Would I Lie to the Duke

by Eva Leigh

  She could not wait any longer. It was time to act, or else her presence here at the Bazaar would be for nothing.

  “Where is my handkerchief?” she murmured, rifling through her reticule. “I could have sworn I brought it with me, and— Oh, I beg your pardon!” Her exclamation came as the soap wrapper tumbled out, directly into the lap of the baron.

  “What’s this?” the gentleman asked, holding it up.

  “It’s nothing, truly. Just some paper that was wrapped around a bar of soap a friend of mine gave me. How dreadfully embarrassing! I do apologize.”

  Baron Mentmore handed her the wrapper. “It has a lovely fragrance. Is that honey?”

  “I believe so? I’d saved the paper because it smelled so delightful.”

  “That’s it.” The duke snapped his fingers. “That’s what you smell like.” He gave her a roguish smile.

  Her stomach leapt in response. To distract herself, she studied the paper, though she knew precisely what it said because she had been the one to write up the description on the packaging. “It says it’s made in Wiltshire, Baron Mentmore. That’s where my friend bought it, I believe, if you were thinking of purchasing some for yourself or your wife.”

  The baron’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes, my wife would enjoy that.”

  “A marvelous idea, my lord,” Jess said. “It would be a simple matter to send a footman to Bond Street to obtain some for you. Here, you can keep this.” She tucked the paper into his hand before turning her attention to the meal before her. “This soup is delicious, don’t you think?”

  Conversation continued, with the luncheon progressing smoothly.

  She glanced at the duke. He conversed with Lord Trask, seated beside him. And though he did not break off in the middle of their exchange, his gaze—full of searing awareness—met hers.

  Her belly fluttered. Yet she did not break the connection between them, and his eyes darkened.

  Lord Trask said something to the duke, and he turned his attention back to the marquess.

  Jess took a sip of wine, but it did little to cool her. Having finally made her first move, introducing McGale & McGale soap to the Bazaar, the wisest thing to do would be to steer clear of the duke. She did not want him to believe she’d used targeted flirtation to secure his investment or interest in her family’s business. That would be beyond unforgivable.

  Staying away from him was best.

  That didn’t stop her from wishing. Wishing, and wanting.

  Chapter 8

  With the meal concluded, and the members of the Bazaar making their way back to the waiting carriages outside, Noel acted.

  He strode to Lady Whitfield, standing on her own as she adjusted her shawl in preparation for going outside.

  She looked up at him, short curled lashes framing golden, perceptive eyes. Her ripe, sweet scent teased him. The whole of the day had been an exercise in delicious anticipation, and being this close to her, his body tightened in expectancy of more. More of her incisive intelligence, more of her wicked, barbed wit. More of her.

  “Behold, madam,” he said, “within the course of a day I am a changed man.”

  Her assessing gaze swept across him. “It must be an internal change, Your Grace, for you appear much the same this afternoon as you did this morning.”

  “Indeed, it is something that could not be detected by the naked eye.” He didn’t miss the way her breath caught at the word naked. “Earlier today, it had been my intention to insist that you have dinner with me tonight.”

  The column of her throat worked as she swallowed, and he saw there the flutter of her pulse. “But now you have another intention?”

  “Now I ask you to have dinner with me tonight.”

  “Funny, I didn’t hear any such question. Only another command.”

  He chuckled lowly. “Habits are difficult beasts to break. Please will you dine with me tonight? Just the two of us. I crave your company away from the Bazaar.”

  “Prettily phrased, Your Grace.” Her cutting words were underscored by breathlessness. “I take it you have considerable experience proposing trysts.”

  “I also have considerable experience with what happens during trysts, and make certain that everyone receives the benefits of my practice.”

  A pink flush stained her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “Receiving rejection must be unusual for you.”

  “That’s what this is?” He tried to keep his voice light. “A rejection?”

  Her lips quirked. “How shocked you sound.”

  “Forgive me my impertinence. I find you fascinating, and I flattered myself in thinking I wasn’t alone in this attraction.”

  “You aren’t.” Her cheeks went even more rosy, a delightful contrast to the coolness in her tone. “A word of advice about me, Your Grace. I prefer to do things in my own time, and at the urging of my own inclination. When I decide I want you in my bed, I will let you know.”

  “When,” he said. “Not if.”

  “Indeed.” She tapped him once in the center of his chest, and though she’d donned her gloves, and despite the layers of his waistcoat and shirt, he felt that tap like summer lightning. “A more sagacious woman than I would tell you no. In this, however, I am not so sage. I will lead in this dance. I will tell you when I’m ready for more. Until then . . .”

  “Go slowly,” he said.

  “Very slowly.”

  He felt himself smiling. “Where you lead, I will follow. I’ll have you know, not being in command will be a first for me.”

  “And here I thought you’d left your virginity behind long ago.” She looked pointedly at his arm. “Now you may escort me outside to the carriage.”

  He snapped to attention, offering her his arm. It felt like the greatest blessing a man could receive—and one of the most erotic experiences he could remember—to have her rest her fingers gently on his sleeve.

  “Your servant, madam,” he murmured before guiding her toward the front door.

  Careful to keep from splashing himself, Noel held the three pints over his head as he eased through the crowd gathered at the bar.

  “Steady on, my lord,” a man in the clothes of a laborer said. “Or you’ll get a soaking and reek of ale.”

  “I’ve smelled worse.” Noel threaded his way toward his companions ensconced at a settle.

  The chophouse’s rowdy atmosphere sharply contrasted with the Bazaar’s sedate mood. Men crowded around small tables, jostling and jabbering at top volume as they hacked at pieces of beef and knocked tankards together. There were more fashionable chophouses, places where well-to-do men dined with informal dignity, but that was precisely why Noel had selected the Flea and Firkin for tonight.

  The tavern owner sidled up beside him, frowning with worry. “Certain I can’t help you with those, my lord?”

  “Almost there,” Noel said easily. “Besides, this way I look the hero to my friends.”

  He left the tavern owner behind and finally reached the settle, then thunked the tankards down onto the table. “Refreshments, miscreants.”

  McCameron grabbed his drink, and Holloway—wearing the annoyingly pleased countenance of a man newly married—did the same.

  Noel dropped to his seat, his limbs loosening. “Now we can get to the business of revelry.” He drank deeply from his tankard. He needed this, to be out with his friends, so he could keep himself from brooding over Lady Whitfield’s rejection. It wasn’t precisely a rebuff, but here he was, with his friends, rather than warming her bed.

  He had to think of something else besides Lady Whitfield lying abed. “Meant to tell you, Holloway, your benefactor, Lady Farris, is at the Bazaar.”

  “Grace and I were ridiculously fortunate in finding a patron as progressive as she,” Holloway said, then added gravely, “So I expect you to see to her comfort and security.”

  “Put your lance down, Sir Readsalot. The lady attends to herself, and quite admirably. Same applies to all the women of the Bazaar.”

  �
��Look at the way he lights up whenever he mentions women.” McCameron nudged Holloway with his elbow. “Rotherby, you made us think you attended that thing out of the pure goodness of your ducal heart.”

  “I’ll never tell anyone to think less of me. Besides, there’s only three ladies, so that hardly constitutes me running rampant at a girls’ finishing school.”

  “Who are the ladies at the Bazaar?” Holloway asked.

  “Lady Farris, Lady Haighe, and Lady Whitfield.” His heart thumped as he said her name.

  “Whitfield?” McCameron lifted a brow. “I’ve not heard of her.”

  “Nor I,” Holloway said, and added meditatively, “though if she doesn’t haunt the scientific library and hasn’t authored a monograph on societal structures, it’s unlikely that I’d hear of her.”

  “A widow. Youngish. Her late husband was a baronet. Sir Brantley Whitfield. Turns out she’s the woman I saw on Bond Street.”

  McCameron stared at Noel, his gaze incisive. “Hm.”

  “Have a care with your elbow,” Holloway exclaimed when McCameron nudged him again.

  “What?” Noel demanded. “What does that hm mean? And stop prodding Holloway in the pancreas.”

  “I’m no physician, but I think he’s hitting my liver,” Holloway murmured.

  “You’re never laconic when describing women,” McCameron said. “And the way you talked about your unknown Bond Street beauty, you sounded partway besotted with her. Now you’re just barking out terse descriptors, which leads me to believe she’s truly got you infatuated.”

  “For God’s sake, McCameron, we’re not at Eton anymore.” Noel rolled his eyes.

  “Hold a moment—did she refuse you?” McCameron sounded half horrified, half delighted. At Noel’s silence, McCameron exclaimed, “Oho! The impossible has happened. You asked a woman to go to bed with you and she actually said no.”

  “Is that how it’s done in the ton? You simply request sex from a potential partner?” Holloway pulled a notebook from his pocket and frowned as he wrote in it. “You never mentioned anything like that when you were teaching me how to be a rake.”

  Noel grunted. “Because that’s not how it works. There’s such a thing as wooing. Like the way you pretended to woo Lady Grace.”

  “I was actually wooing her.” Holloway grinned. “But you’re prevaricating. You asked this Lady Whitfield to have sex with you.”

  “I didn’t amble over to her, waggle my eyebrows, and point at my crotch.”

  “But you did proposition her,” McCameron said doggedly. “And we can infer from your presence at the Flea and Firkin at”—he glanced at his timepiece—"eleven twenty-seven in the evening that she declined your proposition. Else you would be enjoying each other’s company at this very moment.”

  “She didn’t say no. She said go slow. Two very different meanings. So . . . I’m going slowly.” It was novel for him, but there was a kind of delight in this back-and-forth with Lady Whitfield. It filled his body with hot, eager energy. In a short time, he’d come to adore the strength of her will—she’d given him a justifiable setting down only that morning when he’d unilaterally decided everyone would go to Catton’s, and she refused to heap him with flattery, or accept his practiced flirtation.

  It was like stroking a fingertip across a knife, taking a chance that he might be cut, and welcoming the wound.

  “And you agreed to her terms,” Holloway said thoughtfully.

  “Contrary to certain people’s opinions,” Noel replied, “I’m not a slavering beast, roaming the countryside in search of damsels to defile.” He smiled to himself, thinking of how she had called him “Your Grace, the wolf.” He was hungry for her, like a wolf. “I will give her as much time as she needs. And if she ultimately decides she doesn’t want me, so be it.”

  McCameron braced his arms on the table, his expression turning serious. “You’ll survive. I have it on good authority.”

  Noel and Holloway shared a quick look. Two years had passed since McCameron had received word on the eve of Waterloo that the woman waiting for him back home had married someone else. McCameron had returned from war with several visible scars and, Noel suspected, an invisible one on his heart.

  “I will,” Noel said. “No man ever died from blue bollocks.”

  “Actually,” Holloway threw in, riffling through the pages of his notebook, “there are several cultures that believe lack of sexual congress saps a warrior’s powers, which might lead to his defeat on the battlefield. In fact, I have notations here—”

  “Fortunate for you, I’m wearing my favorite boots,” McCameron said, “else I’d chuck one at you.”

  “My feet are bigger,” Holloway retorted. “I’ll brain you with my shoe.”

  “Enough talk.” Noel pointed at McCameron and then at Holloway. “You two. Arm wrestle. It’s the only way to settle this.”

  McCameron shrugged, then planted his elbow on the table. Holloway pushed up his sleeve and clasped McCameron’s hand, revealing a muscled forearm. Though Holloway was a scholar of anthropology, he kept himself physically fit. “I accept the challenge.”

  The two began to wrestle in earnest. As they did, Noel got to his feet.

  “All right, blokes,” he announced to the room, “we’re now accepting wagers. Decorated veteran versus acclaimed but oddly robust scholar.” The other patrons of the chophouse couldn’t resist a contest, and soon the table was ringed with cheering men.

  Chuckling, Noel folded his arms across his chest as he watched Holloway and McCameron turn red from exertion. Thank God for them, these ridiculous buffoons he loved so dearly.

  Chapter 9

  “Ah, Lady Whitfield.”

  Jess turned as Lord Prowse approached her, Baron Mentmore trailing after him. The morning presentations had yet to begin, and nearly everyone had assembled in Lord Trask’s drawing room.

  The duke was not in attendance.

  Which was perfectly fine. She didn’t need to keep looking toward the door, or strain for the sound of his distinctively solid but assured tread on the stairs. When he arrived, he arrived, and she would not notice each minute he was absent.

  “Your insight is welcome,” Lord Prowse said. “If you’d be so kind.”

  “My lords, I would be happy to assist you.” She regarded both noblemen, who looked at her eagerly. “Please tell me what requires my expertise.”

  “It’s only that Mentmore thinks grain is a poor investment, and I am positive there is always money to be made in agriculture. Which of us is correct?”

  “The answer isn’t so easy. Taking into consideration the poor harvests from last year . . .” As she talked, mentally Jess gave a wry smile. As Jessica McGale, hired companion, these men would never have pressed her for an opinion on anything, let alone something as weighty as finances, and yet, believing her to be Lady Whitfield, her thoughts had weight and meaning.

  Being listened to, being truly heard—she could easily get used to it.

  While she spoke, Baron Mentmore and Lord Prowse nodded. The baron actually wrote in a notebook, his hand moving quickly across the page as it appeared he transcribed what she said.

  It was a topic on which she could speak at length, and with considerable enthusiasm.

  Quick but strong footsteps came up the stairs, and then she felt him enter the room. He spoke in a low voice to Lord Trask.

  “And when factoring in the need for . . . for . . . grain abroad, you . . .” She shook her head. “Forgive me, my lords. My thoughts have suddenly scattered.”

  “Good morning, my lords. Lady Whitfield.” The duke’s voice came from just behind her. “You’re looking very studious, Mentmore.”

  The baron held up his notebook. “Lady Whitfield was kind enough to oblige us with her thoughts on the growth and exportation of grain.”

  There was no help for it. She had to face him, if only to see that astonishingly handsome face of his. The warm appreciation in his eyes was her reward for doing so. He had a way of lo
oking at her as though the rest of the world had dropped away into shadow.

  “I should hope you do consult her,” he said. “I’d think you very foolish not to. She’ll rule us all one day.”

  “Rule England?” she asked. “Or the world?”

  “Whichever pleases you best. We’ll be grateful subjects, regardless of the size of your realm.” He bowed, but his gaze stayed on hers, and suddenly the room felt especially hot.

  She hauled her attention to the other men. “Did your wife enjoy the gift, Baron?”

  “The gift . . . ?” He blinked.

  “The soap,” she said, smiling. “The one that smells of honey. You were going to gift your wife with it, I believe.”

  “Yes! Indeed. Do you know,” Baron Mentmore said in disbelief, “my footman visited nearly every establishment, none of the shops carry it. It must be available for purchase only in Wiltshire.”

  “Shame,” Jess said. “A quality product like that would surely be popular if it was obtainable in London.”

  “England is rife with small businesses,” Lord Prowse said sullenly. “Not all of their goods can be sold here.”

  “Very true,” she said mildly. “We couldn’t flood the market with products from hither and yon, and if an operation is very small, they wouldn’t be able to meet demand. Although—” She shook her head. “Never mind. A passing fancy.”

  “Go on, Lady Whitfield,” the duke said. “Your passing fancies outweigh most people’s most deliberate and careful thoughts.”

  “I was merely thinking that the right small-scale business, with sufficient capital from outside sources, could potentially do very well here in London.”

  “Such as a soap manufacturer?” Baron Mentmore asked.

  “Soap?” Lord Prowse made a scoffing noise. “Hardly worth anyone’s attention.”

  “Consider Beau Brummell,” Jess said. At the puzzled looks she received, she went on in an assured voice. “A man of influence, Brummell. Well, he was, until he fled to the Continent.”

  “He was vocal about the importance of bathing,” the duke said.