The Duke's Gamble. Miranda Jarrett

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      There stood his chaise where he’d left it, standing before the carriage block, the blue paint shining in the sun. But now Amariah’s man Pratt was there at the curb, too, directing three Penny House servants who were loading wicker hampers, covered with checked cloths, into the chaise.

      His chaise.

      She glanced over her shoulder at him, adjusting the flat brim of her hideous hat, and he caught that extra sparkle of a dare in her eye again. “I trust you are in a charitable humor today, your grace.”

      “Charitable?” he said indignantly. “You’ve turned my chaise into a dray wagon! What in blazes is in those baskets, anyway?”

      “Food,” she said as if it were perfectly obvious. “The places we are to visit are always in need of food for hungry folk, your grace, and I try to provide what I can. Come, there’s still plenty of room for us inside.”

      “Well, that’s a blessing,” he said glumly as he followed her down the steps. How could he begin to seduce her when they’d be packed cheek to jowl with her wretched baskets like a farmer and his wife on market day? If he saw any of his friends with her like this, he’d never hear the end of it.

      “Indeed it is a blessing for those we benefit, your grace,” she said, clearly refusing to hear the sarcasm in his voice. “We all do what we can, don’t we?”

      He didn’t answer. He’d wager a handful of guineas that if it had been after dark and she’d been standing with him inside the club, wearing one of those handsome blue gowns, then she would not only have understood his other meaning, she would have laughed aloud.

      “Here you are, your grace, seat yourself,” she continued as she climbed into the crowded chaise, “and I’ll tuck myself into this little place. I’ll grant you it’s snug, but we shall manage.”

      “Snug, hell,” he muttered crossly as he squeezed his long legs into the small space she’d allotted to him. “Snug is what we’d be if you were beside me, not with this infernal basket wedged between us.”

      She smiled, tipping her head to one side. Sunlight filtered through the woven brim of her hat, dappling her face with tiny pinpricks of light. “The basket won’t be here for so very long, your grace, and I promise you it will do such a world of good that you’ll feel infinitely better about yourself, much better than from the simple sensation of my skirts brushing against your leg.”

      He smiled in return, thinking of what might have been if she weren’t being so damned perverse.

      “It wouldn’t have been the brush of your skirts, Miss Penny,” he said, “but the pleasant warmth of your thigh pressed against mine. Nothing simple about that, I can assure you.”

      “How wonderful it must be for you to have such confidence in your opinions, your grace!” she exclaimed wryly. “To be able to give your assurance as easy as that—why, I almost envy you!”

      “Except that envy is one of the seven deadly sins, and you, as a parson’s daughter, would never, ever dream of sinning.”

      “One must have goals, your grace,” she said serenely. “Likely yours has been to experience every one of those seven sins for yourself.”

      “Not at all,” he declared. “I’m not even sure I could name the seven, let alone describe them on a comfortable, given-name basis.”

      Her smile widened as she held up her hands, ticking off each sin on a finger. “Envy, pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony and sloth. Those are the seven deadly ones.”

      He frowned. He wished he hadn’t asked; he didn’t like realizing that, at one time or another, he had in fact been guilty of most of the seven. Come to think of it, he was practicing at least two of them at this very moment, sitting with her in his luxurious chaise with the crest on the door.

      “There are more than seven sins?” he asked warily.

      “Oh, yes,” she said, too cheerfully for comfort. “There are the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, as well as the sins of the angels. I don’t have fingers enough for them all.”

      “At least there’s no sin in that,” he said with a heartiness that he didn’t quite feel. He was on shaky ground here, and they both knew it. “I suppose I should know better than to banter about sins with the vicar’s daughter.”

      “At least bickering isn’t a mortal sin, your grace,” she said. “Not even on the Sabbath.”

      “I suppose not.” He turned toward her, or at least as far as he could in the crowded seat. “Look here, why don’t we speak of something more agreeable than all this hellfire and damnation?”

      Amused, she leaned back against the seat, an almost languid pose that was much at odds with her prim dress.

      “Sins alone don’t earn damnation, your grace,” she said. “It’s only if you don’t show repentance that you’ll run into trouble when you die. But if you’d rather not speak of the state of your soul, I’ve no objection to finding a new subject.”

      “Very well,” he said, more relieved than he’d want to admit. “What shall it be? The weather? The crowds in the street around us? Where we shall dine this evening? What member is cheating the club at hazard?”

      Surprise flickered across her face, only for an instant—she was very good at hiding her emotions—but enough for him to know what he’d overheard between two servants last night was true.

      “Wherever did you learn such a thing, your grace?” she asked with forced lightness. “A cheat at the Penny House table?”

      He smiled, the advantage back in his court. “You’re not denying it.”

      “Because it’s too preposterous to deny,” she declared. “Our membership consists of only the first gentlemen in the land. How could I suspect one of them of cheating?”

      “Because gentlemen hate to lose, perhaps more than other men,” he said. “Because gentlemen can be desperate, too. Because if you are as pathetically trusting as you wish me to believe, then I must report you to the membership committee at once, before you let some villain steal away everything from under your nose.”

      Bright pink flooded her cheeks—an angry, indignant pink, not a blush at all. “That will not happen, your grace. You have my word.”

      He smiled indulgently. “You can’t simply wish away a scandal, my dear.”

      “I’m not,” she said tartly, “and I’ve taken action to stop it. You should know me well enough by now, your grace, to realize that I am not too proud to ask for assistance if I need it.”

      “And you in turn should know me well enough to come to me if the troubles rise around your ankles.” He reached his hand out across the back of the seat so it almost—almost—brushed hers. “It’s far better to reach out for a lifeline than to let yourself drown.”

      She shifted away from his hand. “How fascinating that you regard yourself in that way, your grace.”

      “Oh, I regard myself in a great many ways, Miss Penny,” he said, “and you should feel free to do the same.”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ