Page 60 of A Bride for the Duke of Sin

“Ah… The one you prefer to wear when you?—”

“Dear God, no!” Ethan blanched.

Surely his valet was not suggesting he wear the same clothes he wore to meet his past mistresses to tea with hiswife. Had Huxley gone mad?

“I apologize, Your Grace. I had thought that you preferred this specific coat for… specific reasons.”

That particular coat indeed brought outcertainattributes, but if Phoebe ever learned of Ethan’s intentions whenever he wore that coat, she would be more likely to dump the steaming tea on his head than be inclined to any sort of productive interaction with him.

“No, Huxley,” Ethan said in a low, dangerous voice. “In fact, I will have no need for that particular coat henceforth. I shall go with a midnight one. Or better yet,” he added with a gleam in his eyes, “that deep green with the golden trim.”

Just like her eyes.

He had come to a realization last night after she left him in his study. He had sunk into the couch, her scent lingering all around him.

Ethan admitted it had been quite hard to think at first, with his raging arousal like a fever in his blood, and that was when the thought hit him.

It was rather strange, for one would say that it would be counterproductive to thinkat allwith an erection that simplyrefused to go away, but fortunately for Ethan, it worked out well enough.

Although he had heard from Alice and Evie that Phoebe had enjoyed some success during her first Season, none of her suitors had actually been able to “win her heart,” as she had told him. If someone had managed such a feat, then her papa might have never needed to resort to betrothing her to that lout Lord Dexford.

But Ethan was different from all those simpering fops who gathered at her parlor, mouthing off bad poetry.

He could give her what she wanted—what shetrulywanted.

This simple, companionable affection—with lots of lovemaking interspersed in between, of course. And the best part of it was that nobody would need to lose their grip on their mental faculties as his father had.

In time, she would realize that this was much better than the mindless obsession she seemed to have confused with love.

Phoebe was still young and idealistic, as his mother had once been when she married the former Duke of Sinclair. She thought that love was the sort of all-consuming passion they wrote about in books.

Ethan knew all too well how quickly that sort of passion could devolve into madness, as it had for his father.

Unlike his mother, though, Phoebe would never have to go through the suffering of a man demented with ‘love’ because Ethan would make sure that no woman ever suffered under that sort of insanity ever again, most of all his wife.

He would save Phoebe from her idealistic notionsandmake her happy at the same time, and to do that, he need not surrender his heart, as she required, nor did she have to lose hers to him.

They could just as well keep their hearts for their own, thank you very much.

All he needed was time and patience to convince her otherwise.

CHAPTER 18

Phoebe spent the better part of the morning rifling through her wardrobe, looking for the perfect dress to wear for teain her own residence.

And then after that, she had spent the rest of the morning fretting over how to do her hair while Ella looked on with a hapless smile.

“I think I am going insane,” Phoebe groaned, burying her head in her arms on the vanity. “Tell me, Ella—you think I have lost my mind, do you not?”

“Of course not, Your Grace,” the maid replied quickly, hiding her smile behind her hand. “You are merely excited, that is all.”

“Excited?” Phoebe frowned.

Ella nodded enthusiastically. “Like a child on Christmas morning.”

“I was always well-behaved on Christmas morning,” Phoebe groused. “I did not tear into my presents either.”

At that point, the maid could not help but giggle as she ran a brush gently through her mistress’s tresses.

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