Mad About the Duke (14 page)

But not her imperious sister. “Yes, his daughter,” Tia declared, as if she and the previously unknown Miss St. Maur were bosom bows. “Isn't that right, Mr. St. Maur?” She paused only for a second as if she already knew there would be no arguments. “I can't wait to meet her.”

“You have a daughter?” Elinor said, wondering what other secrets this man harbored. “I didn't know.”

“I did,” Tia said, rocking on her heels. “She's out, isn't she?”

“Out?” Elinor sputtered. Then she paused, for she was getting ahead of herself. “Out, as in out of school, you mean to say?”

“No, not precisely,” he replied, sending another scathing glance at Tia.

The impudent girl just grinned. “Out as in looking for a husband, Elinor. Perhaps you can loan her the duchess's
Bachelor Chronicles
. Then she could make a most excellent—”

“No!” they both said at once, and with enough force (both for their own reasons) to finally cow the irrepressible little minx into silence.

“That is to say, she doesn't need the help,” Mr. St. Maur said.

“Perhaps it is time to return home?” Elinor suggested quickly.

Mr. St. Maur looked relieved at the notion.

Too relieved.

“An excellent idea, my lady.” With that, he turned and led the way back toward the carriage. More like fled. For a moment, Elinor watched as he cut a hasty retreat through the crowd. How little she knew of this man.

“I suspect there is more to Mr. St. Maur than meets the eye,” she said softly to Tia.

“You do?” she replied, sounding bored. “Really, Elinor, I find him quite ordinary.”

 

They rode back to Mayfair in silence. A rather uncomfortable one.

Elinor found herself wanting to pepper the man with questions, but unlike her sister, she possessed a modicum of restraint.

That didn't mean she wasn't curious. Decidedly so.

His stalwart silence as he drove the carriage prodded not only her interest but also the fleeting memory of being held in his arms. The echoes of their kiss in the garden.

Did he kiss all his female clients, or was she his first?

She glanced over at him. His straight jaw set firmly as he concentrated on driving, his hands holding the reins with rigid control, his body taut and straight as if he were made of marble.

Hardly the warm, masculine wall of security and mystery that she knew lurked beneath his jacket.

Could it really be so? As Lucy claimed? That a man, the right man, could make you forget everything?

If only I could find a way beneath that jacket…
Elinor gasped, her own wayward thoughts shocking her out of her musings.

“Are you well?” he asked, glancing over at her.

“Um, yes,” she managed. “I just remembered…well, that…I promised…”

He looked at her, those dark eyes studying her as if he could see past her stammering responses.

“That I forgot…um, we forgot…,” she continued, struggling to come up with some plausible thing to say without looking like a complete featherbrain. “Forgot all about your jacket.” Elinor sighed in relief. “Yes, that's it. We forgot to find you a jacket.”

He laughed. “Never fear, Lady Standon, this old one serves my purposes better than you realize.”

She eyed it critically. “It doesn't fit. And it seems only fair that since you've given up your Sunday for me, I should return the favor.”

“Return it? No, no. There is nothing to return. I enjoyed our outing.” He pulled to a stop in front of Number 7.

“No, it isn't right for a man conducting my business to wear such an ill-cut jacket. Why, you cannot call on an associate of the Duke of Avenbury in such a coat.”

“I had no intention of—”

“Well, you needn't worry about it now, Mr. St. Maur, for I have the perfect solution,” Elinor said as she joined Tia at the curb. “As your employer, I order you to come inside and take that horrible thing off.”

 

James should have given the lady an emphatic no and been on his way.

Honestly, he should have done that the first moment she'd entreated him to help her with that wretched dog of hers, but there was something in those blue eyes of hers when they widened just so and she held
out her hand to him that made him unable to do much more than follow her.

He was starting to suspect she was a siren masquerading as a lady. That was the only way he could explain that here he was, once again, following her into this madhouse she called a home.

In a flash, he was settled into the front parlor and Tia was dispatched for tea and biscuits.

“Now, where is it?” she muttered as she hunted around the room. She bent over a chair and fished a basket out from behind it, giving James a rather fine view of her curves.

Gads, the woman was a tempting piece.

You need to find her a husband,
he could hear Jack saying. Not leer at her, or sit here considering half a dozen ways to whisk her away and…He drew an unsteady breath and looked up at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster.

Luckily the house was in such ill repair that it would take him a while to count them all.

“Ah, yes, here it is.” She popped up with a basket in her hand and smiled. “Give me an hour and you'll no longer have to dread wearing that coat.”

Give me an unfettered hour, my lady, and you would no longer be racing about Society looking for a husband.

James stilled. What the devil was he thinking? Or better yet, what was she doing?

For here she was standing before him, her hands slipping inside his jacket, pushing the wool open, revealing that she had every intention of…

“Yes, just as I thought, country seams!” she declared.

James blinked and took an unsteady step back from her. “Country what?”

“Seams.” She smiled, then went back to her basket, rummaging around inside it. “I won't tell anyone you have your coats made out in the country—you would be surprised how many gentlemen do.”

She was back again, and this time with scissors and a mouthful of pins.

So much for an amorous adventure. One could hardly kiss a woman like that.

Kiss her
? James closed his eyes and shook off those thoughts.

“This coat only needs to be let out. Really, Mr. St. Maur, you need to find a new tailor—your current one does not serve you.” She began to circle him, her fingers deftly running along the seams on his back and at his side.

“I must confess, my lady, this coat isn't exactly mine,” he stammered, her fingers running down his spine.

“Ah, that makes sense. You bought this secondhand, didn't you?” She didn't wait for his reply but continued by saying, “Again, I won't divulge a word to anyone, and when I am done, no one will know that this coat wasn't cut for you and you alone.”

And then, before he could protest, he heard the snip of scissors and a loud rip as the back seam was cut open.

James closed his eyes.
Oh, Jack isn't going to like this. His favorite jacket, ruined.

“You needn't look so worried,” she told him, coming around to the front and eyeing the fabric. Then she came closer still and slid her hands inside to slip the coat off. “I've done this countless times.”

James glanced down at the tip of her head, the line of her shoulders and the swell of her breasts as
they came nearly right up against him. “So you mentioned.”

She glanced up at him, having stilled in his arms. They were all tangled together, her arms wound inside his coat, their bodies ever so close.

You resolved not to do this again…

You also promised to return Jack's coat unharmed…

Then she came closer still, slid her hands further inside his jacket again and began to push it up and over his shoulders.

She came so close up to him that James struggled to keep his wits about him.

Marry her off to someone else, and fast before…

Before I am utterly lost…

But just as quickly as she was there, within reach, just inside his grasp, she was gone and his coat with her, and she was across the room and settled on the settee.

Then, as if to add another dash of cold reality to his senses, that harridan of a woman she called a housekeeper came in bearing a tray. “The miss said you wanted some tea. Well, it ain't much, but it's all we've got.” She slammed the tray down on the table and glanced over at James, sniffing with nothing short of disapproval. “So, now you're coming around for meals, are you?”

James had no idea how to answer such a cheeky question. A glance at Elinor said she was just as shocked.

Meanwhile, the housekeeper took a long, measured glance at his state of undress all the way down to his boots. “Not much in the way of a businessman, are you now?”

“Mrs. Hutchinson!” Elinor burst out.

“Needs saying, milady,” she huffed before she departed.

“She imbibes some, I fear,” his hostess explained.

“Some?”

At this, they both laughed.

“Now let me do those seams back up in a thrice while you enjoy a bit of tea and some scones.” She smiled at him. “What Mrs. Hutchinson lacks in manners, she makes up for in baking.”

Elinor poured a cup of tea and set a scone down on a plate for him, then settled in with her sewing basket, pulling out a length of thread. “Please, this shouldn't take long, and I have to imagine you are hungry.”

Hungry for something other than scones, he would have liked to tell her. Then he took a bite of the scone and discovered why anyone would keep such a despicable servant around. “How can this be?!”

“Yes, they are wonderful, aren't they?” Elinor grinned as she clipped the thread and poked it through a needle. “Hard to believe she learned her trade in Seven Dials. Well, the cooking part of her trade.”

James paused and glanced down at the morsel in his hand. He could just imagine what trades that meant, having made Mrs. Hutchinson's acquaintance.

“I do love a country tailor,” Elinor was saying. “They understand that a jacket may have more than one life and always leave a little bit extra in the seams. Otherwise I'd never be able to let this out for you. I think you will find it much more comfortable when I'm done.”

“I never knew,” he managed, thinking more of what Jack would say when he discovered Lady
Standon's handiwork. Well, if she could let it out, perhaps Richards could take it back in before Jack noticed the changes to his favorite jacket. “Country seams, you say?”

“Yes. I love the country. If I never had to set foot in London again, I would be the happiest woman on earth.”

“I know what you mean,” he said without thinking.

Her gaze flew up. “You come from the country? Whereabouts?”

“Somerset,” he replied carefully. It was an honest answer, but then again he could have mentioned half a dozen counties, for he had houses and properties there as well.

Elinor paused in her work. “I think there would be nothing more heavenly than a nice estate, good pastureland and a place where you could take long walks.”

The sincerity of her words and the sigh of longing that followed them touched his heart.

“Yes, that does sound the perfect sort of life,” he agreed.

“Much better than scrimping and saving to live in Town. But what am I saying, you know as well as I how expensive it is to live here in London.”

“Yes, quite,” he said, trying to sound both sympathetic and in league with her.

For he certainly had never considered the difference.

To live as a duke was expensive wherever you chose to reside. But the expenses, like the title and the expectations that came with it, were so much a part of his life that he hadn't noticed that others weren't as blessed.

Yet he hadn't missed the irony of her desires. For
here was Lady Standon, who only longed for a simple country life. “A lady who seeks to be a duchess wants only a small estate and good meadows?”

She laughed. “I suppose it seems a bit of a contradiction, but I must have a husband who can keep me and my sister safe.”

There it was again. That stubborn determination to set aside her own happiness for her sister's sake.

“Have you considered consigning that imp to Newgate until she is of age?” he teased.

“I had thought Bedlam more appropriate,” she shot back. “Tia is a dreadful minx, but she is all I have left, and I will not let anything stand in the way of seeing her safely settled one day.” She paused for a moment. “When the time is right. And not a moment before.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” he agreed.

“Because of your daughter?”

He nodded. Arabella! She was too much Tremont and too much her mother's daughter. If he wasn't cautious, she'd run off with some painter or other fribble, declaring herself completely and utterly in love, or some such nonsense.

What was it about love that made such fools and wrecks of sensible people?

He glanced down at his own jacketless state.
Like a duke who pretends to be a
cit?

“Perhaps I can gain vouchers for your daughter,” Lady Standon offered. “I have a small acquaintance with Lady Jersey, and she's always been indulgent toward me.”

“No, no, thank you,” he said hastily, thinking of the stacks of vouchers and invitations and requests that had been piling up since they'd arrived a sennight earlier.

“Do you have someone to help her?” Lady Standon pressed. “Oh, dear, I don't mean to pry, it is just…”

“Yes, I understand. You are most kind.” James considered how to turn this offer down without looking…well, looking foolish. “I have a sister-in-law,” he began. “And she has offered to help. And I have some connections that should aid in the endeavor.”

She smiled politely, but he realized she was thinking that it hardly sounded well thought out.