How to Marry a Duke (A Cinderella Society 2)

Chapter Nine

Meg spent most of the next three days sketching muscular buttocks.

As far as pastimes went, it wasn’t terrible.

Her godfather had sent along a trunk of supplies, including a new set of coveted Ackerman watercolor paints. She’d nearly purred when she’d found them. Thus far she’d used them to sketch three Neptunes, four Venuses, one Jupiter, an interesting array of satyrs hidden in a back closet, and a line of nameless gentlemen in various states of Olympic sports. Several were running, to or from what, she could not say. One had a discus, muscles twisted as he turned to throw it. The workmanship was remarkable. His skin seemed real, straining against movement. What a shame to have it locked up on a private estate.

She went back to her drawings. It was such a delight to have hours stretch before her, filled with art.

And Dougal.

There was no use pretending she was not distracted by him, anytime he happened to come by. The man was sinfully handsome, carrying himself as if he could do anything. Until you got him into a formal dining room where he was all fumbles and muttered curses. Even his vulnerability was enticing.

Truthfully, she’d never known this kind of desire. A heat mixed with an interest in what he was thinking, what he had to say, what he had seen. She couldn’t help watching him while he was in the room, sketching him in her mind’s eye, sometimes in her private notebook when she could not sleep. A slash for his eyebrows, so often furrowed. The shadows of the muscles she knew lurked under his fine lawn shirts and plain waistcoats. She’d sketched enough muscles to know he was built as fine as any statue.

When he’d rolled up his sleeves and crouched down to inspect a bit of peeling mural, she’d had a very serious concern that she might drool.

“That is entirely too much backside before tea,” Lady Blackwell announced, interrupting her daydreams.

Meg started.

If Lady Blackwell was reading her mind, she was doing a poor job of concealing her interest. And drool.

Meg set her pencil aside as Lady Blackwell made a noise in the back of her throat. She was dressed in several unfortunate shades of green, looking as happy as a four-leaf clover. She was also observing the statues of the male athletes stationed outside the portrait gallery.

“This is what happens when statues are lined up all facing the same direction,” Meg grinned. “Backsides. A great many of them.”

“I suppose there are worse ways to wake up.” Lady Blackwell winked. “Reminds me of a week I spent in Paris.”

Meg choked as the other woman wandered away in search of her breakfast.

Never underestimate an old woman.

Or a young debutante.

Meg went still, then deliberately lifted her sketchbook, pretending to compare her drawing with the lines of the statue.

She wasn’t alone.

She caught a flutter of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned slowly, so as to not give herself away. She already knew it wasn’t Mrs. Hill, who marched like a general, or the footmen who didn’t usually press themselves against the wall and run like they were being chased by bees.

One of the garden tours gone awry.

Mrs. Hill, as strict as she might act over etiquette, did not quite have a firm grasp of the tours, especially when they involved daughters of the peerage. A footman had been assigned to help her, but he was helpless in the face of genteel tears. Meg thought Charlie would have done a much better job and that the tours should be cancelled until Dougal was officially engaged. There had been some discussion that if the tours were cancelled, the treasure hunters would know they were found out. They might try harder, get more underhanded. Better to be underestimated so that they did not feel pressured. “Let them think me a fool,” Dougal had said in that nonchalant way of his.

There would be no debutantes or skulking treasure hunters.

And certainly no one calling him a fool.

Muttering, Meg dropped her sketches and gave chase.

She wasn’t quite quick enough. She caught another glimpse of a white hem, and around the corner, the edge of a straw bonnet obscuring any features, even down to the color of the intruder’s hair. And then it was just a corridor with a series of closed doors. Clever girl. Damn it.

Meg wasted precious minutes opening each door: empty parlor, empty conservatory, empty room filled floor to ceiling with a collection of preserved butterflies under bell jars.

And then the dining room door swinging lightly on its hinges.

Hah!