Page 4 of Dangerous

Sayer held out two waistcoats for Adam’s approval.

Adam was about to reject both and order something more suitable for an evening at his club when the Duke of Carlisle’s face flickered through his mind. The aloof peer had acted so happy to see him at White’s, Adam had been dazzled. After all, when was the last time anyone had been thrilled to see his face?

But if the duke’s warm welcome had bemused him, their odd conversation had left Adam intrigued. He was still intrigued a full four days later.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“I beg your pardon, my lord?”

Adam sighed. “The one on the right, Sayer.”

His valet helped him into the white silk waistcoat while Adam engaged in the same internal argument he’d been having since his meeting with the duke on Tuesday. Should he, or should he not, go to the man’s wretched dinner and ball?

The Duke of Carlisle—an older, well-respected peer with whom he’d exchanged fewer than a dozen words in his life—had accosted him with all the bonhomie of a long-lost friend. He’d hardly waited for Adam to remove his hat and gloves before dragging him to a table.

“Ah, Exley, I’d hoped to find you here today. A moment of your time, if you do not mind?”

“It would be a pleasure, Your Grace,” Adam had replied after a second of stunned silence. His lips twitched even now as he recalled the faces of those who’d been lounging around the club that morning. Every eye in the place had been riveted on the fascinating sight of one of the ton’s proudest and most proper members supplicating one of its most notorious and disagreeable—two epithets Adam knew were often applied to him, although never to his face.

The duke had led him to a pair of chairs by the dormant fireplace and waved away a hovering waiter. “I say, Exley, did you receive an invitation to that affair we’re having this Saturday?”

“Affair?”

“Yes, a ball for my daughter.”

Adam blinked and shifted in his chair. “I did not.”

The duke flicked his hand. “No matter. I daresay my scatty cousin, the one who organized the damn thing, didn’t know you were in town.” To his credit, the duke’s pale skin tinted a pale pink at this blatant untruth. The older man would know, along with his “scatty cousin” and every other member of the ton, that Adam rarely left London, even after the Season’s end.

“In any event,” Carlisle had continued, undeterred, “I’m issuing you a personal invitation.”

“I am honored, Your Grace.” And bloody curious, he could have added. After all, few people, and none of them bearing the title “duke,” had been eager to associate with Adam for almost ten years, not since he’d been dubbed the “Murderous Marquess.” Yet another name used exclusively behind Adam’s back.

Carlisle had then leaned closer to Adam, as if he were about to embark on a confidential topic. “You must know Lady Euphemia has been away for some time, eh?”

Adam had been unable to do more than gape at the older man’s casual reference to his daughter’s seventeen-year absence—a subject that had so mesmerized the people of Britain that dozens of savvy newspapermen had made their fortunes feeding the public’s hunger on the subject. Euphemia Marlington had even pushed Boney from people’s minds. For almost six weeks now, one question had dominated the scandal sheets: Just what had the duke’s daughter been up to all these years?

Adam had looked across at one of the few men in England who surely knew the answer to that question and smiled. “I seem to recall hearing something about your daughter’s return.”

His irony had been too subtle for Carlisle. “You haven’t met her yet, eh?”

“We have not crossed paths, Your Grace.” Indeed, it would have been more than a little odd had they done so. Adam did not attend ton functions and he doubted Lady Euphemia frequented gaming hells, men’s clubs, or Adam’s mistress’s pied-à-terre, the places he could usually be found.

“You must make her acquaintance, Exley. She’s marriage-mad like all the rest of her sex, of course.” He’d chuckled, his color deepening. “Now that she’s returned home, she’s keen to be setting up her nursery.”

The duke could not have been more appallingly blatant had he provided Adam with a teasing chart. He’d half feared the older man would go on to offer details of his daughter’s estrus and when her next heat cycle began.

When Adam had failed to comment, the duke had added, “She will make some fortunate man an excellent wife.”

“I daresay the candidates for her hand are flatteringly numerous, Your Grace.”

Carlisle’s smile had faltered under Adam’s cool mockery. “And how is your family, Exley? You have three girls, don’t you?”

It hadn’t been the most subtle way of reminding Adam he had no heir, but it must have been persuasive enough. After all, here he was, dressing for his first ton event in almost a decade.

Adam paused in his ruminations while Sayer helped him into his newest coat, a rather strenuous ordeal that took several minutes and left both men breathing hard by the time they’d finished. He pushed his hair off his forehead and fastened the coat’s silver and onyx buttons while he considered the meaning behind the duke’s invitation.

Carlisle could not have made his intentions any clearer had he shown up at White’s with a stud book, auction block, and gavel. He wanted his daughter married and he wanted it to happen quickly. Adam could understand the man’s urgency; the woman was no spring pullet. But what he could not understand was why the duke wished to marry his only daughter to a man with Adam’s reputation.