Page 44 of An Inconvenient Duke

Except she refused to stop putting herself in danger.

She looked up and found him watching her. A faint smile for him teased at her lips, and the softness of it wrapped around him like a velvet ribbon.

He raised his glass to her in a toast. She hesitated only a moment before returning the gesture, then smiled a bit shyly into her glass as she brought it to her lips and took a sip, her cheeks pinking alluringly.

He frowned. She was frustration of the first order. Her devotion to Nightingale bothered him to no end, how she was willing to put her own reputation and life in jeopardy in order to help other women. He should have admired her for her courage. Instead, she worried the daylights out of him.

Of course, it didn’t help his frustration that he’d thought of little else during the past few days except for how she’d looked in the dress shop. Standing there so delectably in only her undergarments, rolling that silk stocking slowly up her leg… He’d nearly laughed when she’d asked him to button her up, when he had to fight for restraint not to tear off her clothes and bare her to his eyes.

Was the little minx wearing the stockings? He would have given his right arm to be able to kneel at her feet and ease up her skirt, to reach beneath and run his hand up the curve of her calf to feel for himself if—

“Duke!”

Marcus hid his distaste for the man as William McTavish, Earl of Hartsham, sidled up to him. Palming two glasses of port in his large hand, he slapped Marcus good-naturedly on the back. “I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am that you agreed to join us for dinner. Very pleased!”

Oh, Marcus was certain of that, even though he’d invited himself. As far as he could tell, the earl had made good use of currying favor with the other men at Marcus’s expense. He drawled with a tight smile, keeping the sarcasm from his voice, “How good of you to host me.”

“I’d been hoping to throw a spread like this since I heard that you’d returned to England.” Hartsham audaciously removed the glass of punch from Marcus’s hand and discarded it onto a passing attendant’s tray, then replaced it with one of the glasses of port in his hand. With a grin, he tapped his own glass against Marcus’s in a small toast and raised it to his lips. “Here’s to the future.”

At leastthattoast Marcus could drink to, and he took a swallow. The fine port trickled smoothly down his throat. Apparently, Hartsham had spared no expense tonight.

“And how has life been for you since you’ve returned?” Hartsham gestured boisterously around the box at the other guests. Clearly, the evening’s drink was having an effect on the earl. “Society seems to be welcoming you with open arms.”

An embrace Marcus wasn’t keen to accept. “It will help for the fights in Parliament.”

“Fights not nearly as exciting as the wars, I’m sure.”

“War isn’t exciting.” Anyone who claimed so was either a damned lunatic or had never been in the heat of battle. War was destructive, horrifying, sickening…sheer hell.

Yet that terrible life was predicated upon a sense of purpose deeper than he’d ever known. One he missed every day.

“How have you been adjusting to London life, then?”

Unease pricked at the base of his spine, as it always did whenever he thought of all that he’d left behind when he resigned his commission. “It’s been an adjustment, I’ll admit.” He twisted his lips in a half smile at the private irony as he drawled, “But London’s an exciting place to be these days.”

“So it is! And what do you think of England now that you’ve returned?” Hartsham studied Marcus over the rim of his glass. “Can Parliament win the peace now that the army has won the wars?”

“It can, under the right circumstances.” Marcus fully believed that. But from what he’d seen of the depth of the poverty and crime in London, the struggle before them would prove to be as great as the one against Napoleon.

“Perhaps Parliament, but what about the crown?” Hartsham’s voice lowered despite the piercing glint in his eyes. “Do you have any confidence in the monarchy now, given the old king’s madness and Prinny’s arrogant behavior of late? His disdain for English dignity and restraint? His determination to bankrupt us by spending our treasury on himself? Surely it galls you to see that buffoon parading around like a peacock in a field marshal’s uniform as if everything that uniform symbolized were nothing more than fancy dress.”

Marcus took a silent sip of port. He’d served at the pleasure of the crown and now held a dukedom because of it. Yet how many times had he and his most trusted friends grumbled about the very things Hartsham had just mentioned while pinned down in the Spanish countryside as artillery fired around them and the real colonels of the Light Dragoons charged bravely into battle?

But he wasn’t daft enough to utter his agreement aloud, especially in this sea of sharks.Especiallygiven current tensions among the regent’s ministers and the increasing power of the Home Office to arrest Englishmen on charges of sedition.

“It’s up to men like us to make certain the country moves in the right direction,” Marcus drawled noncommittally.

“Agreed.” Hartsham’s eyes gleamed. “Perhaps we’ll be allies, then.”

“Ifyou’re willing to put your reputation on the line to commit to change.” Marcus certainly was. Danielle’s devotion to helping others had rubbed off on him, apparently. For the first time since he’d returned to London, he felt a sense of purpose, however faint, sparking inside him. One not related to finding answers about Elise. “I’m willing to fight to make a difference. Are you?”

“Very much so,” Hartsham assured him, but the way the earl said that slithered coldly down Marcus’s spine.

Once more, his attention drifted across the box to Danielle. She smiled at something one of the ladies said, yet her head was turned just enough that she could look at him with a sideways glance. She knew he was watching, and that realization warmed through him.

“Ah, the lovely Miss Williams,” Hartsham half purred, following Marcus’s attention across the box. “She’s certainly a special one.”

“Indeed.” She’d become more special to him than he would ever have imagined.