The Irish Duke Read Free Page A

I can’t wait to see my portrait.”
    “I don’t mean Lanny, for God’s sake. I mean Dick !”
    “Ah.” Louisa hesitated. “You shouldn’t let him touch you like that.”
    “Shouldn’t I? You’re such a prude, Lu. You have no sense of fun. You’re a late bloomer—you haven’t even begun to notice the opposite sex yet.”
    Louisa blushed, remembering how her heart had fluttered a half hour ago.
    “You’re seventeen and I bet you’ve never even been kissed.”
    Lu pictured Lanny touching his lips to hers and her cheeks grew hot.
    “A wager!” Georgy challenged. “A guinea says you won’t experience a kiss before you turn eighteen in July.”
    “Of course I will, if I put my mind to it.”
    “Use your breasts, not your brain,” her sister advised knowingly.
     
    Louisa changed her dress and hurried downstairs to the Venetian drawing room to have a word with her mother before the evening meal. Dinner at Woburn was at six o’clock and seldom were there fewer than twenty people seated in the formal dining room, which displayed the duke’s collection of Van Dyke paintings.
    She found her mother conversing with her best friend, Lady Holland, whose Ampthill estate was also in Bedfordshire. “Hello, Aunt Beth.” Louisa glanced anxiously at her mother, who had been looking wan and tired lately. Baby Rachel was only two, and when she cried in the night her mother sat rocking her for hours until she went back to sleep. Louisa’s concern eased when she saw that she looked both happy and well.
    “Hello, Lu. What have you been up to?” Beth patted the blue velvet settee, inviting her to join them.
    “Lanny is painting my portrait with Coltsfoot, but he won’t show it to me until it’s finished.”
    “Posing with animals can be most trying. I once had my portrait painted holding a fidgety spaniel on my knee. Never again!”
    “What happened? Did it pee on you?” Georgina teased. “Edwin has an affinity for painting animals. His talent is unmatched. When we were in the Highlands in the autumn, he did the most spectacular painting of a stag. Though I’ve sketched all my life, my artistic ability pales beside his. I wish he could transfer his genius to me.”
    “Speaking of the Highlands,” Louisa said tentatively, “is it true that when you were my age, Grandmama took you on a recruiting mission, where you offered a kiss and a guinea to any male who would join the Gordon Highlanders regiment?”
    “It is the gospel truth. It was so successful that we recruited a thousand men!”
    Louisa gasped. “You kissed a thousand men ?”
    “Not quite a thousand,” Georgina said with a wink. “My sister and mother kissed a couple of hundred, but I got the lion’s share.”
    “I’ve never been kissed once!”
    Louisa’s words hung in the air, as Georgina and Beth exchanged a significant glance.
    “Your mother loves to tease and exaggerate, Lu. You mustn’t take her seriously.”
    “Darling, a kiss is an insignificant trifle. You’ll have kisses aplenty, once you are presented and make your debut. The young gentlemen will be fighting over you.”
    If kisses have so little importance and Georgy kisses Dick, I’ll have to find someone before my birthday. I can’t lose a wager with my sister. Trouble is, there’s only one person I want to kiss.
    “There’s the gong for dinner. Your father hates tardiness.” Georgina waited until her daughter hurried off and then remarked to Beth, “Lu is so unworldly. That’s what comes of living at Woburn instead of London. At her age my four sisters and I were positively bold and sophisticated by comparison.”
    “Well, you were all brought up by the indomitable Jane Gordon. How could you be other than wise in the ways of the wicked world?” Beth teased.
    “Very true. The women of my family were both audacious and shrewd.”
    By the time they arrived in the dining room, Louisa’s brothers, Henry and Cosmo, were already at the table. Alexander’s nanny brought