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How was he supposed to know that his childhood haven would be invaded by a debutante changing from her virginal gown to what could only be described as a Covent Garden confection?
The bodice barely covered her corset.
“Blast,” she cursed, wiggling with her hands behind her back, attempting to fasten the gown.
It was the most erotic show he’d ever seen. He had to leave. Now. Or she had to leave. He backed away and his heel must have hit a rake, because the handle flew up and smacked him in the back of the head.
I suppose I deserved that,he had time to think, before he realized there was a pistol pressed against his chest.
“Don’t shoot.” Drew raised his hands, palms outward. “I’m a duke.”
Chapter4
Precisely the statement most likely to make Mina fire.
Especially when she realized which duke she held at pistol point.
Thorndon towered over her, huge and solid, so near she could smell his cologne—a faint trace of almonds and spicy musk.
Eyes glowing gold in the lamplight. Eyes which had seen her disrobe.
She dug her pistol into his chest, over his heart.
He’d seen her disrobe.Had he heard her mutterings? And, most importantly, had she said anything incriminating about his brother, Lord Rafe? She quickly tried to remember everything she’d said from the moment she’d entered the shed.
She wished she could swallow the last few minutes like the torn-up shreds of a secret message no one but she would ever read.
Talking to oneself was a dangerous habit. She’d spent so much time alone at Sutton Hall that it was ingrained behavior.
Lord Rafe didn’t like innocent debutantes, so Mina had planned to transform herself into a sophisticated woman of mystery by wearing her mother’s scarlet silk dress, which she’d paid to have altered according to today’s fashions.
Only now Thorndon was ruining everything.
Great big barrier of a duke.
“What are you doing, lurking out here in the shadows, Your Grace?” She got the sense that he’d been hiding. But why would a duke hide from his own ballroom?
“I could ask the same of you, MissPenny. It’s my shed, after all.”
He didn’t seem terribly concerned about the firearm targeting his heart. She was embarrassed and it made her want to throw him off balance.
“I assure you I know how to use this weapon.”
“I didn’t suggest otherwise. I’m sure you’re skilled with a gun, having been raised in the countryside, and being so fond of the hunt.”
“I was raised in the countryside but I’m no simple country miss.”
“Not in that gown. No one would mistake you for anything simple. That’s a complicated gown.”
“This is a stunning gown,” she huffed.
Wearing her mother’s gown was the closest Mina could come to touching her mother. She’d even purchased the same rose scent her mother had worn.
She wanted to become just as glamorous and sophisticated as her celebrated mother had been.
“Has too many ruffles,” said the duke. “It looks like a rose mated with a bawdy-house sofa. I liked the other one better.”
Now he was insulting her mother’s dress. He was the most irritating man in the world, and she had to be stuck in a garden shed with him. “You would, wouldn’t you?” She nudged his chest with her pistol. “You want young ladies to be demure, biddable, and silent.”
