The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [36]
His man, Waller, handed him a starched linen cravat. Raising his chin, Quin began swiftly folding it into the Mathematical. “Miss Lytton arrived with a small cur at her heels.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Waller said, bobbing his head. “The dog remains with her at all times, except when being given a daily bath. It’s been quite the subject of conversation below-stairs, as the animal cannot be said to present an aristocratic appearance.”
“It looks like a rat,” Quin said. “Mind you, a friendly rat.”
“Very sweet, by all accounts,” Waller agreed.
“Has my mother been informed?” Quin carefully inserted a pearl-and-diamond pin in the folds of his cravat.
“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Waller replied, offering Quin a pair of gloves and a pressed handkerchief, and adding, “Mr. Cleese feels that it is not his place.”
“Coward,” Quin remarked.
He caught Waller’s smile as he left the room.
His mother would be extremely displeased. She could not abide animals of any sort. Animals, in her view, were dumb brutes controlled by only the basest of instincts, incapable of the civilized behavior on which her sense of order depended. She never rode, and he had been allowed no pets as a child. In fact, it could transpire that Miss Lytton’s visit would be a brief one once the dowager learned of the dog.
After all, Miss Lytton was clearly ineligible, even if the mongrel were not taken into account. She was far too given to pleasure—the kiss briefly slipped through his mind—and she had giggled the night before. What’s more, she’d giggled at him, at the idea of him wearing a nightcap.
But her sister seemed to be quite different.
Quin thought about Miss Georgiana as he descended the stairs. She had uttered an anguished gasp when her sister compared him to an accountant. She appeared to have a delightful sense of command and self-control, to be the sort of woman you could count on never to embarrass you, in public or private.
One had only to think of Evangeline to recognize how deeply important the trait of being dependably self-restrained was to a successful marriage.
Cleese met him at the bottom of the stairs and directed him through the library; luncheon was to be taken on the terrace overlooking the gardens. Quin walked toward the open doors onto the terrace, irritably aware that his heart had speeded up. Of course he wasn’t excited by the idea of seeing the trollopy Miss Lytton.
Rather, he told himself, he merely felt a natural level of anxiety given that he was about to spend time with two young ladies, one of whom would quite likely become his wife. A man with his unhappy marital history had every right to feel unsettled at that prospect.
Of course, the first person he saw was Olivia Lytton. He actually stopped for a moment at the sight, frozen just inside the door leading to the terrace. She wore a very soft, violet-colored gown that seemed to be made of silk and lace. Bands of silk wound around her body, crisscrossing low over her breasts in a way that tempted him to unwrap her like a present. She had the curves of a Rubens painting, one of the lush goddesses of the hunt.
She leaned forward, laughing, and Quin’s breath caught in his throat. Her hair was pinned up, but tendrils fell around her face. She was . . .
He glanced down. His severely cut coat was not designed to disguise reactions of this sort. A compulsion, he told himself, walking a bit uncomfortably back into the library. Lust, he told himself. His body agreed with that last word, though lust hardly seemed a strong enough word for the fierce desire coursing through him.
There was a sound at his feet, and he looked down. Miss Lytton’s little pup was standing there, its odd face cocked to the side and its skinny tail wagging furiously. Quin knelt and scratched the dog under its floppy ears. “You are a coquette,” he stated. “Lucy, isn’t it?”
The dog’s tail whipped back and forth in evident agreement, and she licked Quin’s hand enthusiastically.
He took a deep breath and stood. He