Page 37 of The Duke of Deceit

Without waiting for an invitation to enter, Lucien whisked off his hat and stepped past the man into the house in one smooth motion. He placed his hat in the surprised butler’s hands.

“I heard Lady Holkham is hosting a garden party this afternoon for her favorite charity.” He stripped off his gloves and coat and piled them with the hat. “I want to make a donation. Where might I find her?”

The stunned butler glanced down the hall toward the rear of the house even as his mouth flapped open and closed like a fish’s, without producing a sound.

“Excellent.” Lucien rubbed his hands together. “I’ll find the way myself.”

Lucien turned on his boot heel and strode through the house, following the growing sound of women’s voices and the tell-tale clinking of tea dishes.

For a gentleman to invade a ladies’ garden party was foolhardy under the best of circumstances, but for a rake to breach one without invitation was nothing short of madness. For once, he simply didn’t care. He had declared war on Jessamyn St Claire, and if the only way to press her into leaving him alone was going on the attack, then so be it. He’d cross the fiery pits of hell—or attend a ladies’ tea party—to do so.

He stopped in the doorway of the garden room. A sea of muslin dresses and ostrich-feathered hats greeted him from one end of the large room to the other, along with the rush of the sweet scent of flowers piled in vases of all shapes and sizes and the earthy aroma of tea being generously splashed into bone china cups. As if one, the two dozen women in the room all looked his way, then froze, their faces darkening with expressions of utter disbelief.

He pulled in a steadying breath. Fiery pits of hell, indeed.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” He sketched a bow to the room at large and smiled. “Don’t let me interrupt your tea.” Although that was exactly what he had planned and was doing a bang-up job of it so far.

He could have heard a pin drop in the sudden stillness of the room.

A plump woman in a green sprigged muslin dress who had been standing in the corner with two footmen came toward him. Her old-fashioned hat stretched nearly two feet above herhead, and its sculpture of feathers, emeralds, Belgium lace, and starched organdy teetered precariously on her head as she lowered into a curtsey before him, bringing Lucien’s suddenly wide eyes even with the stuffed bird on her crown.

“Lady Holkham.” He nodded at the dead dove. “How good to see you again.”

She rose, her hat moving unsteadily on her head. “Your Grace! What a pleasant surprise.”

She certainly sounded surprised. Downright stunned, in fact. He didn’t blame her. Surely, it wasn’t often that a wayward duke stumbled into her ladies’ charity meetings, let alone one with his wicked reputation.

“My sincerest apologies, my lady, for interrupting your tea.” He meant not a word of it. “I’m looking for Miss St Claire,” he explained, letting his gaze move languidly around the room and ignoring the ladies’ collective sudden intake of breath. “Her butler said I could find her here. Do you happen to know where she is? I only need a moment of her time.”

From the rear of the room, he heard a chair scrape softly across the marble floor, and a slow movement broke the tableau.Jessamyn.She rose to her feet and glared at him with all the fiery fury of Vesuvius.

“What do you want, Your Grace?” Her voice was icy enough to freeze the Thames.

The devil inside him couldn’t help answering… “You.”

The single word sent up a round of gasps and whispers among the women who had undoubtedly seen the rumor he’d paid dearly to have printed in that gossip rag, the one claiming he and Jess were secretly engaged.A rumor, nothing more. He could deny it in a few days, once again pay dearly to have it retracted, and the entire incident would come to nothing.

In the meantime, however, he would make her life hell unless she promised to leave him alone.

“You couldn’t possibly have any business with me, Your Grace,” she flung back. Her eyes bore into him, refusing to look away, yet she surely heard the tittering and whispering around her. “I’m not at all the sort of woman with whom you’re usually acquainted.”

The sharp jab of that made several of the old biddies around her gasp at her allusion to courtesans and merry widows. Eyes widened across the room. Yet none of them knew whether to look at him or at Jess, so their attention bounced back and forth like tennis balls.

Lucien grinned knowingly, as if sharing some kind of private joke with her. Which only increased the rising whispers. “Haven’t you heard, Miss St Claire? I’m turning over a new leaf by doing all kinds of good deeds.” And undercutting it all by this wholly scandalous display in Lady Holkham’s garden room. “For today’s good deed…” He reached into his inside breast pocket and withdrew the same necklace he’d used as an excuse for calling on her at home. “I found your necklace on the terrace at Lord Fitzsimmon’s ball, and I promised Lady Fitzsimmon that I’d return it to you.”

“It isn’t mine,” she forced out between clenched teeth. “As you well know.”

“Isn’t it? I could have sworn you were wearing it when we danced.”

“You are mistaken, Your Grace. We’ve never danced.”

Another knowing pause, another amused curl of his lips…and more whispers followed in its wake, just as he wanted. “Then we must have been doing something else together.” He saved her by adding after only a beat’s pause, “Like discussing the weather.” But the damage had been done.Exactlyas he’d planned.

“It isn’t my necklace, Your Grace.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I amcertainof it.”

That denial sent a wave of confusion speeding through the room. If they were truly engaged as the gossip rag insisted, then she wouldn’t have denied it. Pretending to return a lost piece of jewelry was a standard ruse when gentlemen wanted to give gifts to ladies they couldn’t openly approach. Yet if they weren’t engaged, he wouldn’t have followed her here in the first place. The women gaped, not knowing what to think.

“My mistake. I’ll return it to Lady Fitzsimmon.”