One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(42)

“Ah. Yes, it’s like that for many of us.”

His brow wrinkled in confusion.

“Oh, I didn’t mean us, as in you and me.” Peering at her needle, she threaded the eye with a strand of blue floss. “I meant, it’s like that for many of us.” She patted a hand to her breast. “Women. We don’t attend university, either, but many of us still seek to improve our minds through books.”

Clearly the duke had no idea how to receive that comparison. Frowning a little, he sat down with his book. Amelia smiled at her stitches, rather pleased with herself.

“What are you reading?” she asked, feeling emboldened and just a bit coquettish.

He held up the book for her inspection.

“Not Waverley? I thought you called yourself a great reader. You must be the last person in England to read that book.”

“I’m not. I’ve read it already, more than once.” He riffled the pages. “I don’t have the concentration for philosophy or German this evening.”

Amelia fell momentarily silent to focus on the evenness of her stitches. At length she said, “Waverley. I’ll admit, I’m surprised to hear it’s a favorite of yours.”

“I can’t imagine why. As you noted, it’s a very popular book.”

“Well, yes.” She gave him a coy glance. “But it’s a romance.”

“It is not.” He held the green-covered book at arm’s length and stared at it, as though she’d said, But it’s a pineapple. “It’s a historical novel about the Scottish uprising. There are battles.”

“There’s a love triangle.”

He made an offended huff. “Listen, am I permitted to read the thing in peace, or not?”

Suppressing a laugh, she forced herself to be quiet and sew. Soon she lost herself in her work—in the precise, familiar rhythm of stitches, the careful selection of colored threads. The room went quiet, save for the low crackle of the fire and the occasional sound of a page being turned. As she worked, her sleepiness increased. When she sensed her stitches becoming less and less even, she knotted off one final strand of blue and cut it free before turning the whole square face-up and surveying her work.

“How did you accomplish that?” Spencer asked, reaching over her arm to indicate the rightmost section of the cloth.

Startled by his sudden nearness, Amelia jumped in her chair. When had he moved his chair beside hers? How long had he been looking over her shoulder?

“Right there,” he said, pointing to the little brook she’d stitched tumbling through a glen. “It truly looks like water. How did you accomplish it?”

“Oh, that.” A hint of pride seeped into her voice. She was rather happy with that bit. “It’s very thin strips of ribbon in different shades of blue, worsted with silver thread. I twist the needle as I sew, and in that way each stitch catches the light in a different way. As sunlight might dance on a rippling stream.”

He said nothing. Likely he hadn’t been that interested, to warrant a needlework lesson. Well, he had asked.

The longer he stared silently over her shoulder, however, the more self-conscious she grew. “I was going to make it into a little settee cushion. Or perhaps use it as the center of a chair cover.” She turned it this way and that in her hands, tilting her head to examine the piece from different angles. Perhaps she ought to frame it in strips of velvet, and use it for a larger pillow, or—

“A cushion?” he said abruptly, pronouncing the word as though it were caustic on his tongue. “What an abhorrent idea.”

Amelia blinked. Abhorrent? “Wh-Why?” she stammered, taken aback. “I’ll keep it in my own room, if you don’t care for it. You needn’t see it.”

“Absolutely not. That”—he pointed at her needlework—“is never adorning a chair or settee in my house.”

“But—”

“Give it here.”

Before she could protest, he snatched the embroidered square from her hands, opened his valise again, and thrust the fabric inside before slamming it shut with a decisive motion. The nerve of the man! Rather than argue, Amelia hastily packed away the remainder of her needles and thread, worried His Grace might suddenly decide to cast the entire sewing kit into the fireplace. She could always retrieve the embroidery later. She hoped.

“Enough reading and needlework. We’ll play cards,” he said, drawing out a deck of cards and sitting down. “Piquet.” He split the deck and began to shuffle the cards effortlessly. He moved so rapidly, fingers and cards were nothing but a colorful blur. The effect was entrancing, and subtly erotic.

He noticed her staring. One dark eyebrow rose in question.

“You’re quite adept at that.”

He shrugged. “I’m good with my hands.”

He was indeed good with his hands. But Amelia knew that already. She remembered with near-painful clarity the exquisite pang of yearning she’d experienced when he’d pulled them free of his gloves that day in Laurent’s study. She remembered the way those strong fingers had unpinned her hair, then tilted her face to receive his kiss. And some moments later, clasped her bottom, bringing her body flush against his …

Thwack. He rapped the deck against the table to square the edges, jolting her from her reverie.