Miss Thorne’s full lips were painted as red as her gown, an affectation that was not remotely fashionable, and yet constricted his tight chest further. A beauty spot beckoned just to the left of her mouth. Her nose was wide and pert, her cheekbones high and flushed, and her eyes... were drinking him in with much the same expression he imagined displayed on his own face.
Her black lashes were long, her eyelids sleepy, but her clear brown eyes were quick and alert. A profusion of black ringlets spilled over her forehead and down her neck from an upswept coiffure dripping with pearls.
No—notrealpearls. Julian could tell the difference from here. Perhaps in the dim light of evening, one would be fooled, but here in his parlor, beneath three enormous windows brimming with bright sunshine, Miss Thorne looked...
Disreputable and utterly ravishing.
“Miss Thorne,” he said.
He expected her to curtsey. Perhaps to coo or to flutter or whatever she thought would best sell the wares she had on display.
Instead, she attacked him.
Not physically. She did not move from her position in the center of his parlor. She didn’t have to. She unleashed a whirlwind of words, pelting him at all angles until he squinted against their force like a wanderer lost in a sandstorm.
“Here we are, Your Grace, and I am certain you’re wondering why that would be. Or perhaps you’re not, because you think you know why I’m here, and are eager to get to the business of it, in which case I must swiftly inform you that your access to my body shall be limited to your handsome eyes because I have come for another reason entirely. Your masquerades.”
“My what?” he said, his tone sharp with warning.
She smiled, not cowed by him in the least, which was unprecedented and infuriating. His ability to command a room just by being in it was a trick he had cultivated into a fine art and had never before failed him.
“Your masquerades,” she repeated.
He ignored this. “Back to the subject of business,” he said in his coldest voice, looking down the bridge of his nose at her from his greater height. “I am not in the market for a mistress.”
“And I am not in the market for a master,” she replied in a tone that said,There, now that we’ve had done with your little topic, shall we get on with mine?
He did not like it at all.
“You presume to barge into my home and demand an invitation to the most exclusive ton event from no less than the Duke of Lambley himself?”
“It’s not a ‘ton’ event if the majority of guests could not be greeted without their masks,” she replied, “and I find your unsubtle switch to third person adorably pretentious. I’m quite aware you’re the sixth Duke of Lambley and that you outrank all but royalty and your two dozen fellow dukes. Congratulations. You did nothing to achieve it. You did, however, make this town infinitely more interesting the moment you threw your first masked ball.”
A muscle worked at his temple. He was mortally offended and disproportionately flattered, all at the same time.
“I’m here to help you,” she said.
“Help...me?” he managed.
“Your masquerades are wonderful, I’m told. Although, yes, I’d need an invitation in order to develop my own opinion firsthand. ‘Wonderful’ is…acceptable, perhaps, to some, but you don’t seem the sort of man who prides himself on ‘acceptable’, andIam the sort of woman who can improve anything, if given the chance to try.”
“You want an invitation to one of my parties so that you can... give your unsolicited opinion about them?”
“I am recommending you solicit said opinion posthaste, but more importantly, my opinion is only the beginning. I will find every last imperfection and offer a comprehensive solution to improve it. Much like cleaning a copper pot with lemon and a bit of salt, your masquerades will shine so bright, they’ll hurt the eyes.”
“You want tochangethem?” he sputtered in disbelief.
This woman didn’t just want to elbow her way in where she wasn’t invited, she planned to inject a measure of unpredictability into a thing he’d fashioned into being exactly what he wanted.
“No,” he said firmly. “Unthinkable. Impossible.”
“There, there,” she said in a tone so patronizing he could practicallyfeelher slender fingers patting the top of his head. “I am certain dukes are never told of their faults, no matter how many there must be, but I am not here to critiqueyou. By all accounts, your masquerades are the best in England, which is not a thing that happens by accident. You want them to be superlative. I want to help you make them even better than that. You don’t seem the sort of man to brook any sort of shortcoming. If I were to discern one... wouldn’t you wish to address it?”
Of course he would.
He glared at her. She was not impressed by his title, but shewasimpressed by his parties—and thought they could become even more impressive. With her help.
He didn’t want or need her help!
