The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [30]
“I shan’t retire until I have a warmed milk and brandy,” Lady Cecily announced. “I’ve drunk it every night since my thirteenth birthday, and I assure each of you that it has made all the difference with my digestion. There are any number of diseases that I might have caught and haven’t, because I cleanse my stomach every night.”
“Withers, bring a hot milk and brandy to Lady Cecily’s chamber as soon as possible,” Cleese said, proceeding to the foot of the steps. “If you would please follow me, my ladies, I will escort you to your chambers.”
“You’ll have to haul me up, Nephew,” Lady Cecily said. “Just wait until the young ladies reach the top of the steps, if you please.”
Olivia couldn’t resist turning about when she and Georgiana neared the top of the flight of marble stairs. Her shoulders were prickling, as if . . . Sure enough, he was watching them.
The jokes she and Georgiana had made about satyrs leaped into her mind. There was something fierce and powerful about the duke’s face that would suit a satyr. He had sharp cheekbones, but it was his eyes . . . they burned with the kind of utterly contained power that one could imagine of a satyr.
She loathed a goatee, but she had to admit that the fashion would suit his faintly exotic look. His hair had begun to dry, and the shock of white fell over his brow.
“Olivia,” Georgiana said sharply.
Olivia blinked and turned away.
Georgiana, of course, did nothing so ill-bred as to ogle the duke from the top of the stairs. Instead she dropped a curtsy, giving both the duke and her ladyship a measured, affable smile. Then she sent one sharp-eyed glance toward Olivia that said follow me, turned, and walked down the hallway after Cleese.
For the first time in her life, Olivia felt a deep longing to possess her sister’s figure rather than her own. Georgiana looked so slim and elegant, even in a drenched costume.
Whereas she herself undoubtedly looked like a loaf of bread, wrapped in a heavy coat, wet skirts clinging to her legs. Which weren’t nearly as nicely shaped as her sister’s.
“I’ll just lean on your arm, Nephew,” Lady Cecily was saying. “I certainly don’t wish to be carried up the stairs like a bundle of linens.”
Olivia started down the hallway, planning to escape before the duke reached the top of the stairs and had a good look at her wet gown from the rear.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” Lady Cecily told the duke, “but your hair looks a little disordered. My husband used to wear a little net cap at night that kept his hair neatly in place. Your valet will find you one, Nephew; I shall give him the proper direction.”
Olivia giggled at the thought of the duke in a hair net. She glanced over her shoulder and . . .
Their eyes met.
His face could have been granite, for all the emotion she saw on it.
But his eyes . . . his eyes were different. They locked with hers and she could have sworn that she read something there.
Longing. Perhaps.
Olivia almost shook her head as she hurried back down the corridor after her sister. Of course it wasn’t longing. No one could possibly feel that, not for her.
She was a plump, long-in-the-tooth woman without much more to recommend her than her betrothal to a duke’s heir.
Longing!
What did she possess that a duke could possibly long for? The world lay in front of him, his for the asking.
Just as it would for her, once she became a duchess.
Eight
Defining the Qualities of a Fairy-Tale Prince
Olivia woke the next morning to the sound of her bedchamber door opening. She had no idea what time it was. The dowager duchess favored old-fashioned bedding, which meant that Olivia might as well have been sleeping in a cave. The very air around her looked blue, reflecting the watered silk that hung around her bed.
“Norah?” she asked drowsily. Late the night before, after they’d all retired, her maid had appeared, none the worse for wear. It turned out that the service carriages had missed the sign