The Duke Meets His Match (The Infamous Somertons #3)(6)
As she walked farther into the room, her eye was drawn to a large rack of rolled parchments in the corner. One was unrolled across a six-foot-long desk to reveal an extensive map of Europe with markings. It looked like a battle plan, and she remembered that the Duke of Cameron had been a military man.
She recalled what little she’d learned about him from her sister on the carriage ride home from Bullock’s Museum. Eliza tended to chatter about people and events, and she had been excited that a duke had accompanied them during the museum tour. Chloe had wanted to unearth as much information as she could, but at the same time, she’d been careful not to question Eliza and arouse her suspicions. The duke was a second son. Chloe thought it ironic that he’d returned from war alive and physically uninjured while his father and older brother had died in a carriage accident in the London streets. He’d unexpectedly and tragically inherited the dukedom.
“May I take your cloak?” His fingers brushed her shoulders, sending a shiver of awareness through her at the slight contact as he removed her cloak and placed it on a settee tucked in the corner of the library.
He motioned to the leather chairs before the fireplace. “Please sit.” It was a command more than a request. She suspected he was used to issuing orders and others obeying. She didn’t see any reason to ignore him, so she settled in the chair and smoothed her skirts.
“Would you like a drink? I was about to pour myself one before you arrived.”
Strong spirits could only help her nerves. “Yes, thank you.”
He walked to a cabinet and withdrew a crystal decanter of amber-colored alcohol. He poured a finger’s worth in one crystal glass, offering it to her, then filled the second glass halfway. He sat in the leather chair across from her and stretched out his long legs. Lamplight glinted off his polished hessians, and his trousers hugged his muscular legs. Her gaze was drawn to the V at his throat where the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. A sprinkling of hair and tanned skin drew her eye.
Did he ride without a jacket and cravat? The image sent her pulse racing.
She lifted the drink to her lips. The first gulp burned her throat and every inch of her esophagus on the way down to her stomach, and she coughed. “What is this?” she rasped.
His perfect mouth curved in a smile as he raised his glass. “Fine scotch whisky. The second sip will go down easier.” He leaned forward and rested his hand on his knee. “Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
She took a breath and met his gaze. “I’m here to discuss what happened at the museum this afternoon.”
“Ah, I see.”
He sipped his drink. Not wanting to appear cowardly, she followed suit. He was right. The second taste went a bit easier. The alcohol warmed her blood, eased her nerves, and increased her courage a notch. “I prefer to handle difficulties directly,” she said.
“Of course, you do. You handled things quite directly the first time I saw you. If my memory is accurate, you were filching embroidered handkerchiefs from men’s coats.”
She sat still, afraid to breathe.
This was what she’d feared. How did he know, dammit?
She mentally debated lying or bursting into female hysterics, but she instinctively knew those tricks wouldn’t work on him.
She raised her chin and pushed her shoulders back, bold as brass. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I would never bother with simple handkerchiefs when I could lift a fat purse just as easily.”
A moment of frigid silence passed, then he threw his head back and laughed richly. She was taken aback by his reaction, and her eyes were riveted to the corded muscles of his throat.
“Bravo! I expected a simpering miss and an adamant denial.” He leaned forward, his broad shoulders straining against the fabric of his shirt. Her gaze snapped back to his face and her unease returned in earnest. His humor didn’t quite reach those icy dark eyes.
“I know about your past,” he said. “Your father was Jonathan Miller, the infamous art forger of the ton, who fleeced many, then abandoned his three daughters rather than face imprisonment. Thereafter, you opened the Peacock Print Shop to survive. You were all shopkeepers.”
“It’s no longer a secret.” Their father’s crimes had left them destitute and desperate. If it were not for Eliza’s business sense and for Amelia’s talent with a paintbrush, they would still be in a St. Giles rookery. Both the Earls of Huntingdon and Vale knew, and neither had cared, when they married her sisters. Their pasts were forgotten. At least her sisters’ pasts.
Chloe’s past was a bit different.
“You are the youngest, correct? I assume you tired of working the long hours of a shopkeeper and thought to supplement your income by thievery.”
Clenching her teeth, her temper flared. “You know nothing, Your Grace,” she snapped. Of course, he would think the worst of her. A man in his position had never known hardship.
“I know enough,” he said, his voice low but dangerous.
“Henry…I mean, Lord Sefton looks up to you. He idolizes you.”
The duke’s expression was grim. “I owe his father my life. I won’t let him be fooled by a fortune-scheming miss.”
The barb hurt, like salt on an open wound. Why did the duke have to be Henry’s self-appointed ‘guardian’? Why couldn’t it have been anyone else?