Page 54 of The Truth About Love and Dukes

“Perhaps, but that’s not the point. My father is weak, no doubt about that. And some women would not be happy with a man like that, or a man like Antonio Foscarelli, for that matter. But not every woman is the same.”

He rubbed a hand over his forehead, striving to decide what to say. He recalled his own less-than-favorable impression of Irene’s father, and he felt it was open to question just how happy with the fellow her mother could have been. To him, the picture she had just painted of her family was a sentimental one that ignored the hard reality: a rake could not ever really reform. He might have the intention to do so, he might even hold his life together for a time for love’s sake, but he was first and last and always, a rake. Pointing that out would have bolstered his argument against his mother’s marriage, but when he looked into Irene’s face, soft with compassion for her parent, he couldn’t do it. “I begin to understand,” he said instead, “why you felt comfortable giving my mother the advice you did. You thought she was like your mother.”

“Not precisely. What I thought was that your mother, like mine, ought to be given credit for knowing her own heart and mind, and for being the only one who could or should decide where her true happiness lies.”

“With that man.”

“He might genuinely love her, you know.”

Henry couldn’t help a laugh. “You believe that?”

“It’s possible. As I said, my father fell in love with my mother. It was after he began courting her, but nonetheless, he did fall in love with her. As to Foscarelli, I can’t say what he might feel, for unlike you, I believe one should actually meet someone before passing judgment on their character, and I have not met the man. I’d like to, for I am curious about him, I admit.”

Henry could not believe what he was hearing. “You can’t meet him.”

“Why not?”

The idea of Miss Deverill, who was not only an unmarried woman, but also a stunningly beautiful one, in the sights of that blackguard was enough to make Henry feel absolutely savage. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “He is just as unthinkable an acquaintance for you as he would be for me. More so, in fact, for you are a young lady.”

She laughed, making short shrift of the rules that governed his world. “A fact which makes me want to meet him all the more. He’s said to be a fascinating man.”

“Cobras are fascinating, too, but they are still poisonous. Meeting him would put your reputation in serious jeopardy. He’s a libertine, a sybarite, utterly immoral.”

“Hmm . . .” Her lips tipped in a sideways little smile that told Henry he was making no impression whatsoever. “With every word, you give me a greater understanding of the man’s appeal.”

“Do be serious,” he admonished. “You publish a scandal sheet, so you surely know Antonio Foscarelli is a notorious man, though whether that reputation is due in greater part to his affairs with women or to his nude portraits of them, I cannot say.”

“Affairs? Nude portraits?” She lifted her hands, fanning herself in a pretense of being thoroughly shocked. “Oh, my heavenly days.”

He watched her, unamused. “You have taken my mother’s words about teasing me to heart, I see.”

Her hands stilled, resting against her bosom, drawing his gaze at once to the creamy white skin beneath her fingertips. All the arousal he’d been fighting since she walked in the door flared up again, hotter than ever, and it occurred to him that no woman he’d ever known had the singular talent of provoking both his desire and his temper simultaneously. “Miss Deverill,” he began.

“Any artist of good character is celibate, of course,” she went on with deep solemnity. “And paints breathtaking, brilliant bowls of fruit.”

His aggravation faded into bemused chagrin, and as he slid his gaze up from her collarbone, along her delicate throat, over her stunning face, and into her eyes, his body didn’t care a jot that all her merriment was at his expense.

His head, however, worked to remind them both of what was important. “Your idea isn’t worth discussing, since what we are attempting to do is prevent her from marrying him at all.”

“Which, as I am trying to tell you, isn’t going to work. I could list his flaws to her from now until the end of time, and so could you, and everyone else in your family, and I doubt it would impair her feelings for the man in the slightest degree.”

“Then you had best come up with another way to change her mind.”

“Or you could just resign yourself to her decision, attempt to persuade him to sign a settlement, and make the best of things.”

He didn’t credit that suggestion with a reply, but his expression must have conveyed his opinion clearly enough. “Really, Torquil,” she cried, “you are the most impossible man. You can’t control everything and everyone, you know.”

“Apparently not,” he muttered, glaring at the woman who seemed able to rob him of all his control in the wink of an eye. “And yet, I am undeterred.”

“If your mother wants to marry him, who are you to say she can’t? If she’s in love with him, who are you to judge her for it?”

“Love?” He made a sound of disdain, shaking his head violently. “It’s not love.”

“Of course it is. She’s about to sacrifice everything, risk everything, to be with this man. What else could it be but love?”

He made a sound of impatience. “It’s passion. Raw, unbridled passion.”

“Passion. Love.” She shrugged, laughing as she looked up at him, shaking back the loose gold waves of her hair, harkening to the darkest lusts inside him. “Is there really so much difference?”

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