Page 14 of The Heiress Gets a Duke
“Miss Crenshaw?” The gentleman next to her raised an eyebrow expectantly. “Do you enjoy sweets? I confess I can hardly abide them.”
“I do enjoy them, yes.” She took a small bite of the dessert and let the mild almond flavor melt in her mouth.
The gentleman next to her was a perfectly presentable young man whose name she kept forgetting. He was a viscount, or perhaps an earl, which made her assume her mother had had a hand in the seating arrangement. All she knew was that he had more than a passing interest in her bosom, and he slurped his soup. He tended to gesture as he spoke, so her gaze kept catching on his hands. They were so pale that she could easily trace the blue veins on the backs of them. Not that there was anything wrong with pale hands; it was more that she kept imagining how little of the outdoors he must have seen. How little work those hands had accomplished.
On her other side sat the Duke of Hereford. His hands, while neat and tidy, were not nearly so pristine. The backs were peppered with liver spots and wiry gray hair. She knew from Camille that he rode daily, but she very much doubted those hands had seen a day of work in his life.
Before she realized her intention, she found herself looking at Rothschild’s hands across the table. From this distance and between the artfully placed candelabras, it was difficult to tell much, but they seemed lightly tannedand well-formed. They were broad, but not boorish, and appeared strong. Of course he would have handsome hands to go with his handsome face. The long, graceful fingers elegantly held his spoon as he brought a bit of dessert to his lips. Candlelight flickered across his knuckles, turning them gold and highlighting a healing gash that spanned across the middle two. Interesting. Those were not the hands of the typical nobleman.
“Have you visited the Royal Botanic Gardens yet, Miss Crenshaw?” Lord Earl-or-Viscount said to her as he found a way to slurp the pudding. “It is still early in the season yet, but I find that to be the best time to tour them. The buds are only starting to show their promise. It is when you can truly see the beauty that Mother Nature has in store.”
His eager gaze had hardly left her. She wanted to gently let the man down, but dinner did not seem to be the proper place for such a discussion. Instead, she murmured that she had not and turned her attention to the Duke of Hereford. Thankfully, he was engrossed in conversation with the woman beside him.
Camille snickered and decided to save her. “Lord Ware, you must tell me the places you believe Miss Crenshaw should visit before she returns home. I will personally make certain that she sees them all.”
Lord Ware, that was his name, though August still couldn’t remember if he was an earl or viscount. She caught Camille’s eye and gave a brief nod of thanks.
“Your Grace, you must deign to visit our fair city sometime soon.” Her father’s voice rose over the conversations at the table. “I am certain a man with your enthusiasm for entertainment will find much to enjoy in New York.”
“Perhaps I will,” Rothschild answered. “I have heard it said that you Americans are quite bold. I am sure to find your city entertaining.”
There was that voice followed by his distinct smile and a tilt of his head. Combined, they made her think of the fighter. She hadn’t let herself think about that man very much. He had hovered there in her memory because of the kiss, but she tried to move her thoughts along when theywould have lingered. She would rather forget that she had kissed a stranger, not that Camille would ever let her forget. But now that the memory had been evoked, every second of her time with him came back to her.
Her father responded, but it was lost on her as she remembered the stranger’s hands on her waist, and his smile as he looked down at her. The duke laughed, raising his wineglass in a mock toast to Papa. That smile. It was the eyeteeth that were so similar. Again, the distance worked against her, but she thought they were pointed, like the fighter’s. Before he drank, Rothschild made eye contact with her, inclining his head a little and smiling again. This time for her, as his lips made a perfect bow.
“Would you agree, Miss Crenshaw?” he asked.
That voice. Her name with that same inflection that she couldn’t articulate. The fighter had said it just that way. She hadn’t followed the rest of the conversation, so she said, “That we are bold? Yes. But I am afraid you would find our city terribly boring. There aren’t very many amusements for a man of leisure.”
August did not have to look at her mother to know that she would be displeased with her. The duke, however, only widened his grin. “Then I will endeavor to find amusements where I can.” With that, he drank, never taking his eyes from hers. Something about that—him slaking his thirst while focusing his attention on her—seemed too intimate for the dining room table. Her face burned in a response that she couldn’t control, and a thrill of interest tightened low in her belly. Despite her intention to meet him head-on, she looked away first. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at her barely touched dessert.
When she looked up again, he was back in conversation with her father, who was busy assuring him that he would be well amused in New York. A small strand of hair had fallen to his temple, and he absently brushed it back. The movement drew her gaze to his knuckles, which were indeed bruised, and a minor abrasion sitting along his hairline.
She gasped aloud as she remembered the older fighter,Wilkes, landing a particularly brutal blow there. The fighter’s head had flung to the side, making her grit her teeth as she waited to see if he had been very badly injured. He had responded by doubling up his attack, coming at Wilkes in a fury.
Could it be him? He smiled again, and again she noted it. The perfect bow of his lips. The divot below the center of his bottom lip. The devilish pointy teeth. It was him! That smile was familiar because she had seen it before. Had kissed the lips that framed it.
No, it couldn’t be. A duke couldn’t participate in prizefighting. Even as the denial pulsed through her, she could not take her eyes from him. Rothschild’s gaze dashed back to her. Something in her face must have told him that she suspected. He took a long, lingering look from her eyes to her mouth, perhaps remembering their kiss, and back again. Finally, he raised his glass and said, “A toast to risk-takers.” He gave her a wink before taking another sip of the dark liquid.
Itwashim! Against all odds, the man known as the Hellion was here in the Ashcrofts’ dining room, and her parents were offering Violet up to him on a silver platter.
Perhaps just as bad—worse—shehad kissed him!
Chapter 5
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
Benjamin Disraeli
August Crenshaw had finally recognized him. There was no mistaking that gasp, or the blush that had accompanied it as she remembered their kiss. A kiss he had never believed would happen when he had taunted her. She had surprised him then, just as she had surprised him tonight.
Dinner had ended, and he sat forced to endure smoking and cognac at the table with the men. He despised the cloying smell of tobacco, as it always reminded him of his father’s disappointment. The cognac was excellent, so he endeavored to savor it, while Mr. Crenshaw did his best to court him from behind a wall of smoke. The man had boasted about the family’s extraordinary success in the years since the American Civil War, all but divulging the figures on their balance sheets. Now he was lauding his ambition in expanding their operations to the European market.
Evan wanted to tell the man that a marriage was very nearly a foregone conclusion, so there was no need to comeon so strong. His lack of wealth and the Crenshaws’ excess of it having sealed the deal. Mr. Crenshaw’s constant attention and deference was making Evan feel likehewas the wealthy heiress being courted by a titled aristocrat. Is this what peeresses had gone through all these centuries? It was a wonder they had not broken ranks and started their own colony, free of needy men.
Evan’s gaze kept going toward the door, remembering how August had looked back at him before she had disappeared through it. Her gaze had been full of contempt with the slightest hint of confusion. He wanted to ask her father if he would be willing to switch the daughters, August instead of Violet, but the idea sounded crass even to Evan. Before he even thought of requesting something so outlandish, he needed to talk to her. He needed to see if she truly was as he remembered her.
Before he could stop himself, he rose to his feet. The men all stood in response, looking startled with their half-finished cigars and drinks in their hands.
