A Duke for Diana by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries [Jeffries, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 2022-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Geoffrey debated going after her, then thought better of it. For one thing, it was safer for the two of them to enter the drawing room through separate doors at separate times, so no one would guess what they’d been up to. For another thing . . .

He groaned. One look at his breeches right now, and they’d know precisely what he and Diana had been up to. Despite how the encounter had ended, he was still so aroused, he couldn’t think.

If he had his way, he’d leave the dinner, go upstairs to his bedchamber, and take matters into his own hands . . . or hand, as the case may be. But Diana would probably chide him more for running away from the dinner than for his blatant misbehavior with her.

If she would even speak to him again.

Bloody hell! He dared not tell her she’d had it all wrong about a fiancée, or she would keep pressing until he revealed the real reason he’d said he wasn’t free. Then she might tell someone else. Like his mother or sister.

No, there was too much at stake to involve her. Besides, she and her sisters had already weathered one scandal— they couldn’t weather two. So he should focus on getting Rosabel a kind, respectable husband and making sure his mother wasn’t suspected of anything untoward or subjected to public shaming. And those two things were contingent on Father’s secret not coming out.

What did Diana want from him anyway? To marry him? To bed him? He supposed he could have misread the level of her intimate experience.

That was impossible. Their first kiss had definitely been tentative on her part. And their encounter just now had shown her to be eager but unsophisticated. Hell, the only reason he knew what to do himself was that he’d had a certain lusty friendship with a merry widow in Newcastle. She’d taught him a great deal before she’d figured out he was only fourteen. At that point, she’d transferred her affections to a man who wasn’t still a green lad.

The widow wasn’t the first to assume he was older than he was either. Geoffrey had sprouted up so tall and quick that women had often assumed him to be a man in his prime. For a while, Geoffrey had taken advantage of their assumptions. What young man didn’t want to bed as many women as he could?

Then Father had sat him down and warned him about the perils of disease or getting a woman with child. Father had said that one day Geoffrey would marry, and he would hate to have the activities of his salad days hanging over his head.

Geoffrey had been mostly celibate ever since. With women. But not with his hand.

“What are you doing lurking about out here?” a female voice asked.

“Damn, Rosy, don’t surprise me like that! I just needed a breath of fresh air.” Thankfully, he’d lost the bulge in his breeches. For the moment anyway.

“Well,” she said, “Diana sent me to fetch you.

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