Page 54 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

She was not at all pleased when she discovered his decision to travel to London with her. “There is no need to spoil your plans on my account,” she said as they met in the entrance hall where a mountain of their mutual luggage had been assembled.

“But my plans are of no account if they do not include you, darling.”

One delicate brow lifted. He gazed steadily into her dark green eyes and felt his heart stir. Marriage had not dimmed his passion for her in the least. Nor had it diminished her clever spirit. At a time when some men might have lapsed into wedded complacency, he was still kept on his toes by the desirable Lady Jane.

“Really, Grayson.” She held still as her maid draped a velvet-lined pelisse over her shoulders. “I don’t need your help to meet a shoemaker.”

He took over the task of fastening the braided frogs of his wife’s wrap. “I’d miss you more than I can bear. You don’t mind, do you?”

Her full mouth firmed. “It’s only a shoemaker.”

He smiled. The shoemaker.

Something was definitely afoot.

Adrian studied Emma Boscastle’s perfect cameo profile from the pair of pearl-inlaid opera glasses that belonged to one of the two gentlemen who sat beside him in his Haymarket opera box. Adrian had been mildly astonished that his appearance at the house tonight had drawn an embarrassing amount of attention. In fact, as the crowded lobby fell silent upon his entrance, he had glanced around curiously in search of the important personage who had sent the young ladies present into such a dither.

Female regard was not exactly a novel experience. He understood his appeal to the opposite sex even if he had not always bothered to take advantage of it. Certainly, he did not celebrate his manhood by how many notches he could carve into his bedpost.

Therefore, he found it absurd that because he was a duke’s son there existed numerous women who judged him so desirable that even before the opera began he received seven invitations to supper, three to breakfast, and two to darker entertainments.

“I wish I had your luck with the ladies,” the baronet who sat at his right commented.

Adrian would have liked to tell his newfound admirers that to pursue an affair with him was a complete waste of time. Instead, he amused himself by fashioning the notes into pointed missiles that he directed at the Boscastle opera box on the opposite side of the house.

He would have really liked to lure Emma into his box, close the curtains, and pay attention to her for the rest of the evening. But with her band of brothers looming about, the pleasant fantasy seemed unlikely to be realized tonight, or in the immediate future.

It wasn’t going to end that easily between him and his elusive lioness, however. If Emma imagined for one instant that he was the sort of man who seduced a woman in secret, then sauntered off to other conquests, she had a few surprises coming. Actually, no one could have been more surprised than Adrian himself by his desire to pursue her for a more lasting association.

Yet something in him understood, had recognized from the instant he heard her voice, that she was the woman he’d been waiting for all his life. And he hadn’t even realized he had been waiting, or that true love would be in his future.

He knew many men, soldiers of fortune especially, who did not believe in love. Abandoned by parents, abused at home, they’d taught themselves not to seek anything but instant gratification. Not to feel. But Adrian remembered his mother’s love. And his brother and sister tagging about like hapless puppies, willing to follow him into any mischief.

They had loved him. And he loved them. So he never admitted to his crude-minded cohorts that he did believe in the reality of love.

It had existed once.

Why could it not be his again?

He sat up, his heavy black cloak cascading down his back. Was she leaving? Alone? Just when the head-splitting singing had begun? Ah, what a blessing. “Excuse me,” he muttered to his two acquaintances, one of whom was already asleep. “Don’t wait for me if I don’t come back soon.”

He nearly bowled over every footman and late arrival he encountered in his hurry to intercept her in the entrance vestibule. He would be satisfied if he could convince her to meet him once again to discuss the future she asserted they didn’t even have.

“Goodness gracious!” an ominously familiar voice trilled in his ear. “Is that my Hercules?”

Not her. He stumbled back from the robust older woman blocking his progress. She followed until he stood flush against the wall. Over the top of her peacock-feathered turban he caught sight of Emma fanning herself. Hamm, the footman in Lord Heath’s town house, stood idly by. “Dear Lady Dalrymple,” he said politely, then practically lifted her out of his path. “I should love nothing more than to continue this conversation, but I’ve just seen a friend I cannot ignore.”

“A friend?” She swung around in interest, gasping as she realized whom he meant. “Not Emma? Yes. Emma. She’s—Emma is your friend?”

Too late he understood that she understood exactly what he meant. “Of course she’s my friend,” he said awkwardly. “And so are you, and your niece Julia—”

Her voice dropped to a frightening whisper. “You can trust me, Lord Wolverton.”

“Can I?” he asked. Emma was turning back toward the steps that led to her box. He could see his opportunity slipping through his fingers.

He bolted across the vestibule, reaching Emma before she could elude him. “Lady Lyons.” He bowed, then caught her gloved hand to draw her back into the corner. “What a pleasure it is to meet you here.”

For a satisfying moment her face lit up and she did not fuss when he edged nearer to her than he should. Then she laughed. “As if it were a coincidence. Did you know we’d be here tonight?”