Dukes Prefer Blondes (The Dressmakers 4)

And yes, she thought. Yes, this is what I want. This is what I was looking for.

Then he was straddling her, kissing her, and she was aware of his hand sliding down, dragging up her skirts and petticoats . . . his hand on her knee, his finger sliding up to the top of her stockings, then inching up.

He lifted his head to watch her while he moved his fingers up her bare thigh . . . up and up and up.

She gasped.

He bent his head and slid his tongue over her parted lips.

He kissed her. Such kisses. Long and deep and wild, like passion. Like love.

Then, as she was falling into a beautifully dark, turbulent place, he lifted his head.

He let out a shaky breath.

“That’s enough of that,” he said thickly.

Her ladyship opened her eyes and lifted a sulky blue gaze to meet his.

“No, it isn’t,” she said.

It was so very like the little girl’s voice Radford remembered from so long ago: I want to go in the boat.

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“No, it isn’t.”

He was overheated, overaroused, and frustrated to the point of insanity. His other self hated him for stopping and loathed his moral principles. His rational self knew he was in a scrape he likely couldn’t get out of. All the same it was all he could do not to laugh at her sulky face and voice.

“I will not debauch you in your great-­aunt’s house,” he said. “It’s a moral principle, dammit.”

“Oh.” Her mouth slowly curved upward.

“Right. Not until we’re married.”

And how the devil that’s to happen is beyond me.

He lifted himself off her. Had he been the sort of man who gave way to theatrics outside the courtroom, he would have torn his hair out.

He shouldn’t have let it go so far.

As though he’d had the power to stop it.

The enchantress Calypso was nothing to Lady Clara Fairfax.

She lay back on the pillow, her pale gold hair coming undone, her lips pink and swollen, her eyes soft with emotions he did not want to torment himself by trying to name.

Love or desire or affection or pleasure or amusement.

At any rate, she wasn’t hitting him or throwing anything at him.

“Are we to marry, then?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Unless you want to persist in your stupid fantasy of marrying stupid Bernard.”

She came up onto her elbows. “I think you’ll be more entertaining. But you’re not the one who’s the duke. It’s going to be a bit tricky, isn’t it?”

Damned well impossible. Radford, meet Mistake Number Eleven.

“A bit,” he said.

The big house was so quiet, away from the hubbub of London, that the noise from below, distant as it was, sounded like a rioting mob.

Cursing himself for carelessness, Radford slid from the bed, taking Clara with him.

“What?” she said.

“Someone’s coming,” he said. He grabbed her cap and shoved it back onto her head. “Devil curse me, I should have thought.”

From the stairs came footsteps, voices. Two voices, female. No, three.

Davis. Lady Exton.

Another, unfamiliar, rose above the others. “Calm? Who can be calm at such at time? Would you be calm, were she your daughter, and you wondering what was being kept from you? I have not slept a wink since I had your last letter. Where is she, Aunt Dora? Where is my poor child?”

He looked at Clara. She looked at him, blue eyes wide.

“Blast,” she said, and hastily arranged her cap, shoving in pins.

Lady Warford was not the stealthy type.

She entered the room in full sail, and full speech, the other women trailing after her.

“Measles, indeed! What do you hide from me, Aunt? My Clara had measles when she was nine years old. I remember distinctly, because it was not long after she chipped her—­”

She came to an abrupt stop when she saw Radford. Up came her eye glass, up went her chin, and she proceeded to demonstrate the fine art of looking down on a fellow more than a head taller than she.

After surveying him from head to toe, she turned her gaze to Clara.

“And this is the physician, I presume?” her ladyship said. “I can think of no other reason for a man to be in your bedroom.”

“No, Mama, this is not the physician,” Clara said. “This is Mr. Radford.”

“Radford,” Lady Warford repeated.

“Yes, my dear,” said Lady Exton. “The Duke of Malvern’s cousin.”

He saw Lady Warford’s gaze turn inward while she fl

ipped through the pages of her mental Book of Great Families, trying to determine where he fit in.

He saw no reason to raise her hopes. “The legal branch of the Radfords,” he said. “The barristers, my lady.”

She sent him one glacial glance before turning to her daughter. “And you have a lawsuit in progress, Clara?” she said coldly.

“No, Mama,” Clara said. “Mr. Radford is the normal sort of suitor. That is to say, he has asked me to marry him, and I’ve decided to put him out of his misery.”

The glacial expression warmed exactly one degree. “Certainly you would, Clara. You would not wish to toy with a gentleman’s affections.”

“In his case, yes, I would, Mama. But I’ve said yes and meant it.”

“You haven’t the least idea what you mean,” said her mother. “You have been ill. Obviously you are not fully recovered, else you’d remember you may not say yes to any gentleman without your father’s consent.” She turned to Radford. “Lord Warford has accompanied me to London. You may wish to apply to him in the usual way.”

Well, that’s going to be a great waste of time.

He thanked her and promised to do so, and took his leave so very politely that anybody who knew him would wonder if he was feeling quite well.

Radford followed the usual forms. He wrote to the Marquess of Warford, requesting an appointment. This his lordship promptly granted—­because of course Clara’s parents wanted to wash their hands of the Barbarous Barrister without loss of time. Radford appeared punctually at the given time, was punctually admitted to his lordship’s study, and was punctually rejected. Exactly as he’d expected.

The day was cold, windy, and wet, suiting his mood perfectly.

He walked back from St. James’s, along Pall Mall and through Charing Cross . . . where he’d met her on the day that seemed a lifetime ago. He didn’t linger but strode on into the Strand as he’d done that day. On he walked, past St. Clement’s, heading to his world, the Temple and the lawyers’ hive.

As he passed through Temple Bar, he saw a boy hawking newspapers.

Two thoughts rose in his mind and connected.