Nina Coombs Pykare Read Free

plans for land reform. Dezzie was most interested. Weren’t you, dear?”
    Dezzie’s dutiful “Oh yes” would not have fooled anyone else. But Mama only saw what she wished to see—and she wished to see the duke and Dezzie getting along famously.
    “Thank you, your grace. Dezzie’s such an intelligent girl.”
    His grace bowed in acknowledgment, though, since Dezzie had not uttered even one word during the entire conversation, he could hardly have formed much of an opinion of her intelligence.
    “If you would accompany me to the door,” said his grace in a tone meant only for Licia’s ears.
    She got to her feet with alacrity. And while Aunt Hortense and the duchess made their good-byes, the duke said softly to Licia, “I assure you, the tale of your—ah, of the bed will go no further. Mama and I know how to keep our tongues between our teeth.”
    Licia smiled. “You’re most kind, your grace. But that’s Mama’s favorite story. I don’t know if even your words of wisdom will deter her.”
    “They should,” he replied slowly. “Not only does such a story work against Miss Desiree’s prospects, it does nothing to help yours.”
    For a long moment she stood, suffused in rosy warmth. This man actually thought she had prospects! But then common sense returned. “I am past the age of worrying about such things. But I thank you for your concern. And I shall do what I can to contain Mama. For Dezzie’s sake, of course.”
    “Of course,” he replied. And bowing again, he followed his mama to the brougham.
    Mama and Aunt Hortense immediately went to discussing the visit. And Dezzie complained, though in a whisper so Mama could not hear, “Licia, what a Banbury tale! Me! Interested in land reform.”
    But Licia heard little of anything around her. She was lost in remembering a pair of dark eyes and a quizzical smile. And of course it had been most enlightening to talk to a man whose ideas were so progressive.
     

Chapter Two
     
    “Mama is quite wrong,” said Dezzie with a prodigious sigh. “How can she ever think the duke would make a good husband? Why, his own mama has declared he doesn’t believe in marriage!”
    The young women had gathered in Penelope’s room before dinner. Licia sighed. With Mama elsewhere, deciding what to wear, Dezzie felt free to speak her mind. And that was usually far from enlightening.
    Dezzie was getting more difficult to reason with. Alas, she seemed to be growing more and more like Mama.
    “His grace is not a bad sort,” Penelope observed from her place on the chaise longue. “He makes sense when he talks.” She cast Licia an amused look that said Dezzie often did not. “Yes, his grace knows what he’s about.”
    Dezzie tossed her golden head, to the imminent danger of her artfully arranged curls. “Oh, he knows, all right. But he knows all the wrong things!”
    Penelope gave her cousin a comforting smile. “I shouldn’t worry, Dezzie, dear. I don’t think even your mama can prevail upon Ravenworth to do what he doesn’t wish to do.”
    Dezzie seemed much relieved by this and went off to admire the various bottles and jars that inhabited her cousin’s vanity table.
    “Does his grace have such a reputation, then?” Licia inquired, shifting a little uncomfortably in her lyre-back chair.
    Penelope shrugged. “Every fashionable mama in London has set her daughter’s cap for him. And every last one has failed.”
    Licia swallowed a smile. Strange that such news should make her feel like smiling. But of course she was thinking of Dezzie, who would be dreadfully unhappy with such a man.
    “They say he’ll never marry,” Penelope continued. “In fact, I’ve heard that even the worst wagerers at White’s refuse to put money on it.”
    “And what do you think?”
    Penelope smoothed the skirt of her lavender gown. “I think he may change his mind. People do, you know. People who were once firmly against matrimony decide that it is just the thing for