The Scoundrel Duke of her Heart by Violet Hamers
Chapter Four
The dowager jabbed her cane in Nicholas’s direction. “You!”
Lord help him. “What is it now, Grandmother?” he asked with a beleaguered sigh.
“I spent an eternity looking for you,” she declared haughtily, lowering her cane and resting both of her hands on the handle.
Nicholas gave her a look. “Oh, did you now? If you have been looking for me for an eternity, it is a wonder you haven’t turned to dust.”
Her expression hardened. “You insolent boy!” Then she turned sharply toward Ernest who was trying his damndest to stifle a laugh.
“Why are you not in the ballroom?” she demanded.
“I needed to rest my legs,” Nicholas replied in a bored tone.
“The Hanover girl is very popular tonight, dancing with several gentlemen. You should go and dance with her.”
“Her name is Jenny, Grandmother. Jenny!”
The dowager did not dignify his words with a response. She simply turned her attention to Ernest. “I saw you dancing with the Bexley girl. I liked it.”
Nicholas chose that moment to leave the room, feeling somewhat sorry for what he knew his cousin was about to be subjected to. If his grandmother liked seeing him with Miss Bexley, there was a high chance she would try to make a match of them. When he appeared in the ballroom doorway, his eyes moved carefully around the room. Finding her was not hard, for those red curls could not be mistaken. She was walking to the refreshment table on the arm of a gentleman he didn’t recognize.
Nicholas didn’t recognize half of the gentlemen at the ball. He wove through the crowd to reach her, arriving just as the gentleman left. She had her back to him and didn’t hear him approach. He decided to use that to his advantage after momentarily admiring the slender column of her neck.
“Beautiful evening,” he murmured, stepping beside her and picking up a glass of lemonade.
She did not bother to turn to look at him. “Splendid evening. The dowager has outdone herself.” A tiny, unamused smile touched her lips. “But then again, she is trying to get you married.”
He’d expected her words to be harsh and surprisingly, they weren’t.
He spied an apricot topped petit four—the last of its kind—on a tray and began to reach for it to sate his sweet tooth. At that same moment, a pudgy lady plucked it from the tray and glared at him as though he had no right to the confectionery. Then she sniffed and turned on her heel. A small sigh escaped him and he looked about for something sweet.
“Here,” came her soft voice. When he looked down, he saw her proffering an apricot topped petit four. It must have been hers.
“I...thank you.” He took it, feeling uncertain and ashamed. Then he asked, “Don’t you want it?”
“It is not nice to reject a gift,” she murmured, raising her eyes—green as the forest—to look at him.
“Thank you,” he said again, bewildered at the gesture. She had been anything but pleased with him earlier.
“Besides,” she continued, “I cannot have you conversing with me and looking like a bereaved pup over a cake. People would think I did something to you.”
He smiled, realizing for the first time since his return how much he’d missed her. “You have never cared what people think about you.”
A rueful smile tugged at one side of her mouth. “You are right. I never did. But a lot has changed over the years. We are no longer the people we once were.”
He felt her last comment was directed at him. He raised his glass to his lips but paused as guilt tightened his insides. “I want to change that,” he said, surprising himself.
“I beg your pardon?” Her eyes were as wide as a doe’s.
“The years that I was away… Something tells me you no longer regard me as your friend.”
She looked away, silently confirming his suspicion. It wounded him. He cared about her but he had also failed her. Gravely.
“Will you allow me to make amends with a dance?” he asked, setting the lemonade and his uneaten petit four down. His craving for something sweet was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Very well, Your Grace.” She placed her hand in his.
He frowned. “What happened to Nicky?”
That ghost of a smile that she seemed to give him frequently this evening appeared again. “Adulthood happened to Nicky, Your Grace.”
Every time she addressed him formally, it felt as though his insides were being scraped. “At least call me Nicholas.”
“Fine.”
As they approached the dance floor, he noticed the couples lining up for a quadrille. The whole reason why he’d asked her to dance was to speak with her about what she’d overheard. That would be nearly impossible in a quadrille.
“It’s a quadrille,” he said flatly.
“Yes. Is something wrong with it?” She raised a fine, tawny brow.
“I thought we would be waltzing.”
She laughed. “You ask me to dance without even knowing which dance it is. Now, why am I not surprised?” She stepped forward, forcing him to follow. “If you don’t know the steps, I would happily guide you.”
“We’ve danced the quadrille so many times, Jenny.” He threw her a questioning glance. Just what was she up to?
“Oh? I can’t seem to remember.” She smiled, giving him a glimpse of the Jenny he had known.
Ah, she wanted to evoke guilt within him. Well, he was already feeling guilty, and for a number of things too.
They took their place beside a couple and she smiled again, making him recall how much she loved to dance. He was pleased she had not changed in that aspect.
“I hope the evening is treating you well,” he said when they began to dance.
“Are you seriously asking me this question, Nicholas?” Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“I was trying to open a conversation.” He almost cursed when they were separated at that moment.
“We meet again, Lady Jenny,” Sir Phineas, that dandy decked in a ridiculous-looking maroon coat and a gold embroidered waistcoat, called out to Jenny when she moved to the front formation. “I believe the evening is yet to have enough of us together,” he added.
The lilt of her laugh rose above the music. “I agree with you,” she said, showing the man a side of her that she was refusing to show to him. An uncomfortable feeling washed over him as he watched the ease with which they slipped into conversation. He didn’t like it.
When she returned to him, he cleared his throat and said, “I was hoping we could talk.”
“I am all ears,” she replied distractedly. She was already flushed from dancing and the color tantalized his senses.
His eyes moved to the scattering of freckles on her chest and he sucked in his breath as he beheld the shadow of her cleavage. Something in his loins began to stir and he immediately looked away.
God! What was happening to him? The dance formation was changed again and she moved away from him, landing in Sir Phineas’ arms again. He was relieved that she was no longer in front of him and tempting him, but her being with that man annoyed him.
“You look annoyed. Are you not pleased with the dance?” she asked when she returned to him.
“I thought it was the waltz.”
“Next time you’re hosting a ball, be sure to learn your dance program,” she teased him, sounding more like her former self. The dance was doing her spirits a great deal of good.
“My grandmother is hosting the ball.”
“In your honor,” she inserted.
However much he tried to keep his eyes on her face, they betrayed him and wandered back down to her bosom. When had she grown into such a lovely creature? He swallowed, imagining the way she would feel in his arms, imagining the soft mewls that would escape her lips when he placed his lips to the soft skin of her neck.
“Nicholas?”
He blinked. The dance had come to an end without him knowing. This was not right. He should never have such thoughts about Jenny.
Nicholas took her arm. “You look like you could use some air.”
“I could.” She fanned herself with her free hand. “It’s suddenly grown quite hot in here.”
He led her out the French doors to the terrace where guests were milling about and down the steps to the fountain in the middle of the garden. He released her arm and motioned for her to sit on the ledge of the fountain.
When she hesitated, he quirked a brow and smiled. “Are you afraid of getting wet?”
She scoffed. “Please, Nicholas. The water could hardly reach me. I would prefer it if we walked.”
He glanced around, growing dismayed. There were people around the fountain. Walking would mean being alone with her at some point and he did not trust himself alone with her. He did not want to be followed about by a chaperone, either.
“I think it is better if we remained here, closer to the ballroom…where everyone can see us.”
She seemed to understand because she nodded and sat on the ledge, tugging one of her gloves free.
Please don’t do that, Jenny.The ivory satin glove slipped down her arm. He’d never found something so innocent to be so seductive. He clasped his hands in front of him and rocked on the balls of his feet, looking anywhere but at her.
“Are you not going to sit?” she asked, dipping her fingers into the water.
“No, I am quite comfortable standing.”
“Oh.” She continued to play with the water.
“I want to apologize to you, Jenny,” he said after a moment.
“You expressed your feelings. You were being honest and I cannot hold that against you however affronted I am by it. Therefore, you do not owe me an apology.” She removed her hand from the water and shook it before placing it on her lap and looking up at him.
Instead of making him feel better, her words jabbed him like little thorns. “My grandmother—”
“Owes my father an apology for her insulting remarks, not you,” she finished for him, guessing correctly that he had been about to apologize on his grandmother’s behalf.
“You’re right. It was uncouth of her. She is old and—”
Jenny held up a hand. “Please don’t make excuses for her. We both know just how deliberate every action of hers is.”
Nicholas sighed. “Then I apologize for my own actions. Saying the thing I did was unfair. Do you forgive me?”
She held his gaze for a moment. “Are you truly back? For good?”
“I am.” Before now, the thought of leaving had crossed his mind every day but he believed he was going to stay now. He owed her that much.“I am, Jenny. And I want you to be my duchess.”
“I beg your pardon!” She nearly lost her balance and fell into the water.
