To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

Lord Ridley’s words reminded him that as long as he had Eugenie he would never turn into ice, like his mother. But he shook his head rather regretfully.

“She’s not my lady friend. Not that I haven’t tried. But she informs me she will be no man’s mistress. She values herself far too highly.”

“Hmm. I like the sound of that. A woman like that should be treasured and pampered and thoroughly loved.”

“That’s as may be, uncle,” he said bitterly, “but the Belmonts are rather low on the social scale.”

Lord Ridley eyed him curiously. “Good God, Sinclair, are you thinking of marrying her? Your mother really would throw a pink fit.” He paused, stroking his chin. “Might be worth seeing.”

“Uncle, I hardly think this is any of your business—”

Lord Ridley waved a hand. “You’re very touchy on the subject. Is she really so very ineligible? Her manners and deportment are ladylike. Indeed she could pass for an aristocrat, if she wished.”

Why was it that one’s relations thought they had the right to discuss personal matters with one? Sinclair thought irritably.

“If you must know then yes! She is completely ineligible. Her father is a baronet but he is penniless and sells horses at the local horse fair. Her mother seems to be permanently locked in her bedchamber with hysterics and she has four brothers . . . Well, one of them is acceptable. One of them has eloped with my sister. The other two are the devil’s twins.”

“No relatives who can be called upon to raise the tone?”

“Her aunt is married to a soap manufacturer.”

“Oh dear, it gets worse.” He eyed Sinclair sympathetically.

“And her great-grandmother was a chambermaid at the palace who became a mistress of George the Second.”

Lord Ridley laughed. “Capital!” he said. “You genuinely admire this girl, don’t you?”

The St. Johns weren’t a close family, but his maternal uncle had always been fond of him and Sinclair had reciprocated the feeling. When he was young Lord Ridley was the only one he felt he could open his heart to, and he had done so, much to his mother’s anger. It was true, his uncle had encouraged him in his artistic talents, advising him to follow his heart and be damned to the rest. It had been good advice, although at that age Sinclair hadn’t been strong enough to defy his mother and follow it.

“Perhaps I may be able to help,” Lord Ridley said. “I know a bit about females, you know. I’m in the market for a wife myself.”

Sinclair swallowed his spleen and gave a sickly smile. “You’ve been in the market for a wife for twenty years, uncle.”

Lord Ridley looked surprised, and then he laughed. “So I have, so I have. Well, take warning from that. You don’t want to still be a bachelor at my age.”

Sinclair couldn’t be bothered arguing. His uncle might play at matchmaker but he was afraid of his sister, the dowager duchess. He wouldn’t do anything to bring her raging down upon him. Lord Ridley enjoyed the quiet life.

Framlingbury was small by Somerton’s standards but Eugenie found the golden stone and airy rooms far more pleasant than Somerton’s stilted glory. This was a house one could live in, where one could be one’s self. She doubted the same could be said for the duke’s residence, where everything was designed for show, to display the grandeur of the St. John family and remind one of their importance and, in the Belmont’s case, one’s own inferiority.

How could anyone be happy living in a house like that? Certainly not warmhearted Eugenie. Not that she’d ever have the chance! She’d long ago come to accept that.

Lord Ridley, too, was a great deal less stiff and proud than his sister and nephew. Unlike the dowager duchess’s rude stare, he had greeted Eugenie amiably. He’d asked her polite questions and then listened intently to her answers, genuinely interested in what she had to say. He had an easy way of laughing, too, and there was a certain gleam to his eye she found rather flattering. Although it left her wondering why middle-aged men like Lord Ridley and Major Banks found her so enticing while younger men wanted to be her friends.

Apart from Sinclair, of course.

She smiled to herself and lifted her face to the sun. The weather had returned to some semblance of summer since they’d arrived, as if the incident in the woods had never been. That was how she thought of it now. “The incident.” Although in her dreams she went over every word, every touch, every glorious moment, until her body was flushed and feverish and she longed for Sinclair to burst into her bedchamber and claim her.

She was fairly sure he wouldn’t. He was too much the duke for that, too steeped in proper manners and proper ways of behavior. And of course that was what had drawn her to him in the first place, she reminded herself. He was so much more respectable than her own family. Was it wrong of her to wish that he would behave with just a little less propriety?

When they had begun to play their game of dares he’d been quite reckless, deliciously so, but she’d never felt as if she might be hurt by him, at least not intentionally. He made her feel safe. She knew that was something she’d been lacking all her life, that sense of stability and security. At Belmont Hall anything could happen and frequently did.

Now they were here at Framlingbury, it seemed that Sinclair had turned back into the cold and arrogant duke he’d been before. Eugenie felt as if he was growing far too distant, far too lofty for her. Oh yes, he’d changed. But had he done so on purpose? Was he withdrawing himself from her, hiding behind an icy wall of privilege?

If only . . . But she stopped that thought before it could form. It was no use wishing for what could never be. She was here to save Terry and bring him home. Anything else was unimportant.

Lord Ridley sent out spies to try to discover which way Annabelle and Terry had gone, but as yet there had been no word. The northern highways were empty of anyone resembling the couple and their chaperone, so they must have taken a lesser route. Eugenie hoped Terry knew what he was doing, that whatever the outcome he might be happy living with his decision.

Meanwhile Robert and Georgie had become quite a team, and Robert had asked Eugenie’s opinion on whether it would be possible for him and his wife to take on the boy. They had no children of their own and they’d always longed for one.