Page 4 of The Duke Meets His Match

A very tall, very haughty-looking,very angrygentleman stood at the end of the row of books directly in front of her. He stalked toward her, his mouth in a firm line, his eyes burning like black coals. She disliked him on sight.

“Do you make it a regular practice of eavesdropping on other people’sconversations?” he asked her in a surprisingly soft but nonetheless biting tone.

“Do you make it a regular practice of barging into a room that is already occupied and commandeering it?” she replied. It was an overstatement of what he’d done, but she didn’t care. He’d provoked her.

He was standing directly in front of her by now. He was much taller than she and looked down at her with disdain, fingering his quizzing glass. “You, ma’am, should have made your presence known, had you any manners at all.”

“Perhaps you should have checked the library more carefully if you intended to have a private conversation. Very sloppy on your part, I must say,” she retorted.

He raised his quizzing glass halfway to his eye and glared at her.

“If you are trying to intimidate me, you may as well stop right now,” she said before he could speak. “I have three older brothers and have dealt with male intimidation in all its varied forms since I was in leading strings. You can have no effect on me.”

His quizzing glass was fully at his eye now. He inspected her from the top of her head to her toes. Regardless of her bold words, Susan began to squirm inside. She became acutely aware of her dark, completely unruly hair, her unflattering reading spectacles, and the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose that she had always detested. Her hand itched to check that her fichu was properly covering her bosom. His eyes, with that awful quizzing glass of his still present, took in their fill and saw everything, she was certain. Every detail. Every flaw. It made her feel little and unworthy.

Andthatmade her angry.

“Have you seen enough?” she asked him in a mocking tone. “Would you care to inform me of your conclusions so that I may humbly take them into account and improve myself in future? Or perhaps you would prefer to inspect my ankles first?”

He simply stood there and said nothing, glaring at her with those hot, black eyes of his. It was utterly infuriating.

She smirked and lifted her skirts a few inches, raising one foot as she did so her ankle was in view.

He looked at her ankle and then raised his eyes back to hers, and they locked gazes. His eyes still burned. “I am greatly relieved that we are not acquainted, ma’am, and that there is no one present to make the proper introductions. For you have shown yourself to be utterly without decorum. I can only hope that you have the sense, at least, to treat the conversation you overheard with respect.I pray my hope is not in vain. Good afternoon.” He turned on his heel and retraced his steps down the row of books, his back ramrod straight, until hedisappeared from sight, and then Susan heard the library door open and close with a bang.

Susan fairly vibrated with anger. It had taken all her self-control not to throw William Blake at him. Despicable man. Boorish, self-important—

She stomped down the row to replace poor William Blake and his poetryback on the shelf. She needed to leave the library. She needed to walk and breatheand not think about what had happened. A walk in the park at Cantwell Hall would be just the thing. A nice, brisk walk where the breeze might blow the thoughts of the horrible man, whoever he was, out of her mind.

She opened the door of the library and looked both ways down the corridorto make sure no one was about, then she returned to the ballroom, her eyessearching to make sure she didn’t have a repeat encounter with the man. Fortunately, she didn’t see him.

She did spy her brother Lucas, though, and made her way through the ballroom to his side.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you. Lavinia is tired and would like to return to Ashworth Park. Does that suit you?”

Susan suspected she could walk the entire way to Ashworth Park, ratherthan ride in the carriage, and it still wouldn’t be enough to settle her tumultuous feelings. She smiled at her brother instead. “It does suit me—once I ask Lord Cantwell if I may borrow this book.”

Lucas chuckled. “I should have knownyouof all people would disappear into the library. I could have saved myself a great deal of time if I had searched there first. Well, come on; let’s go find the groom and beg his indulgence on your behalf so I may take Lavinia back to Ashworth Park. We husbands and soon-to-be fathers must see to the needs of our wives, and I will not have her overexert herself.”

They eventually spotted Lord Cantwell, who, Susan observed, was in such great spirits and so enamored of his bride that she could have asked to take the chandelier in the entrance hall and he would have readily agreed.

Lavinia, on the other hand, was too tired for conversation during the carriageride home, and Lucas was too busy fretting about her to say much of anything,which was entirely fine with Susan. She herself was so preoccupied with her encounter in the library that she stared out the window all the way back toAshworth Park, the detestable man’s words repeating over and over in her mind:

You, ma’am, should have made your presence known, had you any manners at all.

I am greatly relieved that we are not acquainted, ma’am, and that there is no one present to make the proper introductions. For you have shown yourself to be utterly without decorum.

Boorish, self-important, loathsome man, whose dark hair had glinted with burgundy when the light from the window had struck it. Whose intense, dark eyes had stared deeply into her own from their lofty height. Who’d made her shiver when he’d taken in his fill of her. Who’d said such terrible, hurtful words to her. She hated him.

Even worse, she hated that she’d found him attractive even while he’d torn her to bits.

She hoped she never learned who he was.

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