Page 37 of A Diamond for a Duke

Inhaling a bracing breath, she swung ’round to see Miss Milbourne, accompanied by two men she didn’t recognize, but whose unusual topaz eyes and honeyed hair decreed them Jules’s relatives.

Jules’s forearm stiffened beneath Jemmah’s fingers.

“Miss Milbourne. Uncles.”

Ah, the famed Charmont uncles who believed Jules incapable of making his own decisions.

Tension thicker than custard settled onto the uncomfortable group, everyone eyeing the other with speculation and suspicion.

Miss Milbourne minced closer, absolute perfection in an exquisite ivory and plum confection, all frothy, feminine lace. And she smelled positively divine.

Drat and dash it all.

Why couldn’t she have a flaw or two or three?

Buck teeth?

A hairy mole upon her nose?

Crossed eyes? Fangs?

“I’ve missed you.” She ran her white-gloved fingers down Jules’s chest, and blinked coyly at him from beneath her preposterously thick eyelashes.

Brazen as an alley cat twitching her tail for a mate.

“I’ve been otherwise engaged.” The steely look he impaled his uncles with had them shuffling their feet and raptly examining the foliage.

Cowards.

Acutely aware of the elegantly coiffed, perfumed, and hostile woman standing but inches away, taking her measure, Jemmah arched a starchy brow. She was newly-betrothed to the Duke of Dandridge, and for all of Miss Milbourne’s posturing and attempts to intimidate, the woman was, quite frankly, and most gratifyingly... the loser.

Her condescending gaze flicked to Jemmah, and Miss Milbourne’s pupils contracted to pinpricks as she oh-so casually twirled her parasol.

“So I see,” she drawled. “I’d heard rumors you were doing the pretty and escorting your godmother’s dowdy ward about town. I must say, I never took you, of all men, for a nursemaid, Dandridge. Most decent of you, inconveniencing yourself to oblige Lady Lockhart’s unreasonable requests.”

Adelinda’s giggle, earned her an exasperated glower from Perkins.

“Yes, quite right, Miss Milbourne. No man has ever willingly directed his attention at my frumpy sister.”

At her sister’s barbed insult, Jemmah stiffened and set her jaw against the oath bucking to escape the narrow barrier of her lips.

A duchess doesn’t tell ladies to go bugger themselves.

Miss Milbourne and Adelinda exchanged a gloating glance.

Enough of these two vixens trying to draw her blood with their jealousy. “You can both—”

“Rest assured, ladies, I’m never coerced into doing anything I don’t want to.” In an intimate, comforting gesture, Jules laid his other hand atop Jemmah’s. “And you’re woefully incorrect if you presume there is any woman on earth I’d rather spend time with than my betrothed.”