“You’re hilarious,” he told her. “No one has ever had a wittier sister. Your jests warm my heart.”
“You don’t let anything near your heart,” she said. “You’re too busy being perfect to enjoy your own parties. You could be replaced with an automaton and I’d be the only one to notice.”
That was hardly fair.
“You used to be straitlaced too,” he reminded her.
“And look how much better my life is now,” Belle shot back. “Particularly compared to yours.” She crooked her elbows at ninety-degree angles and made stiff, choppy motions whilst speaking in monotone. “‘I am a clockwork duke. Tick tock, I love rules.’”
Alexander lifted his nose.
Life would be easier ifeveryonefollowed rules.
He was grateful to have them. Rules let him know what to do and what to expect. Rules were what guided him when he’d inherited the title as an adolescent. He’d felt lost without his father, but the rules had given him a path to follow to succeed.
What Alexander wanted to do didn’t signify in the least. A duke did what must be done, and refrained from all activities not befitting his station.
Especially a respectable duke on the hunt for an equally proper bride.
He was glad that his sister had found love, but there would be scandal when the gossips heard the news. Any latitude Alexander might have had before was now gone. It was up to him to salvage the family’s reputation.
With luck, it would all be over soon.
He and Belle turned back to the doorway as a new wave of guests splashed inside.
This would be the biggest crush yet. With Alexander’s permission, his mother had let it be known that her son was finally seeking a duchess.
Hopeful young misses flooded his cottage. They might be in competition with each other, but Alexander knew his own behavior was now under a microscope as well.
Not only did mothers and chaperones want their charges to make a splendid match... Those spurned would be happy to spread gossip of any of the duke’s faults.
His duty was not to have any.
Heandhis party must be perfect.
“Of course,” his sister assured a highly respected society matron, all traces of her earlier irreverence gone. “I would be honored to show you and your daughter to your chambers. Follow me, please.”
Alexander was glad for Belle’s presence.
She was a meddlesome sister, but a wonderful hostess. For all her teasing, she would help ensure no unwelcome surprises happened to—
Miss Cynthia Louise Finch stood on his front step, holding a mongrel puppy aloft to his impressively stoic butler.
His heart stopped, then raced faster.
Miss Finch was the opposite of proper.
She was a firework in a box of candles.
Everything about her was significantly more than necessary. She had two names when one would suffice. She brought a dog to a house party. She was tall, with abundant curves. She had apple cheeks and plump rosy lips and big blue eyes.
Her excessiveness ought to be overwhelming, but instead made him feel as though he stood dizzyingly close to a statue of a Grecian goddess come to life.
“Is that a dog?” called out one of the locals.
“Itis. Meet Max!” She swept into the room brandishing the wiggling puppy in front of her chest, passing the mongrel off to the first taker.
It was not at all how a proper young lady would enter the home of a duke—or anywhere.
