When the Duke Was Wicked by Lorraine Heath

Author:Lorraine Heath [Heath, Lorraine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062276223
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Lovingdon couldn’t recall how he’d come to be on the floor of his library. He thought after he retrieved his last bottle of whiskey that he’d been heading for the chair. But here he was with his back against it and his bottom on the floor. Which worked well, because it gave him a sturdy place to put the bottle when he wasn’t drinking from it.

It also gave him a lovely angle from which to gaze at the vase. With the lamp on the desk off to the side, it cast a halo around the glass container, changed the way it looked. Shadow and light. Copper and red.

“I expected to find you at Dodger’s.”

Grace’s sweet voice filled his ears. He lolled his head to the side. Shadow and light. Copper and red. “I really must talk with my butler about his penchant for allowing you to wander through my residence unannounced.”

She glided nearer, no provocative sway to her hips, no enticing roll of her shoulders, no flirtatious lowering of her eyelids, yet he considered her more alluring than any woman he’d known of late.

“He understands that I’m practically family.”

“I suspect it more likely that he understands your nature to do as you please.”

She grinned. “That as well.”

“I didn’t think you had any plans for the night.”

“I didn’t, but I wanted to thank you for the lovely glass. I suppose you were demonstrating another rule. If he loves me, he’ll know when I covet something.”

He couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He did hope he didn’t look as silly as he felt. “It pleased you?”

“Very much.” She was standing over him now. “Would you like me to help you into a chair?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m where I want to be.”

“Not very high standards.” She turned, came up short. “You bought the vase as well.”

“It appeared lonely with all the other red pieces gone.”

“Careful there. You’re almost sounding poetic.”

“Never.”

He watched as she strolled over to his decanter table, grabbed a crystal carafe and glass, and walked back over to him. She settled onto the floor facing him, working her back against the chair opposite his, her legs stretched out alongside his.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his tone not nearly as firm as it should be, failing to convey the inappropriateness of her actions. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s bad form to drink alone. Besides, Mother and Father don’t know that I’m here. They think I went to bed early with a headache.” She poured—what was it she had? Ah, yes, the rum—into her glass. She lifted it a bit. “Cheers.”

And proceeded to take a healthy swallow. No coughing or choking. She wasn’t a novice to hard liquor, but he hadn’t expected her to take so well to the rum.

“I have sherry, if you’d like,” he told her.

“I prefer rum. Awful of me not to prefer the more dainty drinks, I know. I mastered rum because my brothers were drinking it. It’s not fair that men go off to a private room to smoke and drink, and ladies sip tea.

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