Mad About the Duke Read Online Free Page A

branch?”He laughed, this time tottering over to Harry’s chair and sitting down in it.
    Obviously he’d completely forgotten himself, for that chair was reserved only for—
    James shook his head. Such a breach hardly mattered at the moment.
    â€œOnly you would grasp at our one claim to royalty when you are trying to be common,” Jack sputtered. “Parkerton, I hate to say this, but you are an utter disgrace to every disreputable scapegoat this family has produced.”
    James shifted from one foot to another. And here he’d thought he’d been quite dashing snatching that name out of thin air. “I only did it to avoid an embarrassing situation for Lady Standon. She would have been mortified to realize that not only had she mistaken me for some common fellow but that she’d snubbed me as well.”
    Jack stilled. “She snubbed you?”
    He needn’t sound so delighted by the notion.
    â€œYes. But who wouldn’t have, considering I was wearing your jacket. She just sort of looked down her nose at me as if I were her lesser.” He glanced again down at the shabby coat he wore and shuddered.
    â€œYou might not want to be too discerning about my coat, Your Grace, ” Jack told him. “Because you are going to have to don it tomorrow when you march yourself over there and apologize to the lady.”
    Go see her again? No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t! Not come face-to-face with those eyes, that hair.
    She did things to his senses that were utterly bewitching.
    Besides, he never apologized. He was Parkerton, a fact his brother seemed to have forgotten. Then again, hadn’t he just done so to Lucy Sterling?
    â€œI will not!” he declared. Truly, he had to draw a line somewhere.
    â€œNot apologize or not wear the jacket?” Jack posed. “Because if you go over there in all your usual town finery and big carriage and parade of footmen and outriders—”
    â€œI do not use outriders in Town. Such a show is only for mushrooms.”
    â€œWell, consider yourself a mushroom for now, because until you go over there and apologize to Lady Standon for this mishap, she is under the assumption that Mr. St. Maur, Esquire—you did make yourself an esquire at the very least, didn’t you?”
    James closed his eyes and groaned. “Yes.”
    Jack chuckled. “I doubted you could have gone with plain ‘Mr. St. Maur.’ Well, in that case, Mr. St. Maur, Esquire, you are going to have to go over there and break it to the lady quietly and carefully and humbly—”
    James’s eyes flew open.
    â€œYes, humbly,” Jack emphasized. “Because you, my inexperienced and presumptuous brother, are in a very precarious situation.”
    The duke perked up. After all, Jack would know.
    â€œYou are going to wear my coat, so no one recognizes you, and walk over there—”
    â€œWalk?”
    â€œYes, walk. I doubt that Mr. St. Maur, despite all your illustrious fabrications, owns a gig.”
    â€œWalk?” James repeated, feeling the humiliation of all this right down to his boots, which would be ruined by the time he got to Brook Street.
    â€œI think it is best if Mr. St. Maur calls on Lady Standon tomorrow and advises her that he is unable to help her and then departs, before it is noised aboutevery drawing room in London that the Duke of Parkerton was seen calling on one of the Standon widows.”
    James shuddered. Because while being hired to be a matchmaker was scandal enough, being thought to be in the market for a new wife—now that would be disastrous.

Chapter 2
    E linor woke with a start the next morning. It wasn’t the rare February sunlight streaming through the windows but the dream she’d been having that had caused her to sit bolt upright.
    About him.
    Mr. St. Maur.
    Never in her life had she had such a dream, and even now, despite the chill in the room and the draft that