Page 4 of The Duke's Stolen Heart
Chapter 2
Havencrest did not believe the butler’s accommodating nod for one second. He was going to have to hunt Miss Lowry through every parlor and ballroom in London if he wanted her help.Women.As if making men chase them down made men crazed with desire—
If only their tactics didn’t work, at least upon lesser men. His father had seen fit to arm him against the seductions of women from an early age. Havencrest shook the thought away. Even now, after everything he had learned about his father’s lies, the previous Duke’s bitterly amusing voice echoed in his thoughts at odd times. Even after he had discovered the selfish lies at the core of his father’s scathing mistrust of all things female, outrunning the effects of his parents’ spectacularly terrible marriage proved impossible. Years ago, when he had been a young man in his father’s shadow and desperate to make his way, he had nearly taken a bride. The young woman had been brave enough to turn down his proposal. Malcolm owed her much gratitude for setting him on a new course—even though it had driven a wedge between him and his only surviving parent.
For the second time Malcolm stomped up the steps of the Evendaw’s townhouse and pounded the door with the unseemly huge knocker. An iron ring held in the mouth of a lion’s bared roar. Pompous people, the Evendaw clan. Havencrest had the luxury of avoiding London’s Four Hundred, but he couldn’t escape an intimate knowledge of each family’s faults. As a child, his grandmother had freely shared her opinions of aristocratic families with him. Although decades had passed since they last spoke a civil word to one another, he could recall with perfect clarity the sharp side of her tongue as she recounted her forays into London’s finest drawing rooms and parlors.
“This way, your lordship.”
Havencrest started. “Of course,” he muttered, pulling himself up to his full height to offset his surprise with physical intimidation.
“Lady Margaret. Miss Lowry,” intoned the butler, who bowed and departed with silent footfalls. The former sat encased in a cloud of blankets, a book draped over her lap, appeared miserable with a red-tipped nose and watery eyes. The latter took his breath.
Miss Antonia Lowry’s elegant form was posed silhouetted against the windowsill. A streak of winter placed a glowing crown atop her glossy brown hair. Lust bolted through him hard enough to steal his breath. Loose tendrils dangled against the creamy nape of her neck. Miss Lowry possessed the bearing of a queen. An empress.
Her bearing commanded him to skim the outline of her compact and powerful figure. Narrow waist. Straight, strong shoulders. Strong hips accentuated by the fullness of fine wool skirts suitable to a blustery January afternoon. The pink luster of the fabric whispered wealth. Yet, a wealthy woman had no need to stoop to petty jewel theft.
The dress was a lie.Shewas a lie—but he needed her services.
“Your lordship,” Lady Margaret bobbed her chin. “Forgive me if I do not rise. I have been taken by the mostawfulgrippe this past week. I am well enough to sit up, but I do not feel well enough to welcome guests. While I am most appreciative of the honor you bestow upon us with your visit I respectfully ask you to—”
“I am here for Miss Lowry.”
Margaret’s blue eyes widened. “Oh. Shall I leave you to—”
“Stay. Please.” This time, it was Miss Lowry who cut the girl off mid-sentence. The hairs on the back of Havencrest’s neck lifted as the woman near the window turned to them. Large eyes the color of burnt umber, framed by eyelashes as long as a calf’s, beguiled a man to drown in their dark depths. But it was her voice that turned Havencrest’s palms damp and made his cock twitch in his trousers.
The cool, firm lilt of her command riveted him to the carpet even though it had not directed at him. Her accent melted her vowels and stretched her consonants into unfamiliar shapes.
Stay. Please.
A shiver worked its way under his cravat to touched the nape of his neck. “Lady Evendaw may go,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. He hadn’t been tongue-tied around a woman since the age of sixteen. Cutting, sarcastic, perhaps even cruel at times—but never at a loss for words. It made him despise this American interloper.
“Margaret stays. I understand that in England, unmarried women are required to be accompanied when receiving visitors,” Miss Lowry declared, undulating hypnotically toward them. “I do not wish to bring scandal upon my hosts.”
Margaret smiled wanly. Miss Lowry settled herself onto the end of the settee beside her friend. “Go on,” she said after she had smoothed her ruffled pink skirts over her thighs. Thighs he could imagine parting, readily envision finding her naked sex at their apex dripping with desire as he—
Focus.
Miss Lowry’s delectable loins were part of a woman with abundant wiles to deploy and no apparent sense of honor. Or guilt.
“My conversation with Miss Lowry is not for other ears, Lady Margaret. I assure you, your brother will understand entirely.”
Margaret’s smile faded. “I assure you he would not understand in the least why a stranger requests a private conversation with an unmarried woman.”
Malcolm briefly contemplated defenestrating himself to avoid explaining his visit to Evendaw, a now-inevitable fate which Malcolm had failed to account for in his single-minded pursuit of Miss Lowry. The woman idly bounced her foot beneath the hem of her skirt. A tiny smile played at the corners of her lips. She knew damn well she held the upper hand. Humiliation washed over him. He was a duke, for fuck’s sake.Command her to obey.
Yes, that approach had always worked so well for his father.
“I wish to take Miss Lowry for a ride,” Havencrest blurted out like some sort of foolish young buck embarrassing himself before a prospective wife. Malcolm cursed himself for having spent the last fifteen hours imagining the solace of cradling the Heart’s Cry in his palms, instead of paying proper attention to more immediate matters. Antonia Lowry could and would get it for him. That damn necklace was the key to putting his parents’ memory to rest, at long last.
“Now?” she asked in that half-mocking drawl of hers. “Isn’t it rather dreary outside for a jaunt in Hyde Park?”
Indeed, as impromptu invitations went his offer was singularly inadvisable. Outside, snowflakes had turned into an icy drizzle that made a fireside chat a far more amenable prospect. Even the weather conspired against him.
“Now,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“I am afraid, your lordship, that I cannot consent to accompany you on such a sadly damp excursion. I must have a chaperone, and Lady Margaret is indisposed.”
