The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match Read Free

least: they couldn’t reach into her throat and snatch away her beautifully fashioned voice.) After Mrs. Morrison made the ecstatic introduction, and the Duke of Olympia made some rumbling, courteous reply, Ruby held out her slender hand and said, as if she were quite accustomed to meeting dukes, “How kind of you, Your Grace. The honor is all ours, of course.”
    And then the duke said something else, and a brief silence floated in the air, and Penelope realized that his words had been directed at her.
    She turned her surprised gaze from the curve of Ruby’s cheek to the man standing before her.
    â€œOh!” said Ruby, before her mother could open her mouth. “This is our dear cousin Mrs. Schuyler, who was kind enough to agree to take the voyage with us. Though I do wonder if she’ll repent her generosity by the time we sail past Nova Scotia.”
    â€œMrs. Schuyler.” The duke fixed his eyes on her, and a rather queer sensation overcame the sensible Mrs. Penelope Schuyler, who had borne so much misfortune with so much fortitude, who had carried on regardless beneath a thick layer of aplomb.
    She felt as if someone had just painted the world a most extraordinary shade of summertime blue.
    She was too far away to offer her hand, tucked as she was in the shadow of Ruby. She inclined her head politely instead. She was an American, by God, and she didn’t curtsey to dukes. “Your Grace.”
    The Duke of Olympia’s eyebrows lifted, as if he were expecting more. But what was she supposed to say? That she was honored to meet him? She couldn’t quite remember.
    She must be a little unstrung, she realized, a little thrown off by the intensity of color in the ducal irises. She’d never seen a shade quite like that; certainly not in the center of a magnificent face like that. Ruby had been wrong: The duke wasn’t eight feet tall, or even seven, but he did stand a good three or four inches above six, towering physically and metaphorically above them all. Up close, his hair was more silver than white. He was remarkably lean-waisted and broad-shouldered, a man who evidently didn’t choose to lounge with the other aging dukes in the leather-scented quiet of the club library, snoozing away his remaining afternoons over crisp sheets of newspaper. No, he radiated vigor. He was made of energy. His stomach lay quite flat beneath his white silk waistcoat. His evening clothes fit him elegantly. In short, he wore his seven and a half decades with remarkable ease, and Penelope was trying to work out why and how he effected this almost-youthfulness, and was just concluding that it had something to do with an absence of the customary whiskers, when she heard Ruby laugh.
    â€œShe’s not usually so tongue-tied, Your Grace. You must stop glowering at her like that.”
    â€œI beg your pardon,” said the duke, making a little bow. “I fear I was lost in thought. A consequence of my ancient years, I suppose.”
    â€œOh, no, Your Lordship,” said Mrs. Morrison. “Not ancient at all. Isn’t that right, Ruby?”
    Ruby laughed again. “Mama,
Your Grace
. Not
your lordship
. Because dukes are another species entirely, you see, and much nearer to God than we. Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”
    â€œIn truth,” said Olympia, with a single pat to the watch pocket of his waistcoat, “a simple
sir
will do. Or
Duke
, if you must.”
    â€œWhat do your friends call you?” asked Ruby.
    The look he cast her was not the slightest bit amused. “I have no friends, Miss Morrison. But my family, when they deign to address me by something other than a vulgar epithet, call me Olympia.”
    â€œHow very intimate,” Penelope said, under her breath.
    â€œWe
are
English, after all.”
    The gong sounded over the end of his sentence. Penelope wondered at its temerity.
    â€œDinner at last,” said Mrs. Morrison. “I believe we