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“At least give me several options.”
“I’ll just see if there are any suitably wealthy and eligible young ladies on the guest list for the musicale.” She pulled the list out of an inner pocket and ran her finger down the names. “Ah, here’s one... Lady Elizabeth Gorham.”
She wrote it down on the paper he’d provided.
The duke swallowed more brandy. “No.”
“What are your objections?”
“Too numerous to name.”
“Name one.”
“Lady Elizabeth, while she does have delightful freckles, has only one topic of conversation: hunting. She breeds greyhounds. She regaled me with stories of every one of their births and gave a very bloodthirsty account of her last hunt. I think she wanted to tear apart the fox with her own teeth.”
“Can you please be serious?” This wasn’t easyfor her and he was making a big joke out of it, as usual.
“Give me more.” He settled back into the chair, crossing his long legs at the ankle.
“Miss Eugenie Comstock and Miss Brunhilda Shufflebottom.”
“Shufflebottom?”
“She’s a very lovely young lady,” said Viola. “A bit retiring and shy but kind and gentle to a fault. She can’t help her name.”
“No and... no.”
Viola clenched her jaw. She rolled up the list, replacing the ribbon around it until such time as he could treat it with more respect. She shook the roll at him. “The least you can do is treat my considerable efforts on behalf of your matrimonial prospects with the gravity they deserve.”
“I do love it when you threaten me with paper batons,” he drawled.
“If it was a brass paperweight, I’d throw it at you.”
“Oh dear. Have I provoked you beyond reason?”
“I’m nearly there,” she fumed. “I honestly don’t know why you must be so coy. Just choose a lady and have done with it!”
“What happened to prolonged courtship? Learning the exact color of her eyes and finding out what books she likes to read?”
“I mean choose one and then go about courting her. After you’ve shown her that you’re willing to reform.”
“Does this look like the bedchamber of a man who’s willing to reform?”
“I’m ignoring your bedchamber. I’m only here to make you a list of respectable and well-connected heiresses.” She’d been avoiding looking at his bed. She could feel it over there, sprawling and huge and curtained with purple velvet. The room was half bed, it seemed.
“I demand an impertinent and insulting reaction.” He rose and came to stand nearby, sipping brandy and staring down at her with that same glint of amusement in his eyes.
She glanced around the room, avoiding the bed area. “Everything is as I pictured it to be, Your Grace. Thick silk carpets and heavy mahogany furnishings. Very manly. The oil paintings which, upon closer inspection, will turn out to be mostly female nudes reclining on settees or cavorting in the woods with fawns.” She peered into the dark corners of the room. “Yes. All very much as expected.”
His lip quirked. “You sound as though you’ve seen dozens of such chambers.”
“Oh no,” she hastened to clarify. “Just the one. You’re only living up to your scandalous reputation. You can’t help yourself. You must hang voluptuous nudes on your walls and have a huge bed with purple velvet curtains. Now, if you had a sparsely furnished, tasteful, and light-filled chamber I would have been very much surprised.”
“Ha. That is exactly the kind of set-down I was hoping for. Do go on.”
“Your rooms are well stocked with strong spirits, snuff boxes, and cigars. You keep the curtainsclosed to block out the light after nights spent carousing . . . and you have a great marble slab of . . .” She stopped because her gaze had found something she couldn’t identify. A huge slab of marble with a carved angel on top. “What on earth is that? It looks rather like a . . . tombstone?”
“Mytombstone.”
