  suppose she is her father's daughter."

Mia could hardly breathe because she was trying to sob without noise. He  made her sound repulsive, saying that she was lusting after him. It  wasn't like that. She wasn't like that.

"Have you ever noticed her staring at you from the side of the room?"  Thorn asked. "Because here it says, Like the bird that gazes all night  at the moon, I gaze at you."

"Like a bird, or a Bird of Paradise?" Oakenrott put in. "Maybe she can  set herself up as a literary light-skirt. One sovereign for a poem and  two for a you-know-what."

"All I can say is she's a God-awful poet," Vander said. "Even I know that poems are supposed to rhyme."

What an idiot. Mia took a shuddering breath. She had to escape. She simply could not stand any more of this.

"I think you should frame it," Thorn said, "because I can tell you right  now that no one else will think you're pretty enough to rhapsodize  about. Especially given the size of your moonbeam."

That brought on a scuffle and more laughter. At her expense. Mia could  feel the air rattling in her throat. Likely it was the death rattle.  Maybe she would die, and they'd find her body in this very spot.

"You know, I have to warn the fellows," Oakenrott said. "Some bloke  might be chatting with her right now, having no idea what a jam tart she  is."

Mia stiffened.

"If she's like that at fifteen, what'll she be like at twenty?"

"Don't even jest about it. You'd ruin her," Thorn said sharply. "You mustn't say a word."

"The poetry is evidence for the obvious," Oakenrott protested. "She's  got a sluttish look about her. It's all there. Most girls that age have  apple dumplings in front, but hers are more like cabbages than  cherries!"

Cabbages? Cabbages?

Mia stifled another sob. There was silence for a second, just long  enough so that Mia could imagine Vander standing up for her, like a  knight in shining armor. Growling, Shut your mouth, Oakenrott. She does  not look sluttish.

That didn't happen.

"There's no need to issue warnings," Vander said flatly. "There isn't a  fellow in this house who would bother speaking to that dumpy little  thing. The only reason she was invited was that my mother brought along  her lover, who dragged along his daughter. She's a charity case, that's  what she is."

A charity case. A dumpy one, at that.

She loathed him even more because he was right: she was dumpy. Other  girls were tall and willowy, but she was "petite," which was just a  pretentious way of saying that she was short.

And round. He meant she was fat.

He was a beast, a horrid beast.

Rage is a useful emotion. Rage burns away sorrow and disgrace. Rage  propelled Mia to her feet, and she came out from around the sofa with  her fists clenched.

Even knowing what he thought of her poem, despite her rage, the sight of  Vander slammed into her. She had loved him too long to be unaffected by  seeing him this close.

He was already tall and broad-shouldered. You could see the man he would  someday be in the lineaments of his body and the strength of his jaw.

She looked at him up and down, curling her lip, and then gave his friends the same inspection.

Thorn looked horrified, and Oakenrott surprised, but Vander was utterly  expressionless. All the things she'd thought she'd seen in him, every  good characteristic that she had believed he had, the gentlemanly nature  that seemed an antidote to her father's indiscretions . . . well, she  must have made those traits up. There was nothing readable in his face,  and clearly she had seen whatever she longed to find.

"So," she said, thankfully discovering that her voice was steady. "Three  boys whose imaginations are so disgusting that they can read lechery  into a silly love poem." She snatched the crumpled page from Thorn's  hand and tore it in half. The sound seemed very loud in the otherwise  silent room. She tore it again, and again, and dropped the pieces on the  floor.

"I may have made a fool of myself by falling in love," she told Vander,  "but you have no right to ridicule me for it. Do you know that I was  foolish enough to think you a gentleman, unlike-" She caught herself.  Her father was her father, no matter his sins. "I should have known  better," she added. "You say I am my father's daughter. Well, you, Lord  Brody, are obviously your mother's son."                       
       
           



       

To her left, Thorn made a protesting movement but she swept him a glance and he shut his mouth.

Vander only stared at her. Why had she never noticed his beautiful eyes were hard and cold?

"I shall now take myself and my cabbages into the drawing room," she  said, head high, though it took every ounce of willpower she could  summon to hold it there. "If you would do me the courtesy to remain here  for fifteen minutes, I shall find my father and be gone."

None of them said a word, the pestilent cowards.

One more thing occurred to her. "Moreover, I wouldn't marry a single one  of you," she said, making her voice as scathing as she could, "even if I  were desperate! Even if you were the only men left in all England!"





Chapter One




Thirteen years later





From the offices of Brandy, Bucknell & Bendal, Publishers



August 27, 1800





Dear Miss Carrington,





I am writing to inquire about the prospect of receiving your new novel.  As you know, we had hoped to receive the manuscript some six months ago.  We are all most sympathetic as regards the tragic death of your father  and brother a year ago. But I would be remiss not to tell you that  letters begging for Miss Lucibella Delicosa's next novel are piling up  in our offices. Your title, An Angel's Form and a Devil's Heart, has  proved so enticing that subscriptions already exceed sales of your last  two novels added together.





With deep respect, and anticipating a favorable reply,



I remain,



William Bucknell, Esq.





P.S. I am including Miss Julia Quiplet's latest novel. I believe you  said that you had not yet read her work, and we are persuaded that you  will find it pleasurable.





September 4, 1800

Rutherford Park

The Duke of Pindar's country estate





Mia hated to admit it, but she was trembling like one of her own  heroines. She generally put her poor ladies in Mortal Danger, standing  at the brink of icy waters, for example, pursued by a lustful landlord,  knees knocking pitiably and delicate hands shaking.

Her readers expected Mortal Danger. In capital letters.

She'd happily choose a plunge over a waterfall to the humiliation that lay ahead of her.

Her own less-than-delicate hands were trembling, so she curled them into  fists, watching as her groom announced her name. Vander's butler-or, to  be exact, the Duke of Pindar's butler-glanced down at her, patently  surprised that a young lady had arrived without a chaperone.

Did intense humiliation count as Mortal Danger?

No, because if it were possible to die of humiliation, she would surely  be dead by now. After all, she had survived the mortifying poetry  incident in Villiers's library all those years ago, then she'd failed on  the marriage market, only to go through an even worse humiliation:  being jilted at the altar a month ago.

The truth was that as an author she was always kind to her characters.  Mortal Danger never included jiltings. What's more, thanks to her  heroines' thin, wispy bodies, they always floated safely downstream, too  light to sink. Another author she knew had caused a character to die  after an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. Murder by tortoise?

Not in a Lucibella novel!

Her readers knew that there would be no bloodthirsty birds, no one left  at the altar. She had never forced any of her heroines to propose  marriage, let alone to a duke.

Gentlemen fell at her heroines' feet, not the other way around. It was a  strict requirement of the genre. Lord knows, Lucibella Delicosa  disappointed her readers at her own peril: a torrent of indignant  letters would pour through her publisher's door if she were to shame one  of her heroines the way Mia was about to be shamed.

But at least, Mia reminded herself, she was not, in reality, falling at Vander's feet.