Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right Read Free

face, her hard brown eyes glinting with impatience and her ebony curls falling around her face.
    The way a witch’s would, he had the incongruous thought.
    “Natasha,” he muttered.
    The Russian princess.
    She rested her cheek on her hands and smiled at him—a slow, heated smile. He’d a vague recollection of sipping brandy from her navel sometime after midnight, but he couldn’t remember anything after that.
    His limbs were sore and he had a pounding head and he’d really like to go back to sleep, to tell the truth.
    Back to a deep sleep.
    “Nicky,” she hissed in his ear, “the Howells come back from Sussex this afternoon.” She placed the flat of her palm on his bare chest. “If they find you here, they’ll make me pack my bags and return to St. Petersburg. Don’t doze off again! It’s almost eleven.”
    Eleven?
    Eleven wasn’t good. Eleven was bad, in fact.
    He felt confused. Why had he stayed?
    He never stayed.
    Morning sunlight, he’d come to discover, was like a splash of cold water on a man and an excuse for clinging in a woman. “You’re right,” he muttered as he rolled out of bed. “I’ve got to go.”
    Natasha’s eyebrows lowered over her small, elegant nose. “You don’t have to agree so readily. Many men crave to wake up in my bed.”
    Nicholas didn’t mind annoyed females—their pique gave him an opportunity to appease them with his special “I-know-you’re-angry-but-you’ll-forget-after-I-do-this-to-you” restorative (something he’d picked up from an Indian text), but today he didn’t have time.
    Today—
    Ah. Now he remembered. Today was the day he was to find Frank before the big cockfight to be held at noon in Cheapside, which he was sure his brother would attend, and remind him (last time it was by holding him upside down out a second-floor window) that he really mustn’t gamble away his allowance anymore, nor steal spoons from White’s.
    Yes, that was Nicholas’s plan, to reform his recalcitrant brother.
    And snow would fall in London in July—
    But it was still his plan. He wasn’t allowed to give up hope on Frank. It was one of the self-imposed rules he’d established for himself after their father had died.
    “Nicholas.” The princess slapped the coverlet. “Are you even listening to me?”
    He found his dove-colored breeches and pulled them on. “Yes, and it’s a good thing you woke me,” he soothed her. “I’ve got a meeting with my lead attorney. He tells me it’s important.”
    It was his standard line, but come to think of it, Groop had called him into his office last week. Nicholas had been too involved, however, to bother showing up. Young widowed Russian princesses with voluptuous figures, bewitching accents, and superior connections made for quite a good reason for ignoring obligations. He’d go see Groop straight after he’d rattled Frank’s teeth.
    That is—he amended, and pulled his shirt over his head—after he’d calmly talked sense into his brother.
    He strode to a small mirror above Natasha’s bureau, willed his own dissolute reflection to be noble, and made quick work of his cravat, ignoring the fact that he needed to shave. Then ran his fingers through his hair once, and gave his head a shake, like a dog.
    There. The look served him well enough, judging by the number of women who batted their lashes at him in the street and the number of men who crossed to the other side to avoid him.
    “Prinny was right.” Natasha compressed her lips. “You are an Impossible Bachelor, and I’m a fool to share my bed with you.”
    He wouldn’t deny it. Being selected an Impossible Bachelor last year with his good friends Harry, Lumley, and Arrow had only given him more reason to kick up his heels while he could. While the weeklong wager had been vastly amusing—who wouldn’t love entering one’s mistress in the Most Delectable Companion contest?—he’d come this close to legshackles. One of the losing mistresses’ consorts had been