Page 5 of The Duke Says I Do
“Perhaps so. But why not satisfy my curiosity?”
She sighed and brushed a wing of lustrous gold hair back from her forehead. “I’ve been tracking Jim Jones for about a week. He runs a dogfighting ring in Seven Dials.”
Granville stuck his swordstick under his arm and picked up Jupiter’s leash. With his other hand, he caught Portia’s arm and marched her down one of the alleys. This built-up area might all look the same, but he had an inkling that he wasn’t far from his offices. “The more reason to shun his company, I’d say. He’s clearly dangerous.”
“Dangerous to dogs, anyway,” she retorted. Jupiter tugged at the leash Granville held. Their prickly conversation upset him. When Portia glanced down, her expression softened in a way that did nothing to quash Granville’s sexual interest. “It’s allright, Jupiter. You’re safe now. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again.”
The soothing murmur made every hair stand up on Granville’s body. Just so would she croon her pleasure to a lover.
Who was never going to be him.
No amount of unwelcome attraction could make him stick his head into that particular noose again. One engagement to a Frain woman was more than enough, thank you.
Nor did it escape his notice that the mongrel dog received kinder treatment than one of England’s premier noblemen.
He wished to heaven that he didn’t notice how beautiful she was. He’d always recognized that she was a diamond, but he’d felt no urge to cut himself on those sharp facets. Now it seemed that he wanted her, no matter how she sliced at him.
“And I wasn’t alone,” she said. “Rankin, my coachman, was with me.”
“Not when I met you.”
“We lost sight of Jones when we got to Wapping, so we split up.”
“That was a damned silly thing to do,” Granville snapped.
When her eyes flashed annoyance, his grip on her arm firmed. Where did this sudden yen for obstreperous women come from? Her sister had always been so proper – at least until she turned out not to be proper at all.
She pulled free and stopped to glare at him. “I had my gun.”
Granville stopped, too. They’d entered a more respectable part of town, a residential square of small, well-kept terrace houses. “Which has one bullet in it. Once you’d fired it, you were at the mercy of those ruffians. Do you think Alf would just let you go if you’d shot Jim?” The memory of his stone-cold terror when he’d seen her face down those brutes made his gut contract.
She had the grace to look a little sheepish. “I hadn’t counted on Jones having an accomplice.”
With another whine, Jupiter broke free. Granville waited for him to take off into the tangle of alleyways. Almost wished that he would. Even if Lady Portia was sure to set out in pursuit. But the dog merely shifted to lie at his feet.
“He likes you.”
Granville told himself that he was being oversensitive to hear disbelief in Lady Portia’s remark. “He recognizes the voice of authority.”
“No, he’s decided you’re his master.”
Dismay flooded Granville as he stared down at Jupiter. Who stared back with unmistakable devotion. “I’m not. I can’t be.”
Most men of his status kept kennels. Most men of his status had a normal upbringing where games and larks and friends and japes were part of the deal. Granville’s grandparents had spent their lives training him to be the perfect duke. Pets weren’t part of the arrangement. Pets were distracting and dirty and made a lad think of playing outdoors, instead of memorizing screeds of political history.
“You have to take him.”
In general, Granville would crush the pretensions of any pest who dared to tell him that he should do something. That went double for troublesome individuals burdened with the Frain name.
But today set its own rules. For some reason, the cutting set-down that put Lady Portia in her place wouldn’t emerge.
“I…can’t.” Even in his own ears, that sounded weak. He strove to strengthen his tone. “You rescued him. He belongs to you.”
She shook her head and stepped back, physically distancing herself from responsibility. “He loves you.”
Granville only just restrained a derisive snort. Love? That, like pets, wasn’t part of his life either. Never had been. And he hadn’t suffered from the lack.
Love, in his experience, made people do stupid things like break respectable engagements and rush off to marry scoundrels like the Duke of Evesham. Love promised an end to clear thinking. If the Duke of Granville valued anything, it was clear thinking.
