Page 26 of Not That Duke

“If you’ll forgive me for my bluntness,” Stella continued, not even pretending to sound regretful, “I feel growing distaste for the way in which gentlemen, not just you, take themselves so seriously, while doing nothing serious.”

Silvester felt a stab of enjoyment. Female adoration had long since become boring. His mother and Yasmin appeared immune to his charms, such as they were, and it seemed Stella had joined that group. “I gather you think that I do nothing but consider my cravats all day?” he inquired.

She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Don’t you consign that all-important task to your valet?”

“Leaving me with nothing to do but contemplate my nails?”

She opened her mouth, apparently thought better, and shut it again.

Silvester stretched out his hand. His fingers were wide-knuckled and broad, certainly not gentlemanly. His knuckles were bruised by the rounds he’d gone with Giles at Jackson’s salon.

“My valet despairs because I refuse to wear gloves soaked in cream to bed.”

Stella’s eyebrows flew up yet again.

“You don’t slather your hands in cream?” He picked up her hand and pretended to examine it. Her hands were as small as the rest of her, but they weren’t petite or frail.

“My fingers are too stubby to be ladylike,” Stella said. “My maid polishes my nails with Graf's Hyglo paste, but there is no disguising my short fingers, which might explain why she hasn’t attempted to beautify them.”

Silvester grinned at her. “I find your hand delectably small, Lady Stella. Refined, I would call it.”

“A connoisseur of ladies’ hands, are you?”

“Since I have nothing else to do,” he said promptly. Succumbing to the impulse to annoy her, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Sure enough, her eyes sparked with irritation.

“My valet wants me to wear Hessian boots with tassels, and I am giving it a serious thought,” he said. “I tried to dampen his interest by acquiring an ebony tasseled cane, but that blandishment failed; he is determined that I must have tasseled boots. What do you think of that, Lady Stella?”

She had remarkable eyes: wide-set, a green-blue color, more blue than green. Like a winter sky, because her skin was like snow. Her mouth turned down as she thought about his absurd question.

That bottom lip? If Stella wasn’t so . . . so who she was, men would be dreaming about that mouth.

“You are making fun of me,” she said, her voice sharp. “Not for the first time, but it’s never kind to do so, is it? You don’t care for my opinion; you find me unfashionable and claim that I use my intelligence as a hammer. Why would you care what I think of your boots?”

A hammer?

Wickford opened the front door and announced, “Your curricle is rounding the corner, Your Grace.”

Lady Stella marched outside, her figure practically quivering with indignation, and Silvester sauntered after, trying to remember when he had compared her to a hammer.