Page 3 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

Firm breasts like a pair of apples, a nipped-in waist, and the rest looked promising, or what he could see in her gray-green gown with pleated ribbons and deep flounces at the neck, wrists, and hem. She should have wings, he thought. A garden fairy with fast hands.

“They don’t have anyone’s name on them,” she said under her breath. “They’re for decoration.”

“Decoration?” he asked in amusement.

“It’s in the little touches,” she murmured. “The details.”

“Is it?” he said, eyeing her covertly again.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” she said softly, as if comfits were some cryptic code only a certain few could interpret.

He folded his arms across his chest. “I didn’t want to understand the damn things, only to eat them.”

“This is a wedding,” she reminded him, her lips parting in astonishment.

“I know what it is,” he said in a mock whisper. “I guessed the instant I spotted the bride and groom. And now I know that the comfits are yours. I wasn’t really going to take one, by the way.”

“Then why did—oh, never mind.”

“Boys,” he added, guessing what she was thinking. “We’re all the same.”

He lowered his hand obediently, noticing her lips twitch in what might have passed for another smile. She looked like a Boscastle, with her compelling blue eyes, but most of her siblings had glossy black hair, and hers was a subtle apricot gold drawn into a figure eight on her graceful nape. Her skin seemed as white, as tempting, as the thick icing on the wedding cake.

He wondered suddenly what she’d look like in the buff with that spun-gold hair twined around her breasts and backside. An angel, perhaps, who incited earthly feelings in this mortal man.

He cleared his throat a little guiltily. “I know what you mean about the details of certain wedding ceremonies,” he said. “I’ve been to jungle kingdoms where human heads are presented as part of the bride’s dowry.”

She looked at him in chagrin. “That isn’t at all what I meant.”

He sighed good-naturedly. “I didn’t think so.”

There was a long pause.

Emma did not react outwardly to his blatant teasing, inured since birth to male provocation. In fact, this gentleman had a long way to go before he could truly unsettle her, although she really shouldn’t be talking to him at all. But at least while she did, her students could not make ninnies of themselves over him, and he was in her brothers’ company.

“Isn’t it fortunate,” she asked, challenging him, “that we live in a civilized society?”

“That’s a matter of—”

Fortuitously, at that instant, the soft organ music of the small orchestra resumed its soothing recitation. Emma could not guess what he’d been about to say and concluded she was the better for her ignorance. The duke’s heir had closed his eyes, singing to himself in a surprisingly pleasant, low-pitched voice. “‘Lord Jesus Christ—’”

“This is no place for profanity, my lord,” she reprimanded him gently.

His hazel eyes opened in lazy amusement. “‘Lord Jesus Christ, be present now.’ It’s the name of the prelude.”

“Prelude?”

“Bach. The music. Don’t you recognize it?”

“Oh, Bach.” She caught her breath at the delighted grin he gave her. She thought fleetingly that he didn’t look nearly as frightening in person as the accounts of his past exploits would lead one to expect. There was no scimitar between his teeth, at least. “I am sorry,” she said at last. “I wasn’t paying attention.” Not to the music, anyway.

“Think nothing of it.”

She nodded, staring across the room. His gaze stole over her. Emma only noticed this secretive infringement because she could see his reflection in the gilt-candelabra mirror that hung above the mantelpiece.

How embarrassing. She would have recognized Bach if he had not taken her off her guard with his remark about human heads. Her gaze met his in the mirror. Her cheeks flushed with an unseemly warmth.

He smiled again, with an open candor that rendered it impossible for her to ignore him. It wasn’t appropriate, the headmistress of an academy flirting with a soldier of fortune, family friend or not. And at a wedding, mind you. It was a good thing her girls had gone into the small ballroom with Charlotte.