Page 12 of It's In The Duke's Kiss
He cocked an eyebrow. “Not even if she married Nathaniel?”
“Especially not then,” his mother replied in a rather dramatically dire tone. “I predict she’d make him miserable; therefore, I would not like her.”
“You already don’t like her,” he retorted.
Mother’s hand fluttered to her chest once more. “Does it show?”
“Only to me, Mother. Only to me,” he assured her. “But why don’t you care for her?”
Lucian noted how his mother reached for her long strand of pearls and wound it tight around her fingers. She often did that when she was contemplative. “Well, when she was a child it was because she acted so very spoiled and vain.”
“I don’t recall that,” Lucian said, casting his mind back and trying to seek out a memory of Lady Francine when she was younger.
His mother smirked. “Darling, you wouldn’t know because you’ve never paid the chit a bit of attention.”
“I pay no woman attention but you, Mother. It has nothing to do with the chit…I mean, Lady Francine.”
“Men are so blind sometimes,” his mother muttered. “It has everything to do with her. She is exceptional in neither wit nor beauty, and thus, you haven’t noticed her.”
He opened his mouth to refute that statement, but his mother cut him off. “When an exceptional lady comes along who is right for you, you’ll take heed. I’ve no doubt. And then you will fall in love and marry.”
“As long as this exceptional lady is perfectly mannered and meticulous in thought rather than impetuous, then I’m sure I’ll notice her, as you say.”
His mother laughed. “Oh, darling, you will see…” Her words trailed off, but the way her eyes twinkled as if she knew things he did not intrigued him.
“What is it you think I’ll see?”
“You do not choose with whom you fall in love the way you choose the perfect flower to pluck. Love is imperfect, and whomever you love will be so also. Love falls like an apple from a branch and hits you in the head, and it’s irresistible, despite its flaws.”
When his mother dribbled this romantic nonsense, he really was at a loss as to what she wanted him to say. He tugged on his cravat. “And why don’t you like Lady Francine now?”
“Because she sees your brother as a prize. A stallion to be tamed.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. His mother looked angry, but the image of Nathaniel as a stallion to be tamed was amusing. “You know this how?”
“It’s in her eyes,” Mother responded, matter-of-fact.
“Her eyes?”
“Oh, yes. When she looks at Nathaniel, they gleam like those of a child about to get a new toy. She thinks she’ll be the one to change him from rake to respectable.”
Lucian glanced out the window where a carriage was pulling up. “Well, the chit is here now. Should we hide the boy toy?”
“That is not funny,” his mother snapped and moved past him to look out the window.
“I’m not laughing.” Lucian barely held back said laughter. He forced himself to sober. “Have you considered that Nathaniel likely needs someone who is not impetuous but steady? Who is not a rule breaker but one who respects the rules? Who thinks of the future as well as the moment she is in?”
“I’ve considered all of that, and I agree that he does need his opposite. But it is not the Francine chit.”
“I think it might be, Mother.” Lady Francine would be a steadying presence, and she adored Nathaniel. He needed both adoration and a calm wife. “Let us agree for tonight to disagree, shall we?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed with an odd amount of enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you said that because—”
Lucian narrowed his eyes as he stared out the window. He studied the two women and the man who had exited the carriage in front of his home. They had their backs to him so he could not see their faces, but he was positive it wasn’t Winthorp and his daughter. For one thing, Winthorp’s wife was deceased, but a woman with silver hair stood next to the man. For another, Lady Francine did not have brown hair and the woman in the courtyard did.
“Who the devil—” He lost the thought as another woman descended from the carriage.
All Lucian could see of her was the hint of a lovely ankle, which quickly disappeared as her gown fell into place. Her face was obscured by a thick veil of long black hair. She looked up suddenly, and his breath caught deep in his chest—Lady Emmaline in the flesh. The intensity of his reaction, nearly identical to how he’d felt when she’d shown up at his Mayfair home, surprised him yet again. Perhaps he had formed an odd connection of sorts to her in his mind since he’d saved her.
