Two minutes ago she’d told him they would focus strictly on business. All Rex could focus on now was her.
He kissed her back, accepting her invitation to taste and touch. She was more slender than he’d thought, her clothes bulkier. Petticoats and corsetry frustrated the craving to touch her bare skin. He settled for stroking her hands and face, especially the tender join of her neck and shoulder and the soft flesh of her bare wrist.
She turned her head as if to listen to the caress of his thumb against her palm and he dared to press her closer, lest she mistake the impact she was having on him. Rex had learned years ago to control his urges, lest they control him. There was no controlling his reactions, though, not to her, not this time.
And what a relief that was, what a pleasure and a joy to be simply a man in good health enjoying a kiss with a woman who desired him for his own sake.
Eleanora eased her mouth from his and pressed her forehead to his chest. “The soup will get cold.”
So plaintive and paltry, that display of common sense, so dear. “While everything else threatens to go up in flames.”
* * *
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Excerpt from Primrose and the Dreadful Duke
Read on for an excerpt from Primrose and the Dreadful Duke, book one in the Baleful Godmother – Garland Cousins series by Emily Larkin!
* * *
Oliver Dasenby is the most infuriating man Primrose Garland has ever known. He may be her brother’s best friend, but he has an atrocious sense of humor. Eight years in the cavalry hasn’t taught him solemnity, nor has the unexpected inheritance of a dukedom. But when Oliver inherited his dukedom, it appears that he also inherited a murderer…
Oliver might be dreadfully annoying, but Primrose doesn’t want him dead. She’s going to make certain he survives his inheritance—and the only way to do that is to help him catch the murderer!
* * *
Oliver’s next partner was Lady Primrose Garland, the sister of his oldest friend, Rhodes Garland—and the only unmarried young lady in the room whom he knew didn’t want to marry him.
“Lady Prim,” he said, bowing over her hand with a flourish. “You’re a jewel that outshines all others.”
Primrose was too well-bred to roll her eyes in public, but her eyelids twitched ever so slightly, which told him she wanted to. “Still afflicted by hyperbole, I see.”
“You use such long words, Prim,” he said admiringly.
“And you use such foolish ones.”
Oliver tutted at her. “That’s not very polite, Prim.”
Primrose ignored this comment. She placed her hand on his sleeve. Together they walked onto the dance floor and took their places.
“Did I ever tell you about my uniform, Prim? The coat was dark blue, and the facing—”
“I don’t wish to hear about your uniform.”
“Manners, Prim. Manners.”
Primrose came very close to smiling. She caught herself just in time. “Shall we discuss books while we dance? Have you read Wolf’s Prolegomena ad Homerum?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Oliver said. “Dash it, Prim, I’m not an intellectual.”
The musicians played the opening bars. Primrose curtsied, Oliver bowed. “I really must tell you about my uniform. The coat was dark blue—”
Primrose ignored him. “Wolf proposes that The Iliad—”
“With a red sash at the waist—”
“And The Odyssey were in fact—”
“And silver lace at the cuffs—”
“The work of more than one poet.”
“And a crested Tarleton helmet,” Oliver finished triumphantly.
They eyed each other as they went through the steps of the dance. Oliver could tell from the glint in her eyes and the way her lips were tucked in at the corners that Primrose was trying not to laugh. He was trying not to laugh, too.
“You’re a fiddle-faddle fellow,” Primrose told him severely.
“Alliteration,” Oliver said. “Well done, Prim.”
Primrose’s lips tucked in even more tightly at the corners. If they’d been anywhere but a ballroom he was certain she’d have stamped her foot, something she’d done frequently when they were children.
“Heaven only knows why I agreed to dance with you,” she told him tartly.
“Because it increases your consequence to be seen with me. I am a duke, you know.” He puffed out his chest and danced the next few steps with a strut.
“Stop that,” she hissed under her breath.
“Stop what?” Oliver said innocently, still strutting his steps.
“Honestly, Daisy, you’re impossible.”
Oliver stopped strutting. “No one’s called me that in years.”
“Impossible? I find that hard to believe.” Her voice was dry.
“Daisy.” It had been Primrose’s childhood nickname for him, in retaliation for him calling her Lady Prim-and-Proper.
Oliver had been back in England for nearly a month now, and that month had been filled with moments of recognition, some tiny flickers—his brain acknowledging something as familiar and then moving on—others strong visceral reactions. He experienced one of those latter moments now. It took him by the throat and wouldn’t let him speak for several seconds.
Because Primrose had called him Daisy.
Oliver cleared his throat. “Tell me about that book, Prim. What’s it called? Prolapse ad nauseam?”
“Prolegomena ad Homerum.”
Oliver pulled a face. “Sounds very dull. Me, I much prefer a good novel. Especially if there’s a ghost in it, or a headless horseman.”
And they were off again, arguing amiably about books, the moment of emotion safely in the past. Primrose knew a lot about books. In fact, Oliver suspected that she preferred books to people—which would be why she was still unmarried at twenty-seven. Primrose was a duke’s daughter and she was pretty—that ash-blonde hair, those cool blue eyes. If she wanted to be married, she would be.
Therefore, he deduced that she didn’t want to marry. Which made her unique in a ballroom filled with young ladies on the hunt for husbands.
“Do you know Miss Ogilvie?” he asked her.
“Vaguely. She seems quite nice.”
“Nice? She’s a dashed harpy, is what she is.”
“You can’t call her a harpy,” Primrose objected. “A siren, perhaps, but harpies have claws and—”
“Miss Ogilvie is a harpy,” Oliver said firmly. “Beneath the evening gloves, she has claws.”
“Now that is hyperbole.”
“It’s metaphor,” Oliver corrected her. “She’s a metaphorical harpy. She wants to feast on my carcass.” And carcass was a metaphor, too; it wasn’t his body Miss Ogilvie wanted to devour, it was the title and fortune that he’d so unexpectedly inherited.
Primrose uttered a small sound that his ears barely caught.
“Did you just snort, Prim? That’s not very ladylike.”
“You’re the most idiotic person I’ve ever met,” she told him severely.
Oliver opened his eyes wide. “Ever? In your whole life?”
“Ever.”
“High praise, Prim. Very high praise. You quite unman me.”
This time Primrose did roll her eyes, even though they were in the middle of a ballroom.
Oliver grinned at her. He could tell she was struggling not to grin back.
At that moment, the dance ended. Oliver escorted Primrose from the dance floor. He could see Miss Ogilvie out of the corner of his eye: the glossy ringlets, the ripe bosom, the dainty evening gloves that hid her metaphorical claws.
“Marry me, Prim,” he joked. “Save me from Miss Ogilvie.”
“I’d sooner marry a crossing-sweeper. You’re even more of a fribble than that cousin of yours.”
“I’m wounded.” Oliver placed his hand over his heart, tottered a few steps, and sank down on a gilded chair. “Mortally wounded. I may expire here, right in fro
nt of your eyes.”
“You can’t expire now,” Primrose told him. “Miss Ogilvie is waiting to dance with you.”
Oliver pulled a face. “Maybe I should become a crossing-sweeper.”
“Addle-pate,” Primrose said.
Oliver laughed and climbed to his feet. “Thank you for the dance, Prim.”
Primrose demurely curtsied, as all his other partners tonight had done. “It was a pleasure, Your Grace.”
“Don’t, Prim,” Oliver said, and this time his tone was serious.
Primrose’s glance at him was swift and shrewd. She didn’t ask what he meant; instead, she said, “Away with you, Daisy,” and made a brisk shooing gesture. “Miss Ogilvie fancies herself as a duchess.”
“Not my duchess,” Oliver muttered. “Not if I have any say in the matter.”
* * *
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How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet Page 26
