Page 13 of A Diamond for a Duke

The next duchess?

But how could that be?

Jemmah touched her fingertips to her throbbing mouth and backed away from Jules.

She could still taste him on her tongue, feel his powerful arms encircling her, smell his manly scent yet in her nostrils. How glorious his kisses had been. And more fool she, for having allowed it, for now she craved more.

Intuition told her, she’d never, ever have enough of him.

“Dandridge. Answer me.”

Scrape. Scrape.

“I saw that Dament chit batting her stubby eyelashes at you. The duchess and your uncles won’t approve. I don’t know how the Daments are even permitted in respectable circles. They smell of the shop.”

The scorching glower Jules hurled at the voice behind the door would’ve ignited wet wood.

“Insufferable, long-winded baggage,” he muttered, hardly above a whisper.

Sacred sausages, Mama would fly into a dudgeon if she ever learned Jules had kissed Jemmah. And she’d kissed him back. And it had been the most wonderful of things. And she’d do it again without compunction or remorse.

And by horse feathers, she would let him call on her.

She would.

Well, she’d suggest he meet her here for tea. She daren’t risk no more.

But, if he was truly to marry Miss Milbourne...

No, something smelled to high heaven, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was, like the time a creature of some sort had died in her attic bedchamber wall.

No man who’d shown such honor, even as a reserved child, grew into an unscrupulous lout. Jules was loyal to his impressive backbone.

She’d bet on it. If she had anything of worth to wager.

The least she could do was to hear his explanation, especially since Aunt Theo had happily shared—actually clapped her hands and tittered, and Aunt Theo did not titter—that he had refused the match with Miss Milbourne, despite the furor it caused within his family.

Truly, his availability was the only reason Mama agreed to come tonight, and had kept Jemmah up to the wee hours sewing—to thrust Adelinda beneath Jules’s nose in hopes of garnering his attention.

And how could he not notice Adelinda’s outward loveliness?

However, her beauty masked an entirely different woman inwardly, and Jemmah ought to know. More often than not, she was the recipient of her sister’s calculated unkindness.

Nothing, nevertheless, would deter Mama from assuring Adelinda make a brilliant match before Season’s end, and dear Jules had a giant target on his broad back they’d set their conniving sights on.

Jemmah ought to warn him, but surely a man of his station was aware the Marriage Mart considered him prime cattle. A somewhat degrading analogy, but accurate in its crudeness, nonetheless.

With his aristocratic profile yet angled toward the creature scratching at the door, Jemmah permitted herself a leisurely perusal. From his gleaming shoes to his neatly trimmed side whiskers, several shades darker than his hair, he emanated pure masculine beauty.

True, his nose might be slightly too prominent and his forehead and chin a trifle too bold to be considered classically handsome, but his was a strong face—an honorable, trustworthy countenance.

All the more reason she couldn’t allow Mama or Adelinda to sink their talons into him.

Jemmah just couldn’t.

He deserved someone as kind and thoughtful as he.

Not a selfish, vain girl who cared nothing for him, and who would—Jemmah didn’t harbor the slightest doubt—make him wretchedly miserable.