Page 5 of Tamed By her Duke

He looked down to see a positively ancient woman, so wrinkled and stooped she was practically half his height. When she gestured for him to bend down so she could speak to him, he half expected her to say something like,I fear I shall be crushed to death; please remove me from this madness.

Instead, she said what heshouldhave expected: “I’ve a granddaughter who had just made her debut,” she whispered. “She’s a wretched bore, but not too bad to look at. And she doesn’t talk much, if that’s what you’re looking for in a woman.”

Caleb reeled back in shock. “I see,” he said flatly.

The bleedingaudacityof these English! Not for the first time, he regretted not faking his own death in battle. Then someone else could have inherited the bloody dukedom, which would have laid this whole ‘bride and heir’ problem at the feet of some distant cousin or other. Caleb could have returned to Scotland and raised sheep. He didn’t know much about sheep, it was true,but he felt certain he could learn. They seemed gentle enough, and simple. Not like these confounding English aristocrats, who were apparently as vicious as they were complex.

When he looked up again, the intriguing golden-haired girl had turned to speak to her friends once more. The new position showed him her hair was more a light brown, one that occasionally flickered like it was burnished by candlelight. Not that he was here to pay attention to such things.

With nothing else for it, Caleb gritted his teeth and let himself be introduced about, an honor that Lady Heatherington-Smythe demanded she be granted, on the premise ofI found him first.

He met dozens of eligible young ladies, their faces and names swirling together until Caleb could not have said, even under pain of death, whether it was Miss Rutherford who was gifted at the pianoforte, or was the one with the red hair, or the one who had tripped when she’d approached him. In truth, he couldn’t have sworn that he’d even met someone called Miss Rutherford, not if pressed on the matter.

This was a mistake, he told himself glumly for the umpteenth time. He was resigned to it now, however. This night was like the eve of battle—dreadful and excruciatingly long, but impossible handle any other way besides simply getting through it.

Periodically, he would manage to slip away from his self-appointed chaperone for a moment or two, but she would always find him again with the kind of unerring precision that he’d have found impressive if she’d been using it against anyone else.

It was during one such temporary escape that he turned and found himself coming face to face with the interesting woman from before. Her friends were, a quick glance told him, off on the dance floor, being squired around by the three gentleman who had been standing with them earlier.

“Excuse me, Your Grace,” she said politely enough, but with none of the overwrought deference he’d seen from some of the other young ladies at this event. “I must have been woolgathering, as I didn’t quite see you there.” Her eyes flicked over him, not provocatively, but merely in a casual glance. “Which is impressive, I daresay, as you are quite tall.”

“Astute,” he said flatly, entirely finished with his capacity for politeness.

Instead of seeming offended, however, she merely arched an eyebrow. He thought perhaps there was even a slight quirk to her mouth that spoke of amusement. The look was gone as soon as it appeared, however, and she was back to appearing like any other English lass, albeit not one who seemed overly keen for his favor. But she was as polite, composed, and collected as the rest of them. It set his teeth on edge. What he wouldn’t give for an unpolished,honestScottish lass.

But no, this whole marital issue was one last awful gift from his father. Not even death could stop the man from ruining Caleb’s life, apparently.

“Well,” she said, far more graciously than he deserved. “It has been very nice to meet you, but I shall have to bid youfarewell. It seems you have more admirers seeking to make your acquaintance.”

This time, the flicker of expression was one of nervousness—and not directed at him, either. It was, rather, at the assembled masses looking in their direction. He stifled a sigh—barely—when he saw that Lady Heatherington-Smythe heading the charge.

“Thereyou are!” she exclaimed. “Why, I almost neglected to introduce you to my second cousin’s great-niece, Lady Honoria Chapworth! You must come meet her; she’s a dear.”

By the time Caleb glanced back, the intriguing woman was gone. He didn’t see her again for the rest of the evening—not, he reminded himself, that he was looking for her, in any case.

CHAPTER 2

On the carriage ride home, Grace thought that she might just have a bouquet of flowers sent to the Duke of Montgomery’s home in the morning.

Oh, she would do so anonymously, of course. The last thing she needed was to seemmorepeculiar by adopting a gentleman’s tactic for showing admiration for a lady. Nor did she want to showadmirationfor the duke.

But if he found the gesture interesting and therefore wanted to attend more balls to solve the mystery…

Well, that meant there would be that many more balls where the attention was onhim,instead of her for once. All she would have to do was avoid speaking to him, which should be easy enough given the throngs of eager ladies throwing themselves at his feet. When he’d paused to speak to her even for a moment, she’d seen how several prominent gossips had lit up, their eyes gleaming avariciously for the stories they could tell about abrutish Scottish duke and the disgraced daughter of London’s most beloved politician.

Not thatshethought his looks were brutish, she allowed to herself. His broadness had, to her eyes, made him look impressive and powerful—and made the other gentlemen look like boyish twigs.

She wasn’t interested in any gentleman, impressive stature or no, however. And good thing, too, or else she’d be berating herself furiously over her comment that he wasquite tall. The old Grace would have fretted over it for weeks—or, no. The old Grace wouldn’t have made such a social misstep in the first place.

Not that any of it mattered, she told herself as her family’s carriage pulled up smoothly in front of Graham House. She wasn’t the old Grace, not any longer, and it wasn’t like a mildly awkward comment would make thetongossip more about her than it was already doing.

“Thank you, Percy,” she said to the footman who handed her down from the vehicle. Years doing thankless menial labor had given Grace a new appreciation for the staff.

Not that Graham House servants lived in ramshackle little huts like the one she’d inhabited while in the North, she thought grimly. Still, though, it never hurt to be kind.

“Of course, my lady,” the man said, as he always did, bowing politely. “I’ve been asked to tell you, as well, my lady, that His Grace is asking for you.”

She frowned and paused halfway up the front stoop.

---