How to Marry a Duke (A Cinderella Society 2)

“Did he tell you about the time he put pepper in my beer? I was nine years old, and I sneezed for three full hours.”

She laughed. “And innocent as a lamb, I am certain. Despite drinking beer at the age of nine, which I suspect was the point of the pepper?”

He winked. “You must understand that I am the grieved party.”

“Seeing as it’s been nearly ten years,” Meg said. “Perhaps we might allow a brief interruption of hostilities?”

“He would owe me.”

“And think how much fun that will be.”

He tossed his hair back, smiling crookedly, just like Dougal. “I like the way your brain works, Miss Swift.”

“And a duke’s brother is a worthy consolation prize,” she added archly. “I am sure tears will need to be dried, needs assuaged, etcetera.”

“Better and better. I can’t very well be a buck around town when I’m so very far behind the other bucks. I’ve never even been to school,” he added, under his breath, losing some of his usual aplomb.

She squeezed his arm. “You leave them in the dust already, my lord.”

He looked as though he was struggling not to blush. She couldn’t help a grin. It was so much better than forced ennui. “That, right there,” she said. “You will charm them far beyond any aristocratic manners.”

“Let’s see, shall we?”

They stepped out onto the terrace together and the flash of their movement had twelve heads turning sharply in their direction. They both paused, momentarily.

“Bloody hell.”

“Courage,” Meg murmured.

“Colin! Me—that is, Miss Swift!” Meg wondered, briefly, if Dougal might weep in relief. He sounded faintly hysterical, truth be told. “Ladies, may I present Miss Swift.”

A flurry of suspicious curtsies followed.

“And my brother, Lord Henley.”

Far more enthusiastic curtsies.

She could hardly blame them. At least four of the ladies transferred their interest to Colin, three of the younger ones and a grandmother with a wicked gleam in her eye. He was very handsome in his bottle-green coat and perfect cravat. And he feigned arrogance and aplomb better than his brother, who did not even try.

Dougal might not have much confidence in his new title, but he had confidence in himself. It was desperately appealing. Meg wondered if the others could sense it. If it mattered to them. Probably not. They were lurking in the hedges in order to meet a duke, it did not much matter what that duke was like in the end, as long as he was courteous, passably handsome, and did not stink of onions.

Behind them were two gentlemen, tucked neatly against a hedge, and conversing quietly. They stared up at the house.

Treasure hunters.

She’d bet her set of Ackerman watercolor paints on it.

She knew that look. All too well. She did not approach them right away, instead turned to enter the fray of ladies, with her usual mild, polite smile. Dougal narrowed his eyes, instantly suspicious. In that moment, she felt more seen than she had in years, by anyone other than the other Cinderellas, and only a few of them at that. She presented a certain façade and no one questioned it, not really.

Except perhaps Dougal.

She was reading too much into a narrowing of the eyes.

Still, it kindled a warmth inside her, a shimmer inside the blood.

“Your Grace,” she said. “I’m afraid you’re needed inside.”

She’d never seen anyone wilt with relief so quickly in her life, not even the time Tamsin had knocked a rare Egyptian glass perfume bottle off of a shelf and Persephone had defied gravity itself to save it. She’d torn a shoulder muscle too and counted it a fair exchange. Antiquarians were mad as ten cats, honestly.