Page 5 of An Inconvenient Duke

He put his hands on both men’s shoulders. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s someone in the garden I need to speak with. Enjoy yourselves tonight.” Then, knowing both men nearly as well as he knew himself, he warned, “But not too much.”

As he moved away, Merritt called out with a knowing grin. “What’shername?”

“Trouble,” he muttered and strode down into the garden before she could slip back into the crowd and disappear.

Two

Danielle Williams smiled distractedly at the story her great-aunt Harriett was telling the group of friends gathered around them in the garden. The one about how she’d accidentally pinched the bottom of—

“King George!” The crux of the story elicited a gasp of surprise, followed by laughter. Just as it always did. “I had no idea that the bottom I saw poking out from behind that tree was a royal one. Truly, doesn’t one bottom look like all the rest?”

“I’ve never thought so,” Dani mumbled against the rim of her champagne flute as she raised it to her lips.

Harriett slid her a chastising glance, although knowing Auntie, likely more for interrupting her story than for any kind of hint of impropriety.

“But oh, how high His Majesty jumped!” her aunt continued, undaunted. As always. “I was terrified—simplyterrified, I tell you! I was only fourteen and convinced that I had just committed high treason.”

Although Dani had heard this same story dozens of times, the way Harriett told it always amused her. Thank goodness. After all, she needed something to distract her, because this evening was the first time she’d been to Charlton Place since Marcus Braddock had returned from the continent. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She was on edge with nervousness tonight when she’d once spent so much time here that she’d considered this place a second home.

“A pinch to a king’s bottom!” Harriett exclaimed. “Wars have been declared over less offending actions, I assure you.”

Dani had been prepared for the unease that fluttered in her belly tonight, yet the guilt that gnawed at her chest was as strong as ever…for not coming to see Claudia or spending time with Pippa, for not being able to tell Marcus what kindnesses Elise had done for others in the months before her death. But how could she face him without stirring up fresh grief for both of them?

No. Best to simply avoid him.

“Had it been a different kind of royal bottom—say, one of the royal dukes—I might not have panicked so. But it was aking’sbottom!”

She had a plan. Once Harriett finished her story, Dani would suddenly develop a headache and need to leave. She would give her best wishes to Claudia before slipping discreetly out the door and in the morning pen a note of apology to the duke for not wishing him happy birthday in person. She’d assure him that she’d looked for him at the party but had been unable to find him. A perfectly believable excuse given how many people were crammed into Charlton Place tonight. A complete crush! So many other people wanted their chance to speak to him that she most likely couldn’t get close to him even if she tried. Not that she’dtryexactly, but—

“Good evening, Miss Williams.”

The deep voice behind her twined down her spine. Marcus Braddock.Drat it all.

So much for hiding. Her trembling fingers tightened around the champagne flute as she inhaled deeply and slowly faced him. She held out her gloved hand and lowered into a curtsy. “Your Grace.”

Taking her hand and bowing over it, he gave her a smile, one of those charming grins that she remembered so vividly. Those smiles had always taken her breath away, just as this one did now, even if it stopped short of his eyes.

“It’s good to have you and your aunt back at Charlton Place, Miss Williams.”

“Thank you.” She couldn’t help but stare. He’d always been attractive and dashing, especially in his uniform, and like every one of Elise’s friends, she’d had a schoolgirl infatuation with him. And also like every one of his little sister’s friends, he’d paid her absolutely no mind whatsoever except to tolerate her for Elise’s sake.

Although he was just as handsome as she remembered, Marcus had certainly changed in other ways. The passing years had brought him into his prime, and the youthful boldness she remembered had been tempered by all he’d experienced during his time away, giving him a powerful presence that most men would never possess.

When he released her hand to greet the others, Dani continued to stare at him, dumbfounded. She simply couldn’t reconcile the brash and impetuous brother of her best friend with the compelling man now standing beside her, who had become one of the most important men in England.

Harriett leaned toward her and whispered, “Lower your hand, my dear.”

Heavens, her hand! It still hovered in midair where he’d released it. With embarrassment heating her cheeks, she dropped it to her side.

She turned away and gulped down the rest of her champagne, not daring to look at the general for fear he’d think her the same infatuated goose she’d been as a young girl. Or at Harriett, whose face surely shone with amusement at the prospect of Dani being smitten with England’s newest hero.

No. She was simply stunned to see all the changes that time and battle had wrought in him. That was all.

But then, Marcus Braddock had always been the most intense man she’d ever known, with brown eyes so dark as to be almost black, thick hair to match that curled at his collar, and a jaw that could have been sculpted from marble, like those Greek gods in Lord Elgin’s notorious statues that Parliament had just purchased. Broad-shouldered, tall and confident, commanding in every way…no wonder she’d not been surprised to learn of all his promotions gained from heroism on the battlefield or to read about his exploits in the papers. Only when she’d learned that the regent had granted him a dukedom alongside Wellington had she been surprised—not that he’d been offered the title but that he’d accepted it.

“You seem well, Duke.” Harriett had the audacity to look him up and down from behind the quizzing glass she wore on a chain around her neck. But her seven decades of age gave her the right to take liberties that few others would deign to claim, including so shamelessly scrutinizing the new duke when she should have done it surreptitiously. The way Dani was doing.

She gave him her own once-over while he was distracted with her aunt, deliberately taking him in from head to toe and finding him more impressive than ever. Despite her nervousness at seeing him again, a smile pulled at her lips. Only Marcus Braddock could appear imperial standing next to a papier-mâché statue of Julius Caesar.