Page 1 of Look at Her Duke
THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY, SERIOUSLY
Kipling Mancheste,newly made duke and just as gorgeous as he’d always been, was currently laughing as he backed out of Amelia’s brother’s study.
Speaking of bad timing.
Amelia’s back was pressed against the wall of the corridor, cradling a chicken. As one does.
“I’ll see ye tonight, then, Alistair?Tellme ye’re no’ leaving me high and dry at my first Society event!”
Her brother must have responded without words—he still only spoke in short sentences and only when necessary—because Kipling laughed again and made a rude gesture. Amelia clamped her hand around the hen’s beak and tried to back around the corner, praying he wouldn’t see her.
It had been two years since she’d last seen Kipling Mancheste, and although he likely remembered her only as his best friend’s youngest sister—gangly and awkward in her unceasing championing of God’s creatures, if he remembered her at all—Amelia remembered him as the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
The intervening years hadn’t changed that.
She’d only learned he was back in London—having unexpectedly inherited the Duchy of Bestingbum—earlier this year, and despite her loitering outside her brother’s study, she hadn’t seen him yet. There were only so many times one can claim to be studying this portrait, or picking out the location for her new aquarium, or—in a pinch—reapplying the wallpaper, before the butler would get suspicious.
And wasn’t it just like Fate that the day she actuallydidsee Kipling Mancheste, she was taking her little darling for a walk?
It was too much to hope he hadn’t seen her.
“Amanda?”
Amelia squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her back against the wall, the squirming hen clamped firmly under one arm.
“Lass, I can see yer skirts peeking around the corner. Are ye Alistair’s new wife, Olivia? I’ve been looking forward to meeting the lass who stole my best friend’s heart.”
Amelia held her breath, praying he’d give up and walk toward the foyer. She wanted to see Kipling after all these years…but she wasn’t exactly ready for him to seeher.
Long moments passed, during which she heard nothing from the man. Praying he’d given up and left, she peeked open one eye.
And promptly closed it again.
He wasstanding right there.
“Amelia,” he said, in that warm caramelly voice of his. She’d been rather hoping the years apart had changed it, so it would become scratchy or gravelly. Different in any way. Oh, why hadn’t he taken up smoking in the interim?
Because hearing that voice she’d always loved, saying her name like that? His lips, caressing the M, his tongue wrapping around the L?
She was lost.
“Amelia, ye ken I can see ye?”
She was going to have to speak to him. Outrageous.
“I do not know anything about the state of your eyesight, Kip—sir. Your Grace.”
“Well, as far as I’m aware, it’s perfect. I’m standing right in front of ye, looking at ye.”
Her eyes were beginning to ache from how hard she was squeezing them shut. “Could you…not?”
“No’ look at ye?”
Inspiration struck. “I am practicing hiding from raptors.”
“Raptors?”
Oh God, she couldhearthe amusement in his voice.
