Page 49 of The Design of Dukes (The Beautiful Barringtons 2)

She would stand and fight, use some of those tricks her mongrel brother had taught her and possibly pummel him with the large leather portfolio he saw laying to the side.

She sat back on her heels, unaware of the torrent of lust she’d unwittingly unleashed and, thankfully, ending the worst of his lascivious thoughts.

“What are you doing here, Your Grace?”

“I thought we had only just established that this is my estate, my lady.”

Her lips tightened; she obviously did not care for his reply. A long-suffering sigh came from her as if he were too simple to understand the question. “What I mean, Your Grace, is that the other guests have gone into the village for the festival today.”

“Not all of them. I passed Lord and Lady Carstairs as I came this way.”

Andromeda turned the color of a beet. He wondered what she’d accidentally seen on her way to the stream. Had she watched? Possibly become aroused herself?

The thought caused his desire to sharpen. She’d soon make him into a lustful, babbling idiot.

“And not you,” he pointed out. “I was told you were suffering from a headache brought on by too much sun yesterday; that, and the blow to your ego.”

Her spine stiffened immediately, her beautiful mouth pursing. He adored her anger. It meant she wasn’t unaffected by him. David didn’t want to suffer alone.

“As our host, I assumed you escorted your guests to the village.” Her voice took on a politely modulated, condescending tone. “As anygoodhost would do.”

“The village puts on a fair or festival at the drop of a hat. I’m sure the occasion isn’t for anything special other than word spread my aunt was hosting a house party at The Barrow. Every tradesman between here and London will be hocking their overpriced and inadequately made wares to my guests. I saw no reason to subject myself to such nonsense.”

A flower petal was stuck in the dark strands of her hair. Another clung to the bit of lace on her bodice, hovering above the small valley between her breasts.

A soft groan escaped him as his cock twitched painfully.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did a bee sting you?”

“No,” he replied, much sharper than he’d intended.

“You’ve no idea if either of your assumptions are true,” came her tart reply. He wasn’t surprised by her defense of a group of unknown tradesmen.

David found Andromeda’s ability to champion others an admirable quality, though misplaced at times. “How many festivals have you been to in the village of Upper Granby, my lady? I’ve been to many. I speak from years of experience.”

“So you object to them making a bit of coin?”

“Not in the least.”

A light, feminine scent came off her skin, wrapping him in a ridiculous cloud of lavender-scented desire David found impossible to escape, mainly because he didn’t want to.

“I happen to enjoy a good fair now and again,” he said. “Living in Italy, there was a fair almost daily. The Italians like to celebrate every obscure saint imaginable with a festival or feast.”

“You lived in Italy?” She nibbled at her bottom lip, studying him with a look of disbelief.

Apparently, cold monsters such as himself couldn’t possibly have survived in the warmth of Italy. “I did.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

Such a carefree existence was unfathomable now. A brief act of rebellion intended to save what was left of his soul. He had lived abroad for nearly a year, mostly in Rome, away from the duty of Granby. The constant bitterness of Horace, his contempt for David’s mother and the bastard son she’d borne after she fled, had nearly suffocated him.

“Italy is a wonderful country. I was drawn to the beauty to be found there,” he said quietly, thinking of his reluctant return to England after receiving word of his father’s collapse. His father’s letters had become increasingly scornful to David, at turns threatening and cajoling. Filled with contempt for David in one paragraph, only to plead with him to come home in the next. His disappointment in his only child would ease, Horace wrote, if only David would be the son he needed and return. Then Horace had fallen ill, and what David wanted no longer mattered. Granby did.

David tugged at his collar, trying to loosen his cravat. “You seem very surprised, Andromeda.”

Her magnificent eyes followed the motion of his fingers against his neck. “I am only hard-pressed to imagine you in Italy, of all places. It seems a...frivolous destination for you.”

It had been. Marvelously frivolous.

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